Essay

Small Words

by Dr. Michael Houseley

A professional person acquires the esoteric lingo of his or her elitist fraternity. Professional language is replete with long-winded and/or abstruse words, knowledge of which gives the practitioner a privileged status.

Such words are the stock-in-trade of legal ordinances, government directives, scientific treatises, and medical tomes. They are the big-money words, but they are not the words that really matter.

The words that really matter in the English language are the little words, and the shorter the word the greater its significance, it seems.

The most important word in our language is a one-letter word. I is the supreme example of the importance of short words. Not only is it a single letter, but it is always a capital letter. It stands symmetrical and alone, head and shoulders above almost all other words in a written sentence.

I is the most commonly used word in everday speech. I is the point from which we see and experience the world. It is the subject of the sentence, and me, the objective case of I, is a two-letter word that is not far behind in significance.

The personal pronouns are also close to our hearts and they too are small words — he, she, we. The personal pronoun they is a longer word and this suggests that, usually, they are more distant from us in a social sense than he or she.

It is notable that no has the rank of a two-letter word. It is vital to be able to use this word when we need to, although some of us have to practise saying it. No is more important than yes. Few words have the brevity, the clarity, the decisive ring of no.

Many of the other words that shape our daily lives are three-letter words. Good examples are joy, sex, sun, sky, sea and die. God is a three-letter word that is given added status by capitalizing the g.

The special role that certain animals have played in our lives, both as food and as pets, is attested to by the brevity of their names — ox, cow, pig, cat, dog. One wonders if it means anything that "man's best friend" is god spelled backward.

Many common four-letter words also have strong connotations. This is perhaps best seen in the four-letter swear words that express our anger or disgust and that occupy such a prominent place in our informal speech. The importance of four-letter words is also illustrated by words like pain, rain, food, love, hate, walk and talk.

As our language evolves and new words become frequently used, such words are often contracted in everyday usage. For example, advertisement has become ad; telephone is now phone. The abbreviation of television to TV proclaims its central place in our lives.

Words can show our biases, sexism for instance. He is shorter than she, man shorter than woman and son shorter than daughter. But wife is not as long as husband and this suggests that in the institution of marriage, at least, she has a more socially prominent role than he has.

If we look at the words we use and how we use them, we find more than dictionary meanings. We gain insights into our values and prejudices, into how we think and who we are, into where we have been and where we're going. And the writer, by the words he chooses and in his manner of writing, reveals himself. Words are among the most powerful of tools; no wonder word itself is a four-letter word.

Dr. Michael Houseley is a general practitioner and aspiring author in Thornhill, Ontario. This article was originally published in the September 22, 1998 issue of the Medical Post.