Salacious.
Remember the echo of that word?
Yes, no, can’t recall?
Let me nudge your memory.
The nineteen nineties, ancient times.
Still no?
OK, here are some words that help: blue dress, cigar, president, the one whom I voted for twice.
Does it ring a bell? And why am I returning to this issue? The word salacious reverberated from news reporters, bouncing like a boomerang in an empty room. Salacious hitched a ride with the scandal it described, roaring its message worldwide.
With its repetition, the word embedded in my brain forever.
Merriam-Webster began analyzing its word of the year in 2003. If they had started this practice in the nineties, I speculate that salacious would have received the 1998 trophy.
Words, words, words. Powerful, memorable, beautiful, and dangerous beyond words.
Along with other writers, I’m a logophile, continuing to add words to my never-ending vernacular.
Let’s begin with their unsavory usage.
Words can be mean. Sharp, serrated, slicing, and dicing with the edge of a honed knife. The goal? To destroy, extinguish, and blot out forever.
We see this now. Those with their ink, penning venom, and those with a megaphone, spewing toxins coated in intellectual gloss. Certain words target individuals who believe their natural rights come from a creator versus a false human idol. These know-it-alls shout words ending in ism, a suffix derived from the ancient Greeks, making its way to English via Latin, and poisoning the root word, benign as a standalone.
Because of their holier-than-thou view, they puff themselves with determination, not adding the popular suffix to their elite selves. Oh no. Why would they? These individuals know what’s best for the hoi polloi and demand acquiescence, no less, being the true, all-knowing Gods.
Polarizing first with a relentless quest until they accomplish total obsequence. We see this throughout history from the multilingual Lenin, whose coarse delivery pummeled his tidings with straightforward repetition, different from the more eloquent oratory articulated by Mussolini and Hitler. These tyrants, false Gods, cajoled and lured their audience with a rhythmic cadence like the mellifluous Sirens, and unknown to the naïve, an invitation to crash and die from an overarching and obese control. We must never forget Hitler’s destruction, with his National Socialist German Workers’ Party, as some people take a cloth, attempting to wash the words from history. For Holocaust deniers, I’ll borrow compelling title from Scott Peck’s book, People of the Lie, because this mass deception attempts to convince the populace that it didn’t happen.
Words, words, words, their danger, their power, but how about their beauty?
Ah, my favorite part, which I saved for last.
Sumptuous words, so many. They enrapture us, and in the written word, they can dress themselves in the most magnificent fonts when the conduit inks their shapes across the pages. However, even without ornaments, wearing its plainest attire, a word, or several linked into sentences and paragraphs, touches the reader in ways unknown to the scribe.
And the spoken word? The presenter can hypnotize us with their elocution, tone, and expressions.
In times of need, whether voiced or written, one or two words may provide the perfect elixir for those who despair. A piercing note of hope that might imprint in their mind forever, calling upon it, when another obstacle appears in their path.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s stunning poem, A Psalm for Life, an ode about the human’s journey, mesmerizes the readers with glorious words. Allegedly, a man approached Longfellow and told him the prose prevented him from committing suicide.
Sometimes, the deliverer never knows their impact on others. Little do they realize their words, spoken or written, convert a frown into a smile, and, maybe, produce a quick sprout and a spreading of joy.
Words. Their potency.
And what might Merriam Webster’s trophy be for 2024? Could the winner be the word joy?
I wish. Unfortunately, because of its overuse, I believe narcissism might receive the crown, which brings the opposite of joy, but if I could vote?
Joy, joy, and joy. A splendid word that fills us with an array of delicious sensations.
May our words climb the highest peak and shout:
Joy to The World!
How’s that for words?
Your thoughts?
