Words Have Power

by Rebecca Talley

As writers, we use words all the time. We string them together to make sentences and then weave those together to make paragraphs and, eventually, we create stories from them. The words we choose to use will have an effect on those who read them. We must carefully select words to create the exact feeling, emotion, or sense we want for our stories.

In the English language we have so many words from which to choose. Crack open a dictionary and you can find thousands and thousands of words. we even have a thesaurus to help us find similar words that may convey a different feeling. With all of these words at our disposal it seems that we would be able to use a specific word to describe what we want to say. Some words have lost their power simply because they've been overused. What exactly does beautiful mean? We've used it in some many contexts and to describe such a myriad of things, it has lost its true meaning.

Why do people resort to profanity or even words such as stupid or dumb, when there are a vast array of words we could use to describe exactly what it is we want to convey?

There's an old saying, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." I strongly disagree. Words stay with us. Words have power. And words can hurt. For example, watch this clip and tell me, how does the use of the word retard affect you? I know how it affects me because I have a son that will likely have intellectual disabilities.

We need to carefully consider the words we use, in our writing and in our everyday lives, because words have power.