I have loved words for almost as long as I have been able to read them. My dad clams its my seventy five percent English heritage. I think it is just because they are pliable. I remember the moment I truly fell. I was somewhere around ten when my mom handed me a novel I had stared at on the family bookshelf a million times. She thought I would enjoy it. It became the reason I am a writer. There is a point in the story that had me so tense and engaged that I forgot to turn the page. Only to get frustrated wondering why the story had stopped. I remember thinking, if you can do that with words, I want to play.
There are over a quarter of a million distinct words in the English language, if you count distinct senses there are closer to three quarters to a full million. Words that can be mushed together, or worn dull from over use. They can tangle your tongue, or flow like water. Dance or stutter, bore or excite. Strung together by the right hands and words can be nonsensical, like Dr. Suess. Or they it can be powerful, like Martin Luther King's letter from a Birmingham jail.
We demand a lot of words. They convey out deepest emotions, our humor, and the information that lets us function in everyday life. And we understand when one word isn't enough to convey the scope of something. In Hebrew there are eleven words for what English calls love. I think Biblically there are over 100 names for God. Many more if you count titles. We cram a lot in a few letters placed together. And most of the time, they accommodate.
It is why it amazes me when they fail.
There are times when what I want to say, what I need to say, no set of words will hold. It isn't from a lack of vocabulary. There are just things that no amount of letters or words can express. I try anyway, with anything from a page long rant to an over used phrase. I love you. I am sorry. I miss you. Congratulations. Ouch. But life doesn't always fit into vowels and consonants.
Sometimes, words fail.
