Firstly: I haven’t been posting every day because our internet was lost this whole time. For days, we had none. So that’s that.
In the past week or so, I’ve noticed the varying ways people use words such as “awesome”, “love” and “sorry”.
For instance, people in the past week have used the word “awesome” in regards to: realisations, God, jackets, scenery, dinner, achievements.
The word “love” in regards to: Jesus, friends, talking, calamari, Kygo, scarves.
And the word “sorry” in regards to: sneezes, love, work, tears, flaws, accidents.
How can one word be used in so many different contexts? How is it possible for me to say that I love both God and blankets in the winter time? What possible comparison could you make between both God and blankets?
I love the English language (don’t you just love the word crisp?) but in some cases it has (shockingly) let us down. For instance, there are some other languages that have three different words for three different kinds of love, whilst we only have one, leaving us to describe many things using the one word.
I’ve tried to understand the word sorry and what it means. Some people say sorry out of obligation (such as a little kid forced to apologise for hitting their sibling), others say sorry because they genuinely are, some say sorry even though they don’t understand why they are, and others say it even though whatever caused it was a mistake.
And awesome. We need better descriptive words. Why do I say everything is awesome? When did it rock up on the same level as ‘cool’? Awesome used to be such a massive word. Right? God is described as awesome. But now so is garlic bread. So is someone who passes their driving test. Cool awesome sweet. They all mean the same thing, even though they don’t actually mean the same thing.
Not that this is the hottest topic of the world at the moment. As people, we simply know what someone means when they tell us they love us. We don’t think Oh no, is it a heart sort of love or the-way-I-love-scarves kind of love? We don’t question it and we don’t compare this people-love with calamari-love. We simply know what they’re conveying to us.
(But then sometimes I wonder whether we really do understand other people at all.) (That, however, is a post for another day.)
Have a good week, campers, even if you have no internet.
Sarah xx
the softest words 