If you are a parent, a teacher, or someone who loves and cares for children, this is the best of all times. Daily, numerous opportunities are readily available to empower the children who surround you and make them rich, thanks to the media and the political discourse surrounding the presidential election.
Words have a lot in common with money, and our children’s future wealth, prosperity, and well-being may very well depend on how many they learn to master and put to work.
From the way I see it, there is no better time in recent history to teach youngsters the power and value of words. Tune into the election coverage at any time of the night or day or read it with them from one of our local or metro newspapers and teach them to see that words can be weapons and pacifiers; irritants and tranquilizers; destroyers and builders; and forces for good and evil.
Words, words, words. Much like money they can be coined. In 2005, Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” coined “truthiness.” According to the American Dialect Society that recognized it as the word of the year, it means, “What one wishes to be the truth regardless of the facts.”
In 2006 ADS chose “plutoed” as the word of the year. “To pluto means to demote or devalue someone or something,” much like the planet by the same name was demoted and no longer classified as a planet by the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union.
Words can be exchanged. They can be valued or devalued and counterfeited or saved. They can be inflated and tarnished as well. Words, like money, beg careful handling. They can lead to a person’s rise and fall as well as the rise and fall of others. Once declared “mightier than the sword,” words or the lack of them have been known to cause the fall of great men and the collapse of great nations.
Consider for a moment Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s words that aired during the last several days and their consequences. They have brought about political chaos for the Democratic Party and more.
Black and white critics have called some of Wright’s words outright lies; others described them as hate speech. As for my own part, as an educator I find myself classifying them as “doublespeak” and I find them most troubling.
Great writers like George Orwell and Ray Bradbury recognized that counterfeit words and word bankruptcy contribute to the fall of great nations. And although their works were classified as fiction, their readers recognized that their plotlines were rooted in fact and truth. Both cautioned that when communication breaks down and men no longer understand the words that others use or, worse, recognize the words but cannot understand the way they use them, dystopia is ushered in.
The analyses of Rev. Wright’s speeches and or sermons are down right disconcerting. Journalists and representatives of the American public have already spent days trying to figure out what his words mean. And yet, he grew up in America, studied in our schools, fought in our military and is, by all rights, a fellow countryman who uses words that are easily found in a standard American dictionary.
Could our society have so deteriorated that we can no longer understand what one of our countryman has to say. Or is there something more sinister at work here: we refuse to hear the words he chooses to say? If the latter is true, to what purpose do we refuse to allow his words to speak to us?
Many across the globe see America as a utopia achieved. We are often the envy of most of the world. More immigrants seek to live here than anywhere else in the world. And yet we find ourselves in a political climate marred by half-truths, hollow words, and circumlocution.
Perhaps it is time to ask ourselves, “Is America suffering verbal decay? Has the ability to read and think and write and speak shrunk to such little measure that we can no longer comprehend words we once knew?
What is more troubling yet, is Rev. Wright made sport of several great Americans’ use of language and his ridicule was, and continues to be, supported with laughter, cheers, and praise. All the while, he ridiculed the American education system as well because he said it has lacked an understanding of how to prepare youths rooted in the African American culture to live and prosper in what he described as a white-dominated European rooted world.
Calling for what can only be seen as a two-tier educational system that de-emphasizes the importance of words as well as their pronunciations for children rooted in the African American culture, Rev. Wright, who has himself more than prospered as a citizen of the United States, seems intent on bankrupting his younger brothers and sisters who have not yet had time to accrue word wealth.
So if you have children of your own or you are a teacher or caretaker of someone else’s children, for their sake and our country’s sake, take the time to teach them a rich vocabulary. Play word games and complete crossword puzzles. Play Scrabble when you get the chance. And try to make every moment a teachable one when it comes to learning and mastering new words. Otherwise we will be a nation at risk and a plaything for demagogues and dictatorial leaders.
Westwood resident Carol Ziemian teaches writing at Northeastern University. Her column appears in the Daily News Transcript on Wednesday. She can be reached at YankeePenn@aol.com.
