It is probably fair to say that all of us frequent this site amongst other reasons, for our love of words and for the power that can be harnessed by our construction of those words into an order of our liking. We can, hopefully, stir emotions within our readers or perhaps influence a particular course of action. Indeed it seems that with the current demand in comedy at a perceived all time high, the art of 'wordsmithery' has for a long time never been so en vogue. It recently occurred to myself how powerful a bare minimum of two words can be! We are all familiar with the oft-heard, oft-varied two-word insults which can be filled with venom, threat, frustration or wit. Applying his own caveat that offence is not given but taken, Jimmy Carr proposes the world's shortest joke "dwarf shortage!"
However, two words have had a different impact on myself. They have encouraged me; right here on this very site. Not many of us I am sure have the time to read everybody's shared work but the fact that so many do read at least some and make comment is a applaudable.
That encouragement I am sure is felt by others as it is by myself. Perhaps we could all indulge ourselves in just a moment of mutual back-slapping for the way, tiny or otherwise, we help each other through harnessing the power of words!
Keats; how can one so young be so talented and yet so tragic: a life in a poem. "He played an ancient ditty, long since mute" The world had a dove and the sweet dove died. I find that the original Haiku is the ideal form for capturing words, emotions and an eternal moment. One word, one small sentence can and had changed history "I have a dream..." The art of bringing words alive (for me anyway) is that they resonate not only with people of the moment but of all time.
They can make you laugh or cry, as keats describes it, a little region to wander in, in which the reader may pick and choose. Stories can come alive with the right words.
They can be stretched yet still tell the truth, economical and yet in part untruthful, syntactically precise semantically ambiguous all in the same sentence, friend and foe, frustrating and freeing. They can even say so much just by their absence. I like them best when they dance off the page and into my heart and soul and sometimes, just sometimes I have actually placed them on the page.