COLUMN: Respect for the Word

This issue has a focus on new words that have popped into our everyday language because of technology. With this in mind, the following column will focus on a collection of quotes on the importance and value in having the correct understanding of a word, and its proper use. I admire a quote that in a few short words helps explain the way things are or should be; helps lift our spirits; reminds us of how we would like things to be; and helps us get back or maintain our resolve to persist in achieving a desired goal.

"Our regard for language has become so debased that it is destroying the ability even of educated people to evaluate ideas rationally."
--Dr. Lois DeBakey, a leading authority on literacy problems

"Respect for the word -- to employ it with scrupulous care and an incorruptible heartfelt love of truth -- is essential if there is to be any growth in a society or in the human race. To misuse the word is to show contempt for man. It undermines the bridges and poisons the wells."
--Dag Hammarskj?ld, 1961 Nobel Peace Prize winner, and former Secretary-General of the United Nations

What follows are some of my favorite quotes that relate to the power and importance of the correct understanding and use of words.

"It's only words... unless they're true."
--David Mamet, American author, essayist and playwright

"The difference between the almost-right word and the right word is really a large matter -- it's the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning."
--Mark Twain

"In an age of information, only intuition can protect you from the most dangerous individual of all: the articulate incompetent."
--Robert Bernstein, former chairman of Random House Publishing

Who are the articulate incompetents? Certainly those who use words carelessly and incorrectly.

"A wise man hears one word and understands two."
--Yiddish Proverb

"Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood."
--H.L. Mencken, American journalist, essayist, magazine editor and satirist

And that misunderstanding is invariably based on a misunderstanding of the meaning of individual words.

"He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word."
--Joseph Conrad

"How often misused words generate misleading thoughts."
--Herbert Spencer

Let's not generate misleading thoughts about technology and its use by our careless use of words that are not fully understood by our students.

*This story is from Converge magazine's Spring 2008 issue.