Day 358 - The Importance of Words
There is nothing better than savoring a mouthful of syllabic morsels, deliciously seasoned with nuance and toasted to a golden contextual perfection.
I love words.
And I blame my parents for that too.
Delbert taught each of us kids how to read before we started school while Mom imbued us with a love for reading. If there was one thing that happily drew our family together, it was reading.
For many years, even after we were old enough to read for ourselves, Mom often read to us at bedtime and also as we traveled down the road from one address to the next. We read through The Little House on the Prairie books, Where the Red Fern Grows, Papa Married a Mormon, The Great Brain books, Mama's Boarding House (really anything by John D. Fitzgerald).
I love words.
And I blame my parents for that too.
Delbert taught each of us kids how to read before we started school while Mom imbued us with a love for reading. If there was one thing that happily drew our family together, it was reading.
Delbert mandated Scripture memorization, whole chapters, even the book of James at one point. He showed us how to use the Strong's concordance and follow the clues of the Greek and the Hebrew, how to cross-reference, how to know when the word "love" in one verse was a different meaning from the use of "love" in another verse.
Mom had a "word of the day" on the chalkboard for awhile. She would find some archaic or uncommon word in the dictionary and write the word with its meaning on the chalkboard for the week. Then we would all try to plug the word into our conversations as much as possible.
Mom had a "word of the day" on the chalkboard for awhile. She would find some archaic or uncommon word in the dictionary and write the word with its meaning on the chalkboard for the week. Then we would all try to plug the word into our conversations as much as possible.
Years later, I would stumble across linguistics in my college education and be both awed and ecstatic that there was a name for what I love. Word were knowledge, power, clues to worlds of humanity yet to be explored. Not only that, but under the 2nd amendment words are wonderfully free, so books and the community library was my parent's preferred choice of affordable entertainment.
But words were also our best-worst weapon. With much practice, we all became highly proficient at condescension, heated arguments, and cutting to the bone with syntax so powerful that even today only a few can withstand. We mastered false arguments, emotional manipulation, passive aggressiveness and downright real aggressiveness. Every family fights, but we fought almost as often as we moved - which was a lot. And dinner time usually seemed to be the best time, since, well, everyone was there; it was convenient and efficient, even if it did leave a bad taste in your mouth for family dinners.
Then there were the words that were never said or got changed to create distance.
You might be wondering who "Delbert" is.
Delbert is my dad.
That's his name.
Supposedly for a brief time when we were little, we called our parents Pappy and Mammy. But I only remember calling my dad by his first name. Mom said that he didn't want us to call him Dad, or Daddy, or Papa. Just Delbert. I remember him saying one time that we only had one father - our father in heaven, and that was one of his reasons behind his insistence that we call him Delbert. I tried calling him Dad a few times, but it was never welcomed - only silently tolerated, so it never stuck.
And he only called my mom by her name, Jeannette, - or "Woman." We just didn't use terms of affection or nicknames. I've always envied families who called one another by a nickname because it seemed to mean that they shared a special adoration for each other that no one else was privy to. Nicknames are like inside jokes: they tell you that you are known and that you belong.*
These were either used so rarely or misused so often that they weren't meaningful words in our family. Some of this was due to our culture of the stoic, task-oriented German combined with the puritanical, self-flagellating Mennonite. Some of this was also because every family struggles to get these words right. Ours still does.
Words are really important.
It's how I'm telling this story.
And the story can look entirely different just by changing the words.
I am thinking about that.
I want to make good choices with this story, and honestly, I want the story to have a happy ending, but how I get there may be a winding road.
*I actually do have a nickname: JeannieBomBeanie. My mom made it up, though I have no idea why and she's the only one who uses it. It's really only for my contact name in her cell phone. If Delbert used a nickname, it was most often "nincompoop."**
**Nincompoop: a person who lacks good sense or judgement
But words were also our best-worst weapon. With much practice, we all became highly proficient at condescension, heated arguments, and cutting to the bone with syntax so powerful that even today only a few can withstand. We mastered false arguments, emotional manipulation, passive aggressiveness and downright real aggressiveness. Every family fights, but we fought almost as often as we moved - which was a lot. And dinner time usually seemed to be the best time, since, well, everyone was there; it was convenient and efficient, even if it did leave a bad taste in your mouth for family dinners.
Then there were the words that were never said or got changed to create distance.
You might be wondering who "Delbert" is.
Delbert is my dad.
That's his name.
Supposedly for a brief time when we were little, we called our parents Pappy and Mammy. But I only remember calling my dad by his first name. Mom said that he didn't want us to call him Dad, or Daddy, or Papa. Just Delbert. I remember him saying one time that we only had one father - our father in heaven, and that was one of his reasons behind his insistence that we call him Delbert. I tried calling him Dad a few times, but it was never welcomed - only silently tolerated, so it never stuck.
And he only called my mom by her name, Jeannette, - or "Woman." We just didn't use terms of affection or nicknames. I've always envied families who called one another by a nickname because it seemed to mean that they shared a special adoration for each other that no one else was privy to. Nicknames are like inside jokes: they tell you that you are known and that you belong.*
"I love you."
"I'm sorry."
"I forgive you."
"I need you."
"I believe you."
These were either used so rarely or misused so often that they weren't meaningful words in our family. Some of this was due to our culture of the stoic, task-oriented German combined with the puritanical, self-flagellating Mennonite. Some of this was also because every family struggles to get these words right. Ours still does.
Words are really important.
It's how I'm telling this story.
And the story can look entirely different just by changing the words.
I am thinking about that.
I want to make good choices with this story, and honestly, I want the story to have a happy ending, but how I get there may be a winding road.
Mostly because I am still learning even as I write this.
And also because I have a tendency to wander like a whiffler.
*I actually do have a nickname: JeannieBomBeanie. My mom made it up, though I have no idea why and she's the only one who uses it. It's really only for my contact name in her cell phone. If Delbert used a nickname, it was most often "nincompoop."**
**Nincompoop: a person who lacks good sense or judgement
