Jan
22
2014
The Myth of Soft Langauge
Posted in Daily Living 4 Comments
I love words.
I love to read them; I love to write them.
I love to arrange them in such a way that they tell a story.
I was in third grade when I had a science teacher who gave us a challenge.
We were learning about making a hypothesis, an educated guess.
She taught us this magnificent word: OBSERVE.
I can still remember hearing the word and being fascinated.
Go home and observe the fall leaves.
Pick them up, turn them over, hear them crunch under your feet.
She suggested we go on a fall walk and observe.
We were to collect items from our walk.
We were to have our mothers iron the fall leaves between two pieces of wax paper.
Observe.
I loved the word.
I loved that there was a challenge attached to the word.
I went on my walk.
I remember seeing other children outside much younger than me.
I stopped to talk and made it a point to use my new word.
They had no idea what I was talking about.
They liked the idea of collecting leaves and acorns.
I used the word observe over and over as we walked together.
It rolled off my tongue.
My daughter came home from high school and told me about a discussion in English class.
They watched a video with a writer talking about “soft language”.
Language that he says, takes the life out of life.
We have softened our terms.
We think that if we change the name of the condition, we will change the condition.
It doesn’t work that way.
Above all, my brothers, do not swear, not by heaven or by earth, or by anything else.
Let your “Yes” be yes, and your “No” be no, or you will be condemned. (James 5:12)
Never have I seen this played out as much in our culture as with the word, Life.
Using the writer’s words, we have taken the life out of life.
If we are not pro-life then we say we are pro-choice.
If someone is not pro-life, we would never choose to use the antonym: pro-death.
Soft language is preferred, but it will not change the Truth.
The writer said that using soft language makes our words bloodless and lifeless.
Pro-choice does indeed sound bloodless.
We sanitize our terms to make them palatable.
We try to make what they stand for palatable as well.
That cannot be.
Newspeak is the fictional language Orwell developed in his novel, 1984.
The totalitarian state controlled the language so that freedom of thought was limited.
Thinking contrary to the state was seen as a threat and a thought crime.
Newspeak removed all meaning from language.
Simple concepts remained; negative meanings were seen as redundant.
Undesirable words were removed and words were stripped of their secondary meanings.
The state thought for you.
Any semblance of free thought was to be eradicated.
The state knew that words had power.
Why else would they have been so afraid of them?
Those that own the terms, own the culture it is believed.
But we as believers in Jesus Christ know better.
How appropriate that Jesus is called The Word.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it…The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. (John 1:1-5,14)
God chose to use words to reveal Himself to us.
Ordinary, beautiful, poetic words.
God’s own Son, Jesus, is called The Word.
How dare we soften our language.
As believers in Jesus our “Yes” must be yes and our “No” must be no.
Newspeak has no place for us.
God owns the terms.
God owns the culture.
Everything God wanted us to know about faith and practice is in His Word.
We must speak His Words to a culture that needs to hear them.
God’s Word is life.
God’s Word will cut to the heart; it will offend.
On hearing it, many of His disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” Aware that His disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you?”
(John 6:60,61)
Jesus knew His words would offend some people.
Jesus also knew that His words were the only source of True Life.
Jesus said what He meant and meant what He said.
Jesus spoke the words His Father gave Him to speak.
Newspeak has no place in the life of a believer in Jesus.
Sanitizing truth makes it no truth at all.
We need to say what we mean and mean what we say.
We need to speak the Words that Jesus gave to us.
Jesus said, “If you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. (John 8:31, 32)
Soft language is a misnomer.
Truth offends; it doesn’t always sit well with us.
Truth spoken with grace is a requirement for a follower of Jesus.
Jesus, the Word, who is True.
How true! Words… my mother the librarian taught me a love for them; to learn them and add to my vocabulary every day! We express our thoughts with them. God expressed His love for us through The Word! Like you, hypothesis and observation were key words for me that enabled me to discover so much in life that made living a better experience. With Words we may share the Gospel of Christ!
Al,
Your mother sounds like a special lady. She instilled in you a love of books and words and ultimately THE Word. There is no better gift.
Gina
The denotation of a word is the exact literal meaning of that word as contrasted with its connotation, the added meaning the word suggests or implies. We play with words to gain the perception we want to convey. The use of the word baby became fetus, then aborting was more acceptable as abortion sounds better killing or slaughtering. To make slavery acceptable in America, the word African, was introduced as animal gaining support from Darwin’s theory. As long as the black man was not seen as human, the animal status made it palatable for mistreatment and killing became acceptable. This practice of playing with words became detrimental when the powers began to assign and define political correctness, what will be accepted and what will not. It becomes a tool to control
Ruth,
Thank you for adding clarity to a problem in our culture.
You, who are on the front lines of many battles, have learned the importance of saying what God would have us say. Thank you for your courage, friend.
Gina