Words are incredibly valuable, powerful things

I really began to understand this when I taught English as a Second Language to adults at night school. It was probably the best paid job I ever had. People were so motivated because they wanted to ask questions and tell stories, to know and be known. Students told me they were eager to be able to speak with their Canadian neighbours about ideas and feelings, not just shopping and the weather. They wanted to be treated as the educated, intelligent individuals they were. They felt that as long as they didn't have the appropriate words, they would continue to be treated as if they were slightly dim and all alike.

Nina, from Iran, told me that her father had taught her siblings English when they were children. She had always told her father she would learn English later, if she ever needed it. Now one sister was an optometrist in England and another was a physician in California. She herself had married a chemist and they'd fled the Iran-Iraq war in 1988. She was living in Hamilton, working in a garment factory.

One night she came up to me after class and told me she was not going to come back. There was no point in her coming to class after a long day of work and taking care of her family, she said, because she would never learn English. I started to tell her the story of her affluent life in Iran, where she had a huge home with servants and had never had even to change her own lightbulb. I described how she and her husband made the difficult decision to come to Canada, and her pride in her two children who had graduated from a Hamilton high school at the top of their class. “Do I speak Persian?” I asked her. “How do I know all this?” Her face lit up and she grabbed my hands - “I speak English!”

All this with a few good words.
A friend told us the other day that she rarely uses email, especially with her family. When one of her grown sons had phoned her for a recipe, she knew just from his tone of voice that all was not well with him. She immediately hopped in her car and went to visit him down country. Written words can hide the truth, she said, “I need to hear the voice,”

In the personal “real” world, we can choose new words or more words if we get a confused look or angry response. We can clarify or mollify to try to understand each other's point of view and build useful bridges.

But there is also a world of perception, and it can be created almost entirely out of well-chosen words. Written words perhaps carry even more weight because people assume you've had a chance to consider them, arrange and edit them. This is a huge responsibility for those of us who write or speak in public, or even put a sign in a window. The words we use to describe a situation, person or issue can change a hero into a villain, a discussion into a confrontation. We can choose to evoke anger, fear, hope or laughter. We can create a crisis or avoid one. We can create community or damage it.

This is a small community. You may not know them personally, but the people whose names appear in news stories and letters to the editor and on downtown posters are real people who are somebody's next door neighbour. Some of them are in positions of responsibility who must expect their actions to be scrutinized by the public who have given them their trust. Some of them are just local folks trying to do their jobs in life as they see fit. But they all have families and neighbours and dreams for the future. They will have to live with the perception we create with our words, written and spoken.

We have to be so very careful that we are telling not only the truth, but a truth that needs to be told. Are we speaking or writing out of hurt or anger or for immediate attention? Time will pass and situations will change, but perceptions we've created will remain. Will those perceptions split us apart or help build up this community for our mutual benefit?

Let's keep the words flowing, by all means, but keep in mind what we're trying to accomplish with them. As Adlai Stevenson once said “Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.”