Thought for the week

FIVE hundred words are needed for the BBC’s short story competition, three words are going to be written on scores of Valentine cards around the country in a few days, only two can totally transform countless arguments; “I’m sorry”, “I understand”.

I’m a shameless word junky, (forget your strategy games, give me scrabble any day), so words matter to me. I’m also a shameless thief, so when I hear something that speaks to me I want to take it, make it my own, share it. Frank Cottrell Boyce spoke on Radio 2 about the importance of choosing the right words and I agree. If you only have 500 for a story, a short space on a greeting card, or a few minutes to defuse a situation, you want each word to matter.

There’s talk these days about using correct gender pronouns so as not to cause offence and there is always vocabulary evolving to express our changing world; ‘hashtag,’ ‘Brexit’ and who had heard of ‘coronavirus’ until recently? Words matter. Not how many we use, but how we use them. Mr Cottrell Boyce said: “Even God had to find the right word – He had to breathe it because that’s what words are, breath of our own bodies, going out from our own loneliness, out into the world, connecting soul to soul and to creation itself”.

I love this and it’s a sentiment shared by James in the Bible when he talks about the importance of taming the tongue. A paraphrase puts it like this: “A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything – or destroy it!’

What words do you need to say today that could accomplish something significant in your life?

Karen Sadler