Words are sometimes literal, metaphoric or invisible; they have texture, feeling and sound. Most people do not realize that words breath as individuals do and if you observe, you may even feel their breath. Sometimes they are jumbled up, sometimes they are different from the effect they have, and sometimes they mean nothing close to the way they sound. Words amaze me, when they casually fit in one mouth and are uncomfortable in another, or when they surface suddenly and make a sound that is familiar to a fragrance.
Recently, I unconsciously squirmed when I heard a man say 'I will ping you', or 'Tinkle me when you are free' - the words Ping and Tinkle don't sound weird otherwise, but from a man (with a raucous voice) they sound funny - almost like they had gender preferences. Maybe words do have gender preferences.
Words are also elitist and denote a certain temperament - like the words cantankerous, moribund, absolution, obliterate, ophidion, penumbra, runic or simply the word waif. Often in the Monk's text I find words that sound like vespers warning a dying sun - daring him a revenge - “deviant humor ventures forth, unassuming koalemos in unfortunate range”. Or Wasabi's, following of the fundamental meaning in the word fundamentalist - or my usage of the word chauvinist. Talkathon treats words like doodles on a page - and in ways they turn out to sound and look interesting. She would write something on these lines - 'What was once when, then they forgot when, why, which, how, and everything became what - I am tired of the 'what' in USA.' Or the way Mush writes - 'Can a man ever challenge his future without reclaiming his past? Can glory ever come to a fraught mind? Is this why Alexander failed? I ask you if you can forgive my smelly socks and my unsavoury stew?' Like the paradox laden Black Pearl's work , “I stand strong on weak knees.” Or the love element in every sentence that Drama King weaves - 'the love is in the loathing my dear, I want to burn, burn, burn - par ab intejzaar aur sahi (however there is still some time for that).
The word unconditional is attached to one abstract concept - love, and another process - rearing.
Language is often like a river that takes the qualities of the land it flows on. It moulds itself according to the terrain, words come to life and disappear. They form and move into oblivion, and finally they take on a different meaning altogether. However, the text is always a little less important than its context.
The word separators wheel power, actually 'separators' wheel power. Power lies with the hierarchy, hierarchy decides the base, the base decides the super structure and the super structure decides the codes of a language, which in turn decide facts, truths and popular realities; moulding history, myth and culture.The separator is a stupid long space bar, a forefinger's space between clustered letters.
The separator is no larger than an inch of space - empty space, that holds ransom an entire body of work.
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Language
A, aa
La
Lang
Gauge
Language
Languish
Anguish.
Stolen
Borrowed
Fused
Language
A scream
A silence
A voice
A meaning
Langue
Parole
Gross;
language double crossed.
Formless, spineless
Repressed, aggressed
Words.
What was –was, is – is
Can be…would be
Maybe…must be.
Language
Can’s
May’s
Must’s
Voices, words, meanings
Language: one’s identity.
I
Dent
Ity
Entity
Ity’s, Ism’s, Question marks.
Language--- claustrophobic
--- Anarchic
Hermo, Hetro, Homo, Trans, Bi: Hinglish
Lan(g)uaged
Borrowed
Stolen
Fused
Language- scent of black earth in white snow
Space. Time.
Chance. Power.
Politics of Power.
White, heterosexual, pure-bred, capitalist, hegemonic words…
Ah!
Anguish
Languish
Language
Gauge
Lang
Our tongue:
A double edged sword.
Mother tongue---father wars
Father tongue ---mother land.
Mind, a dumb dadaist.
Used, clichéd, hackneyed,
Language yours and mine.
Like a stray set of alphabet on a deserted page
Blank in a mob is language.
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I miss PIES - I want to go back to class :(
