Words

Are these words working, do they work for you?

Damn I love words. Words are the cleverest thing humans have ever thought up. Like, science and maths and all that are pretty clever, but how in the heck do you explain your complicated new theory about fire to the other Homo sapiens if you don’t have some way to codify ideas into vocally expressed thoughts? With stick drawings in the dirt? I don’t think so.

Ta da!

I get unreasonably excited about words. Today, while watching The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Jane said “loquacious”. I love “loquacious”. I had to stop the video to clap my hands like a kid. Number 1 best ever use of “loquacious” was by Hermione J. Granger in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (movie). It was the best ever because the joke in itself is funny: that Victor Krum is a bit handsy, but it’s even funnier because it’s Hermione, and she didn’t say “handsy” she said, “Victor is not particularly loquacious”.

Words make us laugh, but they also wound. You can stab someone, shoot them, throw a rock at their head, and hurt them, kill them, instantly. But words take time. They can twist and fester and pull right at the gut of a person. Even a cutting, scathing remark that hurts upon hearing will worsen with time, biting deeper and deeper. Words start wars, words end lives; words change us.

Even though words, at their worst, are brutal things, I still love them. I love them for their flexibility, for their changeability and for their ambiguity. I love that you can make people groan with a pun and snort into their tea with a particularly crude phrase. I love that you can put a lot of them together in a certain way and tell a story; that you can conjure them up out of thin air to make fiction.

Mostly I love that words belong to people. Words change, language changes, and there’s nothing you can really do about it. With words, in my firm opinion, majority rules. If enough people start pluralising the word “you” to form “yous” or perhaps, “youse”, then it’ll be a word. Lots of other languages have a plural, but in English; particularly Australian English “youse” is associated with lower class or uneducated speech. Well listen up, non-bogans, if the bogans get that word to spread enough, someone will put it in the dictionary, and we’ll be stuck with it. There’s a beautiful irony when people say “you can’t just make up words!” because that’s all words ever are, made up sounds that some motherfucker (probably Shakespeare) has decided mean something.

Don’t get me wrong. I like correct spelling and grammar. I’m not saying you can just write whatever you like and hope for the best. But the main reason I like it is not because it’s good and proper, but because English is so convoluted; there’s so many glorious ways you can say something, that you’re bound to be misunderstood if you don’t get it right. So you’ve got to get it right. Commas and apostrophes, they mean stuff. Without them, you start to turn words into letters again. Just boring old letters. You need all the other little dottie bits to keep those letters together, keep them as fantastic, beautiful, clever words.

I wonder why I’m talking coz I’m talking all the time. We won’t forget the message and just leave it all behind. The conversation’s trivial but trivial is fine when held up to the light. - Words, Kate Miller-Heidke.

Lizzyish gives advice: to my siblings

Dear Charlie, Dear Patrick, Dear Sally

Unsolicited and unwanted advice for my younger siblings and anybody else who might care.

Dear C, P and S.

How are you? I hope school holidays are treating you well. For no apparent reason I have decided to write down the 10 most important things I reckon you need to know to get through school/your teens. Feel free to ignore these. But seriously, don’t, because they’re really good.

1.     You don’t have to accept every person who sends you a friend request on facebook. If they are a bit of a jerk at school, or you don’t actually know them, that’s what the ignore button is for. You’re just going to have to go through and delete them all one day, anyway. If there is a chance you may have an awkward ‘why didn’t you accept my friend request?’ conversation, sure, go ahead and add them, but click ‘unsubscribe’ so you don’t have to put up with their rubbish on a daily basis.

2.     If you ever really want to give up on something (like a musical instrument or a language or a sport), so bad that you honestly can’t contemplate doing it even one more time, give up on it. It’s not worth the angst even if you’re a genius at it.

3.     If you ever kinda want to give up on something because it is annoying, stick it out for one more school term. If you still want to give up on it then, but you don’t feel like you did about the thing in item 2, stick at it for just one more term, if sticking at it for half a year makes you feel like item 2, drop that thing like a hot potato. You tried, good job, go find something you love doing.

4.     Sport is fun, it’s a good way to stay healthy and meet nice people and learn some skills. If you’re not very good at it, find another sport that you like or are good at. Try them all. It doesn’t actually matter if you never get good at any of them. See items 2 and 3 also.

5.     You’re = you are (the apostrophe gives that one away), your = possession (as in, ‘that’s your coat’, ‘this is your idea of a good blog, Lizzy, not mine’). If you’re ever about to write the word ‘your’, ask yourself first if you’re actually saying ‘you are’, like I just did in this sentence, twice.

6.     All the variations of the word ‘there’ start with the word ‘the’. So if you’re about to write their/there/they’re, write ‘the’ first and then stop. The easiest one to remember is they’re, because it has an apostrophe and is just like ‘you’re’. It’s missing a letter, why? Because it’s really ‘they are’, easy! The other two you kinda just have to remember. Their = belongs to them. ‘It is their first day, be nice’, ‘that’s their mum, stop talking about them’. There = a place. ‘I hid it over there, don’t look at it.’ I have no idea how you’re going to remember these, but do. Because people judge you harshly for getting this stuff wrong, so you may as well surprise them from an early age by being awesome at grammar.

7.     If you ever like a boy or a girl, act on it. Either tell them, ask them on a date, or kiss them. As you get older, kissing them is the best way, because it makes it really clear, but you get to close your eyes so you don’t have to look and see if they are surprised/ repulsed/ about to reject you. The way I see it, if you tell them then one of four things will happen. 1. They will reject you horribly and you won’t get over it for a while, 2. They will reject you nicely and you’ll get over it pretty quickly, 3. They will tell you they like you too and everything will be great, or 4. They will be so happy that someone likes them they will suddenly like you even if they didn’t before. If you don’t tell them, here’s what will happen: 1. Nothing, 2. Pain, 3. Nothing, 4. You’ll do something crazy like yell at them for no reason (I am talking from really embarrassing experience on no. 4). So in conclusion, telling them has 2-3 good outcomes, not telling them has only pain and bad things.

8.     NEVER PUT ANY OF YOUR FEELINGS FOR SOMEONE IN A LETTER. If you like them enough, tell them to their face. Putting it in a letter risks embarrassment, teasing, and judgement for your lack of good grammar. Just. Don’t. Do. It.

9.     Don’t ever tease people. Never. Ever. Even if they are super ugly/stupid/lame/bad at things/annoying or even if they actually deserve it for being a jerk. Just walk away. Even if your friends are teasing them, just walk away. You will only ever regret teasing someone.

10. Being into stuff isn’t a bad thing. If you really like a TV show, a sport, a game, a comic, a band, an activity, a book, a movie, an actor, anything, chances are at some stage someone is going to try to make you feel bad about it. “I can’t believe you like X!” they will say, “X is for idiots/nerds/losers/girls/boys/little kids/etc etc etc,” they will bleat. I’m going to use a rude word now, it’s the first of the blog, and mum will have to forgive me. FUCK those guys. If you like something, like it! There’s this secret that you learn as you get older, but I’m going to pass it onto you guys now because I like you and you’re all cool enough to handle it (I wasn’t). If you are confident enough in the stuff you like, people will like you for it. If you turn around to that person and not only say, “Of course I like it” but also say “why wouldn’t you?!” And then talk in a really knowledgeable way for about 90 seconds on the merits of your favourite thing, that person will feel embarrassed and, whether they admit it or not, will respect you for standing up for yourself and your favourite thing. And the best bit is that other people who know about the thing will find you and want to be your friend. And soon you’ll have a whole group of people who are into the stuff you are. And because you were the first to publicly talk about the awesome thing, they will see you as some kind of awesome thing leader. And if you get into other stuff they will probably get into it with you. And you will be the awesome thing god/goddess.

I hope this helps. School sucks sometimes, but following the above 10 things can make it that little bit better. But mostly they’ll just make you awesome.

Love,

Lizzy