The Power of Words... and More
Wednesday June 16, 2010
My sis, Bethe, sent this to me & really made me think. I wanted to share it with my readers & get your thoughts about it:
On a chalkboard, an English professor wrote the words:
"A woman without her man is nothing"
and asked his students to punctuate it correctly.
All of the males in the class wrote:
"A woman, without her man, is nothing."
All the females in the class wrote:
"A woman: without her, man is nothing."
Punctuation is powerful
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Not only is punctuation powerful, so is this thought process we go through. Last week, I wrote a lot about expectations, defining oneself, how our dreams change as we grow up or maybe we just start accepting rather than trying to make a reality out of our dreams.
When you saw the sentence without the punctuation, how did you punctuate it?
I hate to admit that I did the first one. I think that has something to say about not only my own insecurities but just the way I saw society growing up. I will be clear, in my home growing up, my Dad was a very progressive & liberal person so although he worked & my mom stayed home some of the time, she still did work at times and had a college degree. My dad did cook a lot of the meals, we all had to help clean.... it was not all the women does this & the man does that. BUT, in my youth, in society, that was more the case. In fact, I had peers in my high school English class get all bent out of shape when I did a class project & discussed how women did not have to have children & they could pursue careers that men had too. The male teacher had to stick up for me!
I think many of us are all caught up in this "perception" of who we should be and how we should look and how we should act. For some, it may have manifested itself well & pushed us to achieve goals we never would have dreamed we could do. Parents or people telling us you can do anything, you are smart you are beautiful, you CAN!
For others, it may have been a hindrance pushing them to in expected roles. For some, it may even be the route of weight gain & the reason one can't lose the weight. Parents (yes, they can be part of this), people, peers telling us we are fat or stupid or that we will never amount to anything.
The power of words over us... how they make us feel about ourselves.
For me, again, I always remember from early on that there were certain expectations out there for me. Do good in school, go to college, get a job that will support you. I am still not sure why I felt so burdened by expectations from such an early age but I always felt the need to try to get people to like me. And yes, I was always effected strongly by words spoken to me.
In some ways the words were bad & held me back. BUT, also, some words have spurred me to better things. People telling me I was good at something led me to do the 5K races in my 20's to early 30's and I even won & placed in a few of the races. Words pushed me to go further with my weight training & that led me to win 2 amateur bodybuilding contests in my late 30's.
What are your thoughts on all this? Have words & then words turned into action affected your life?
PS: I am going to have a couple must see videos tomorrow.. stop back!
My sis, Bethe, sent this to me & really made me think. I wanted to share it with my readers & get your thoughts about it:
On a chalkboard, an English professor wrote the words:
"A woman without her man is nothing"
and asked his students to punctuate it correctly.
All of the males in the class wrote:
"A woman, without her man, is nothing."
All the females in the class wrote:
"A woman: without her, man is nothing."
Punctuation is powerful
********************************************************************************
Not only is punctuation powerful, so is this thought process we go through. Last week, I wrote a lot about expectations, defining oneself, how our dreams change as we grow up or maybe we just start accepting rather than trying to make a reality out of our dreams.
When you saw the sentence without the punctuation, how did you punctuate it?
I hate to admit that I did the first one. I think that has something to say about not only my own insecurities but just the way I saw society growing up. I will be clear, in my home growing up, my Dad was a very progressive & liberal person so although he worked & my mom stayed home some of the time, she still did work at times and had a college degree. My dad did cook a lot of the meals, we all had to help clean.... it was not all the women does this & the man does that. BUT, in my youth, in society, that was more the case. In fact, I had peers in my high school English class get all bent out of shape when I did a class project & discussed how women did not have to have children & they could pursue careers that men had too. The male teacher had to stick up for me!
I think many of us are all caught up in this "perception" of who we should be and how we should look and how we should act. For some, it may have manifested itself well & pushed us to achieve goals we never would have dreamed we could do. Parents or people telling us you can do anything, you are smart you are beautiful, you CAN!
For others, it may have been a hindrance pushing them to in expected roles. For some, it may even be the route of weight gain & the reason one can't lose the weight. Parents (yes, they can be part of this), people, peers telling us we are fat or stupid or that we will never amount to anything.
The power of words over us... how they make us feel about ourselves.
For me, again, I always remember from early on that there were certain expectations out there for me. Do good in school, go to college, get a job that will support you. I am still not sure why I felt so burdened by expectations from such an early age but I always felt the need to try to get people to like me. And yes, I was always effected strongly by words spoken to me.
In some ways the words were bad & held me back. BUT, also, some words have spurred me to better things. People telling me I was good at something led me to do the 5K races in my 20's to early 30's and I even won & placed in a few of the races. Words pushed me to go further with my weight training & that led me to win 2 amateur bodybuilding contests in my late 30's.
What are your thoughts on all this? Have words & then words turned into action affected your life?
PS: I am going to have a couple must see videos tomorrow.. stop back!
Posted by truth2beingfit at 6/15/2010 9:00 PM 
Categories: Challenges, Motivation/Support, Life, Life Experiences, Happiness
Tags: words body image acceptance choices perception life experiences passion Believing challenges
Categories: Challenges, Motivation/Support, Life, Life Experiences, Happiness
Tags: words body image acceptance choices perception life experiences passion Believing challenges
What a thoughtful and thought provoking post. You know the old saying, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words/names will never hurt me"? I always knew that saying was wrong because I knew that words can certainly be more powerful than sticks and stones.
In a lecture I give in class, I discuss how the past is misrepresented by artists (via their reconstructions of the past in museum displays, in text illustrations, and images accompanying popular articles) because they project present day views of women's roles and who is important on the past (the lecture is based on an article written by Diane Gifford-Gonzalez, a friend of mine, and a first-rate African archaeologist). The lecture is long and too much to go into here, but one thing that makes my students start to think about how words create pictures of what we think is possible is when I read to them the titles of archaeological books and articles in our library -- all them have gender charged language and none of that language (or the pictures that accompany the text) creates a picture of women doing anything important. Sorry about getting a bit carried away, but as you can tell, it is something I feel strongly about. By the way, when I tried to punctuate the sentence I couldn't because I thought, "this sentence isn't right, unless, it is punctuated like: A woman, without her, man would be nothing".
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Karma.. what an amazing comment.. thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Makes me think even more! By the way, like you, I had the same prob with that sentence.
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Words are never any body's problem, and they are every body's problem.
The problems lie with the intentions behind the words -- the user of the words, and with the perception of the words -- the receivers.
The world lives in a crisis of mis-intention and mis-perception of words.
Words are harmless vehicles of intent, and it is people who abuse them as they misuse them.
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Roy, you have a way with words!
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as a writer you know I agree.
words can be far far more powerful than the human touch even.
in a notsogreat way.
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Miz, I so agree...
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This is so true. Words seem to have the capability to change us and transport us. But what we do with the words we receive is vital to our well-being.
Great post!
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So very true as well.. thx for making that point!
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Words can cut or cure better than any surgery I have ever attempted!
Great thoughts on this topic, Jody!!
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Dr. J.... can you do some surgery for me???!!!
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Words are very powerful. I've always felt that one negative comment can set a person back miles, regardless of who utters the words.
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Hi Jody, your last few posts have been really fabulous!
My parents taught me from a young age that words have more power than we realize. My mom always told me to speak kindly, even to myself in my head. I have always struggled with this, but I am getting better!
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Carla, thank you! I like what your parents told you about speaking kindly to yourself! I struggle too!
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Over the years I have learned to take words at face value but not attach meaning to them until I knew what the person using them really intended to convey with them. Sometimes you know the intent immediately and sometimes you may not for hours or days. Case in point we live in a world of email, text messaging and cyber short-hand. As well some people just don't write or speak as well as others and have trouble making the words that fall out of their mouth match the meaning in their heart. Thus I feel the cliché, take it with a grain of salt applies. Hmm, what does that cliché really mean anyhow? My round-about point, words are powerful and can move you; but knowing the intent of the words you encounter is what should determine how you react to those words.
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Patrick... great comment & I so agree about the actual meaning behind words in an email or text.. sometimes they come off mean when they were, in fact, not meant that way.
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What a great topic...one that follows my own heart. WORDS are words, it is the emotions and the meanings we have attached to them that create the joy or the disdain. Just like the punctuation. I often look up the definition to words to see if what I think they mean is really the definition. It takes a little out of or adds a little bit more power to the words I choose.
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Jules, like that looking up the definition of the word!
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Great post. Words do carry a lot of power. I know that things that were said to me as a teenager about my body and weight have stuck with me into my adult life.
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