Beware of the Wordsmith! He is no less than a Maverick, a clever Magician or the Juggler who would draw your heart strings, juggle with your heart to his own heart’s content, take you into an illusory world, make you believe in the make-believe and then wake you up from your somnambulism with the snap of his fingers. Don’t fall for his words, for his words are lethal than the venom of the saw-scaled viper.
‘Words are wind, but wind can fan a fire…’ (George R.R. Martin)
When we were little kids, one rainy morning my grandmother stepped out to run some errands. On the way she met with an accident. The impact of the mishap was so severe that though she recovered physically in the span of a few weeks, she lost her voice. The matriarch’s booming and resounding voice that had the potential of silencing her four grown up sons, fell silent. For her measliest requirement, she had to communicate through gestures. When she tried to speak, sounds came out in hoarse whispers and soon her face and body would droop like a wilted flower by the sheer effort of it. We, who tried our level best to understand what she wanted to convey, would also feel exasperated as more often than not, it only resulted in miscommunication.
I have now reached a stage in my life where I frequently get exasperated at the multitude of words floating around me in the form of expectations, aspirations, promises, interrogations, supplications, assertions and repetitions. I long for silences…long, soothing, unhinged, harbourless and anchorless, for silences are the sweetest and truest form of conversations. Didn’t Keats say…Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter?
Words are the anchors that tie us to the shores and thereby exact limits to our sojourn. The more a person is adept at using words, the more he realizes his talent to wound people around them. The wordsmith, therefore, has the knack of wordplay that he employs to manipulate those he comes in contact with.
Wordplay hides a key to reality that the dictionary tries in vain to lock inside every free word. (Julio Cortazar)
Statesmen and politicians are perhaps the cleverest wordsmiths of the day. They not only manifest their own words and statements into a million and myriad forms but also know how to ‘nitpick’ the words of their opponents and ‘make hay’ out of it! And what false claims they claim, making a mockery of words and their significance.
When it comes to using and selling words, no one can do it better than people from the advertisement world. They have nothing to sell but dreams and words. ‘Look fairer in six days!’ ‘Lose weight in 15 days!’ ‘Improve your immunity with two spoonful!’ Words, words and mere words toying with human foibles and frailties without a trace of genuineness.
Authors and poets are a level above than the rest. They are not only well-versed with the art of playing with the words but also frequently coin words, expressions and even definitions to suit themselves. Sample this definition by Oscar Wilde:
Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.
Beware, therefore, not the Ides of March but the Wordsmith. Embrace silence, that is a true friend and never betrays!
Trending Now
