The Semantics of Language

I had an interesting conversation the other day that I thought I would relate. I was over at a friend's house, discussing the idiosyncrasies we see in every day life and commenting on a few of them that are perhaps a little dearer to our hearts more than anothers.

The topic of spoken language came up and how often people choose, perhaps the wrong word in some of perhaps the most important if not also the most personal of situations. Now, I being a lawyer tend to find language and the selection of words in speech and writing to be of fairly high importance. Yet, I am sure that there are phrases and expressions that I use, purely out of habit, that entail at best a misplaced word which conveys a similar meaning as that intended, and at worst is simply a complete and utter abomination of the human language.

And so the question begs to be asked, how important is the choice of words? Are the words more that we choose more important than what we are attempting to express? Are our relationships limited and plagued by our knowledge and command of our given language?

The conversation wandered through a variety of topics in which language and the selection of words are perhaps more important than others. In a legal context, obviously the command of the English language and its proper usage is extremely important, with potentially severe and detrimental monetary consequences. In a relationship context, how many statements are followed by the phrase "That isn't what I meant." In a religious context (for those of you that are religious), how often do we hear a common phrase, or not so common phrase, in a prayer, in a talk, in conversation, that, based on our understanding, and although "we know what they mean," was the presumably wrong choice of words.

I think it is truly amazing the impact that words can have. The wrong word in a particular situation can be absolutely devastating to a relationship or an individual's self-esteem, yet we often assume that really, words don't matter as long as they understood what we meant, or we think they understood.

With this thought, I hope to resume my "weekly word" posts...but we all know that I am horrible at doing anything regularly, forget about blog posting!