Behold the power of (un)words (Daily Illini Online Opinons)

Tuesday October 17, 2000

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Behold the power of (un)words

Paula Carter

I have this habit of using the sounds "du da du" to replace words. Depending on my vocal expression, the listener is supposed to be able to understand what I am trying to get across. For instance, "So I was just like, du da du." Depending on how "I was like," the sentence can mean a million different things by how I say the last three syllables.

I did this in a conversation with my father once, and he said, "Paula, you need to learn to express yourself better." Ironic, since English is my major. But despite occasional confusion, I feel there are many "things" outside of words and these "things" can be hard to relate using words.

Maybe I just have an awful vocabulary, but I am tempted to think it is something else. I am tempted to think there are truly things that exist in our world that are real but that we do not have words for. Yet ... that is. Many are just waiting to be put into words by someone.

If you happen to be the lucky person that takes that intangible thing and makes it tangible by naming it, your power over other people's thoughts is incredible. I have a friend whom I can't help but think of as a trendsetter. We studied abroad together last year and upon arriving, she was the first to term the grocery store we all shopped at as "The Ghetto Mart." Everyone on our program called it that for the remainder of the year.

We had no preconceived notions about what grocery shopping would be like in another country, so when she decided that it was "ghetto," we went with it. But, even after we became brave enough to venture to other grocery stores in the city and realized ours was not as "ghetto" as it could have been, our language did not change and the connotation continued.

Now that is a fairly innocent example of my point. What is my point, you ask? That language defines our reality. That it is difficult to see beneath the language being used and find what is really there. But that we need to try, otherwise our perceptions of the world are unknowingly being controlled by words that people may not even intend.

In the first presidential debate, Vice President Al Gore was criticized for talking too much and using language that was somewhat belittling to Gov. Bush. In the second debate he lessened his remarks and used more courteous language. What is scary is that a prompting from a political advisor can change many American's views of the real character of Al Gore.

I am not criticizing Gore; maybe the second debate was more of his real self than the first. What I am saying is that there are very few ways for us to know which is really him, what is beneath the two different styles of language.

Language is how we communicate, understand, learn, express. But it is also something that we just do, without thinking. And therefore, I think it has a power that is sometimes ignored. And what about my "du da du"? Not only can it be difficult to decipher what is really being said underneath all the rhetoric, it can also be hard to express yourself with words that actually get across what you mean.

No, I'm not going to pick on Gov. Bush now. I'm not even going to give you a nice solution to conclude. I guess all I can do is implore you with my own words to always question how something is being worded, who is saying it and why. Well, du da du, I guess (I leave it to you to decipher the meaning of that).

Paula Carter is a senior in LAS. Her column appears on alternate Tuesdays. She can be reached at
opinions@dailyillini.com

Read more of Paula Carter's columns.