Today, I got a free massage at work from a professional masseuse!  It was wonderful, and helped to relieve some of the tension in my shoulders and neck.

However, I had a moment when I saw the sign-up sheet (”Massage Sign-Up”) where I wondered if I had read it correctly.  Massages at work?  Or did it say messages?

This brings up a common complaint with the English language — why are so many of our words so similar?

We’ve got messages and massages, pubic and public — I’ve seen that typo more than once! — and the worst, the words that are actually spelled exactly the same, but mean different things or are pronounced differently based on the context, like “live” and “read” and “lead”.

And yet — here’s the amazing part — even a small child can learn and properly use the different forms of words without much effort.   Of course, we all get confused now and again, but in general most people have a functional understanding of the different usages of each word, proper contexts, correct pronunciations, etc., by a very young age.

When I think about this, I am astonished at the human ability for language.  Not only can our memory contain an endless number of grammatical rules (and exceptions to them!), but we also have the ability to communicate complex, abstract ideas with little complication.   I mean, really, how do you explain the feeling of “anger” or “sadness,” or even “love” to a child just beginning to learn language… and yet we all know exactly what those words mean, when to use them, how to use them, and even how to be more precise with specifying degrees of each feeling, such as “furious,” “irate,” or “frustrated” instead of just “angry.”

We are linguistic beings, obviously, with brains not only capable of, but proficient in, the use of symbolic sounds to capture and communicate our ideas.

I’m not sure why this is so impressive to me, except perhaps that as a writer, I am fascinated by the power of language to impact the human heart and mind, and our ability as individuals to use that language to communicate such complex and abstract concepts.

– Crystal

(Originally posted September 30, 08)