The words we use every day, whether in writing or speech, are very important. People make judgements about our character, attitude, education, and intellectual abilities based on the words we use.
Sushanta Paul, a customs officer, was recently made officer on special duty and transferred from Dhaka to Rangpur by the National Board of Revenue, following a defamation case against him.
A group of Dhaka University students had filed the case after one of his Facebook posts sparked widespread outrage.
The outrage resulted from his use of demeaning and offensive words to describe some female students of Dhaka University. Neither the case nor the transfer would have befallen him if Sushanta Paul had been more cautious about choosing his words.
That is just one way (and there are hundreds of others) of explaining how crucial words can be when we are communicating with people, be it on social media or in real life.
How do you know about the level of knowledge and education about a person we see on television or meet in person, someone we do not personally know?
Yes, it is mainly by the words he or she uses.
A few months ago, I saw a Bangladeshi minister on television speaking about the merits of a certain mobile phone application. The minister was repeatedly using the word “apps” in the plural form, when he meant “app” in the singular.
To the ears of any citizen conscious of language and words, the minister sounded like a half-educated college dropout unfit for his office.
The way he used the word revealed his poor command of language in general.
In the advertising industry, copywriters use carefully chosen words to evoke positive thoughts and associations about their products and services and thereby woo buyers.
A single word could spell the difference between a successful advert and an unsuccessful one.
For this reason, advertising professionals tend to use words with positive connotations, such as “home,” “fresh,” “natural,” “organic,” and “new.”
Politicians are known for hiding their feelings and intentions behind a wall of weasel words, doublespeak, passive voice, and half-truths, which contribute to an overall effect of circumlocution. They manipulate words conveniently by structuring them so that they sound big but give away as little meaning as possible.
In his 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell said: “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
A research study conducted by Ellen Langer, professor of psychology at Harvard University, shows how powerful the word “because” can be. The 1978 research is known as the Copy Machine Study.
Participants in the research requested to interrupt a line of people waiting to use a copy machine in a busy office. The participants used three different, carefully-phrased requests to cut in the person in line and use the machine first.
As it turned out, using the word “because” followed by a reason produced significantly more compliance from the people waiting to use the copy machine.
The person in line let the interrupter use the copy machine even when the “reason” did not make much sense.
Most of us love quotes from famous writers and orators that we come across in the newspapers and on social media every day. The reason we enjoy those quotes is because of the words in them, which are so skilfully used.
In a nutshell, words can get things done. Words make people love you or hate you.
It is perhaps reasonable at this point to tinker with the old proverb about money and say that words make the world go round.
Words can get things done. Words make people love you or hate you. It is perhaps reasonable at this point to tinker with the old proverb about money and say that words make the world go round
