Today's topic, Words.  You may have figured that I love to talk.  Whether writing or actually speaking I enjoy expressing myself.  And what do I use?  Words.  I don't have the largest vocabulary but I feel it is varied enough.  I seem to get by and make myself understood. 

My sister and I have a couple of word games we play.  One (won) is words that sound alike but (butt) are spelled differently like pare and pear or metal and mettle.  We (wee) go back and forth texting each other word pairs (pear, pare) and of course (coarse) trying to (two, too) out do (dew, due) each other.  It is a fun to think about words while (wile) I (eye, aye) am reading.  I will sometimes examine all (awl) the words and try to see (sea) if there (their they're) is one I can find a sound alike for (fore,four).  Sometimes this is easy and others not (knot) so (sew) much.  But, you (ewe) get my drift I am sure. 

Another game we play is words spelled the same but pronounced differently depending on the context.  Like a bow in your hair or taking a bow.  There are a lot of these. We tend to fight over one word.  I see it in the same light as read as in read (red) a book and read (reed) as in read the sign.  Live as in I live in the US or live as in the show is live.  To me it is the same meaning different tense.  But she says no and has some support.  Yes, we have discussed this with other people.  And, yes, I know what this means, we are truly geeks. (I just thought of one for our other game, what and watt, I don't think we have used that before) Anyway, these are harmless mental exercises that hopefully keep us sharp.  That is the dream. 

Unfortunately, I can be sometimes unthinking when I speak. Is anyone shocked?  Something that I do is combine words.  I was talking about getting some fun magnets for work to put up on a wall we have that is magnetized.  Without thinking I combined the word fun and the word magnets.  Fagments, came out of my mouth. The sad part is a gay friend was present when I said fagments.  His head whipped around and I realized that he had been called that word and was attuned to it and what it means.  You know the one. The other sad part is I don't think to use that word ever. I am kind of strange that way.  If I don't like you or want to insult you then I find something in your character or behavior to insult.  I don't think in terms of racial slurs or who you are slurs, unless you are a jerk.  But if you are a jerk I have never and I mean never thought, "Oh, that asinine (insert racial or other slur)."  I will admit as a teen trying to add stuff like that in but it just never felt right.  I will identify your sex like that "asinine man or woman".  Political correctness has nothing to do with this.  If I don't like you I have reasons that have nothing to do with your skin color or sexual orientation etc.  You can try to blame it on something like that.  Wouldn't that be nice for all of us and be a huge out.  Oh, she doesn't like me cause I am what ever.  You wish. 

Recently, I word combined with a better result.  I posted this on FB but will relive the moment in my blog.  My sister and I were discussing Bambi.  She talked about how he starts off this kind of wimpy kid who grows up to be something of a bad a**.  He takes a bullet and keeps going, that is awesome.  But she lamented that his name was still Bambi.  I suggested it should be Bambo.  Clever?  I know. 

We often hear the pen is mightier than the sword.  This is from a play titled Richelieu; The Conspiracy, by Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton (yes that is his name).  I would have attributed this to Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Payne or some such.  But thanks to the Internet I know to whom the credit goes.  We are also told actions speak louder than words. This little homily is attributed in different but similar forms to several but was used in a speech by Abraham Lincoln and so I am going to give him some credit.  Again, thank you Internet.  So, here we have two opposing views, the pen is mightier than the sword and actions speak louder than words.  I find both to be true. 

The written word has toppled governments, look Watergate.  There was no civil war, no blood shed to speak of.  Yet the rippling effect is still there.  There have been many "gates" since the infamous Watergate but none really like the first.

Then you have all the people we are surrounded by that tell us how we should live, what we should do but there actions don't quite match their rhetoric.  They seem to know what is best for all of us but feel they are exempt.  I could wax profound with political examples of this from either side of the aisle for hours.  But, I won't.  This isn't about politicians.  I will give a true example from my own life.  Not a personal one, Holy Cow, I don't want to be that introspective right now!  I was on the road and saw a Suburban, you know the biggest SUV you can buy with a bumper sticker reading "Vote Environmental ".  Now, part of my believes the owner had a sense of humor, but another part of me has seen  hypocrisy so often I kind of think it was serious.  I didn't speak with them so will never really know. 

I will continue on in my love of words, I will never be a true logophile but will do my version of it as long as I can think.  Which, honestly, as I get older is less and less. Bummer.