Why I Love Language

I love words. I love their liquiescence and how they can flow, trippingly off the tongue.

I love puns and double meanings.

I love a good turn of phrase. Amnesiac exile. Duality of emotion. Verbal hemophilia.

I love finding a good $10 word that can take the place of 15 $1 words - it's just good value.

I love what language tells us about a culture: the French with their Academie Francaise guarding over the purity of their language; the Germans with words that seem to be increasingly spliced together to describe new things; the Americans where slang is becoming a more and more a part of "speaking good English," and adverbs are disappearing almost entirely.

I love the power of language. I have been working on teaching my children to say, "I forgive you," rather than, "That's okay," when someone apologizes, even over small things. It's amazing how freeing it is, for both parties, to hear those three little words.