Say what you mean!

I just love the magazine Wired. It has well-written articles about things that actually interest me. There are not tons of flashy models or superfluous ads. Mostly you find information and commentary on subjects you would not think to research on your own.

Today they have a little ditty on new jargon that will soon no doubt make its way into mainstream conversations. There is pocketairport, which is designed by NASA to be a small commuter type airport in each city that will basically shuttle locals to near airports. I wanted to be a Jetson, and I just may get my wish.

In any case, new words are developed with each passing year, adopting current cultural lingo. People want to say what they want to say. Which made me start thinking about what people say and how they choose to say it. Actually, I have been thinking about this since yesterday. When you are a wordsmith, you definitely look at how you say or write something. It is one thing to say "I will go to the store with you" as opposed to "I may go to the store with you." One implies a definite action while the other implies a possibility. It is all about semantics - the study of meaning.

I recently went shopping in a trendy mall where women were everywhere, buying everything. I do not know how someone can say the economy is down when women were weighted down by numerous bags and purchases. In any case, I was having coffee when a couple of women sat down and started to talk about their partners. They conversed in a type of code, something only they could decipher. First I wondered why they thought that was necessary. I did not know "Sally" or "Sue." Second, I wondered what the subtext really was? If you are studying meaning, is there always a subtext?

What one says and what one means to say are often confused by the use of language. Can someone veil an intended meaning behind a well-worded sentence? I wrote in an earlier blog entry that "I may even love you." I was parroting what I heard someone say to me, but I also wanted to convey that it was a possibility or did I? Did I really want to say "I love you" but was afraid of the reaction?

I think I am going to try and be as straight-forward as possible for a while and see how that works. I am going to say exactly what I mean. I am not sure if I will back off or start to sugar-coat my responses to people, but I am interested to see how people respond to me. I will get back to you on it.