Living Thought

"A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used." -Justice Holmes

Language.  Sentences, phrases, words, syllables.

I have always loved them.  I am the eldest child, so when I was little my parents did not have many baby books.  But they did have books -- lots of them.  My mother would choose one that had pictures and make up stories about them.  I would sit quietly for long periods of time listening, listening, listening.  Of course, when my brother came along and could not sit still for more than thirty seconds to listen to a story, my mom was baffled.  "I thought I was such a perfect mother because you were so easy!" she has said to me on a few occasions.  My brother, as it turns out, has become quite the reader as well, though I do not think he will ever have enough books to make his entire closet collapse under their weight... (Oh gosh, did that really happen??)

I think I knew I wanted to be an English major since before I knew what a college major was.  Reading books?  Yes.  When I arrived at college and learned there was specifically a Creative Writing track within the English major I said, "YES, PLEASE!"  Though so many of the stories we read in class dealt with the extremes -- either silly love stories that sound like Taylor Swift songs in prose or sexually explicit "art" -- there were gems.  Those classes made me write and edit and write and edit...

I always knew language was a powerful medium.  Journalism, political documents, books filled with moral lessons.  I wanted to be a part of it.

Then I realized I needed to pay rent and feed myself something besides peanut butter and jelly everyday.  Hence, law school.  Also something I've been wanting to do since... forever... or at least since high school.

Reading court opinions and law school text books is certainly not the same as reading 1984, but the language is so very precise and so very ambiguous all at the same time.  When preparing for mock trial in my Torts class, I got excited if I realized the special importance of a word or phrase and how to use that to the advantage of my client in oral argument.  Reading Justice Scalia's opinions are especially fun because of the emphasis he puts on the specific language of statutes or regulations.  It leads you to really think... what is in a word?  How clear is it really?  Gosh, darn it, what does "modify" really mean?  Can you really write pages about the definition of one word?  Yes, and the Supreme Court does.

As my Contracts professor says, "Judges are telling stories."  Their written opinions contain legal rules and reasoning, but in the end it's the story that matters.  As my Reg. State professor says, "There is no right and wrong answer, just better arguments."  As John Quincy Adams says in the movie Amistad, "Whoever tells the best story wins."

Is language really that malleable?  Is it all shades of gray?  As someone who believes in Truth, I find it hard to believe that words can mean almost anything you want them to mean... and yet, as a creative writer, I love their nuances.  In the end, it's our varying interpretations and biases that give words shades of meaning... But how, then, do we communicate with each other?  Yes, we use this language called English (with which I am currently writing)... and I am confident that if you are reading this post, you can understand its language... So there must be some black and white behind all that gray.  If there was not, we would still be communicating with grunts and pointing fingers.  I will admit and allow for linguistic ambiguity and evolution, but words do have inherent definitions and meanings -- language would be pointless without providing a solid medium with which to communicate.

"'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be the master, that's all.'"
-Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass