Lasting power and beauty of words

Novelists, poets, short story writers, lyricists, politicians and columnists use words for different purposes.

- BY R. S. KARUNARATNE [e-mail]

While some of them use words to inform and elevate us, others use them to bolster their ego. If there was no such thing called words, we cannot even imagine what will happen to us. Whether you like it or not everything rests on words. If the Penal Code does not define a crime and prescribe a punishment, judges will not be able to convict criminals. Even the Constitution of our country is a printed document.

A mother's lullaby contains snatches of sweet and healing words. The effect is immediate. The baby falls asleep within seconds. A lover's soft and alluring words go right into his or her beloved. An army commander's words encourage soldiers to go forward without fear. The British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill's words still ring in our ears: " ... we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender ... "

Writers wax eloquent on love. English novelist John Galsworthy wrote: "Love is no hothouse flower, but a wild plant, born of a wet night, born of an hour of sunshine; sprung from wild seed, blown along the road by a wild wind. A wild plant that, when it blooms by chance within the hedge of our gardens, we call a flower; and when it blooms outside we call a weed; but flower or weed, whose scent and colour are always wild." While living in a world dominated by technology, we often hear a bunch of words that is colourless and often cut to verbal ribbons - "How R U" or "Luv U." Such words seem to squeeze the life out of language.

Changing medium