I like that phrase. 'It is just semantics'. As though the detail doesn't matter. The sense of the sentence being the choice of words are irrelevant to the meaning. A house is a place is a space is a home is a floor is bricks and mortar but it represents the same thing within the sphere of where we live. Only when we chose to travel to another country or culture with another language and perspective we realise how a house is not the same. But let's keep it simple. A house is possibly, probably used for the same purpose and people essentially understand it is a place where people possibly, probably live. It is a generalised collaboration of understanding which allows humans to connect. Does it matter what it is called if we understand the sense of what is being said. Advertising for example is just an illusion in which everyone is complicit, giving value to one brand over another where the product is the same. And think of how an estate agent would describe 'small and cramped accommodation' - bijoux, cosy, a hug of a place.
When I lead my creative writing courses I talk about semantics. Changing the noun in a sentence and how it changes the tone and flow of what is being said. And taking way the adjectives to understand how individual perspective creates different sense, even with something as inane as 'house'. With adjectives it is even more so. 'Luxury' carries different weight with everyone I listen to, almost making the use of it, meaningless as a communication tool, or even as a window we are better able to explain our belief and value system to others. Semantics teach us that language and the use of words is not an effective communication tool.
Words lead to misunderstanding as does silence. Some philosophers describe language as a window through which you are able to understand the world, although it will glaze over unless you are constantly refining and evolving and expanding vocabulary. I used the word 'luxury' but replace that with 'love' and you see the point even more clearly.
And how about expanding vocabulary not just in learning and using more words, but also adding to those already in existence? Is someone who is well read, better able to connect and communicate with others than someone who isn't well read, or does that just make them more judgemental on those who don't have the breadth and understanding of words? This depends on their values and how and if they view words as portals through which to expand their thinking and support others, or use those same skills to limit and manipulate the thinking of others. It's the same with truth. It is not identifying your perception of the truth and reality (two very different qualities), that presents challenge, but how you choose to use them. How you chose to use words reveals more about the speaker than the listener. Questions asked by someone reveals more than the answers they give. Identifying what someone wants to know rather than what someone wants to tell.
Words for many professions and individuals are also something to hide behind. All areas of society hide behind words, being strategically obtuse to sell a product, a service, gain a customer, client or voter, in order to win. Winning meaning short term financial gain and probable long term financial gain.
And who am I to judge? As a writer I play with words, for financial gain as well, although my aim is not to deceive but to inform, entertain and reveal and change perspective. I deal in women's fiction, yoga books and travel, hardly subjects which lead to litigation. Usually. I like the way I am able to express myself with - usually - more care than I do when I speak. I need to engage brain before I write, whereas when I speak, I am frequently thinking I shouldn't have said something, or said it in a different way.
The Finish and Japanese are thought of as enigmatic as they don't do small talk. They think before they speak. I found out with my research recently, this is possibly because their language, the intricacy of it, forces them to engage with what and how they are saying it. How it sounds, and when they write, how they place the words. With Japanese in particular it is more like an art form. Poetry also transcends into art, putting the right words in the wrong places, and challenging the brain to think from another perspective and question their own. I like those poets who invented words and played with structure and style. At Cambridge I learnt from the poet in residence Mariah Whelan, about how to structure poems and that helped me enormously with how I think and express how I feel.
Learning other languages helps you to understand how we bastardise our own. Studying language this way and also acknowledging how language limits our ability to learn how to not only think, but feel and express, limits our ability to think, feel and express unless of course we are artists. Artists push the boundaries and express words which have yet to be created. A multi sensual experience broadening the mind to infinity and beyond..
Language by nature of its 'definition' and even didactic 'dictionary' of this is what this word means and this is what that words means, is fixed and specific, until it is not. Academic language is precise to the point of when it is being read, it is like drinking condensed soup. Each word counts. But then I was taught the same in journalism. When you only have fifty words to 'play' with, getting the hook, the angle, the zeitgeist of the piece needs to pack a punch. The antithesis of condensed soup. More Pringle sweet spot.
Some semantics are obvious as language meaning evolves, or perception evolves even when the word does not. Fit used to be mean put in place, then healthy, then handsome. Language is narrow, just as math is narrow. A house is a place to live, as two plus two equals four. Although a house is many other things to different people. What one person would consider a home, another would consider a hovel, another would consider a safe haven. Same word has multiple perspectives and means different things to different people. The word has not changed but the meaning has. In much the same way, the physician will tell you two plus two does not equal four. But that's a different blog. Everything including language and words, our use of words evolves. Watch how texting has shortened words, and put words into images, which people understand as if by code. Words and images becoming a short hand code of connection, fast food for the brain, not encouraging us to think, but to consume words as we do everything, devaluing their substance by narrowing their sense.
The word may have been the bond in the City, but then they decide what the word is. Politicians deflate words by merely uttering them, turning them to dust as they dilute their value and authenticity. I remember Liz Truss repeating 'deliver' over and over again, and now when anyone says it I sense it is a sign of the reverse happening. Politicians like tabloid editors, use their intellect to antagonise and at public school use their debating skills to manipulate the words of others against themselves. Media focus on attack, gimmick and human interest. Look at the headlines over the past ten years - on any one day and it will focus on war, war, war, war, war. Conflict of some sort. Covid was a brief respite but that was conflict on an another level. Fighting against nature which is sick of warmongering. Words in the media are used to confuse, distract, deny, conceal, detract under the guise of reveal, entertain, inform, reveal and change perspective. But what is the difference between 'change perspective' and 'manipulate perspective' - its tone and inference.
Those who are able to chose and use words to best effect, who cast a spell, are listened to. Boris Johnson was adept at it proving the best orators are also but not always the most proficient and practiced liars and manipulators. Or as he would view it, storytellers. Or fibbers. Or being strategically obtuse for the greater good.
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