Words

As promised Jen, this weeks topic is words.

Now you said that John Green left quite the impression on you when he said that twitter and facebook and whatever else that we say or write online is assumed to be important because it is text but that it is an outdated way of looking at things. Instead it may be better to view those things as you would normal everyday speech. Well I don't agree because I kinda agree.

I will say that I know first hand how different writing something on the internet and simply speaking the same sentiment are thought of by people. And if for no other reason than the power that we give text, the internet and things we say on it, carry greater weight than that uttered speech. What we do on this thing is permanent, public, recorded, and serious. Even when we don't want it to be. But that is all besides the point.

I think John is right that we should treat speech on the internet exactly the same as we treat speech in real life. And actually we do. Mostly. But that is the problem.

We all talk to much. Way to much. About our preferences for shellfish. About the best way to get somewhere. About books or movies that aren't that personal to us. About politics. About our lawns. And about our own stupid boring lives and thoughts and opinions. All the fucking time it is a non-stop yammering of useless bleats. It is enough to make you wish that everyone would just shut the fuck up already. There are after all two better things you can do with your mouth. Maybe more if you want to be dirty.

But it isn't just the verbal onslaught of lazy words coming out of the mouth that does it for us any more. It has to be updates and tweets and blogs. No one can just have an experience anymore or a thought or really work something over until it is fully formed. They just thumb it out to the world. Nothing that has ever needed to be said was written by thumbs. I am pretty damn sure about that.

We all do it. I do it. You do it. We ought to know better and sometimes we do. But there is such an ancient power in the spoken word. Magic incantations and epics recited from memory. These are the way that we still feel about words. Deep down we know that words are and should only ever be important. That is why we still pretend fuck shouldn't be said all the fucking time.

But I know you are dying to talk about WI7, so get to it. Tell me about what words were important to you this past week? Who used them well? And just for fun you can talk about James Patterson who did not.