words matter
Being a writer she thinks of language partly as a system, partly as a living thing over which one has control, but mostly as agency – as an act with consequences.
Toni Morrison – Nobel Lecture - NobelPrize.org
For her a dead language is not only one no longer spoken or written, it is unyielding language content to admire its own paralysis. Like statist language, censored and censoring. Ruthless in its policing duties, it has no desire or purpose other than maintaining the free range of its own narcotic narcissism, its own exclusivity and dominance.
... See moreToni Morrison – Nobel Lecture - NobelPrize.org
She is convinced that when language dies, out of carelessness, disuse, indifference and absence of esteem, or killed by fiat, not only she herself, but all users and makers are accountable for its demise.
Toni Morrison – Nobel Lecture - NobelPrize.org
The systematic looting of language can be recognized by the tendency of its users to forgo its nuanced, complex, mid-wifery properties for menace and subjugation. Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. Whether it is obscuring state language or the
... See moreToni Morrison – Nobel Lecture - NobelPrize.org
Underneath the eloquence, the glamor, the scholarly associations, however stirring or seductive, the heart of such language is languishing, or perhaps not beating at all – if the bird is already dead.
Toni Morrison – Nobel Lecture - NobelPrize.org
The vitality of language lies in its ability to limn the actual, imagined and possible lives of its speakers, readers, writers. Although its poise is sometimes in displacing experience it is not a substitute for it. It arcs toward the place where meaning may lie.
Toni Morrison – Nobel Lecture - NobelPrize.org
Language can never “pin down” slavery, genocide, war. Nor should it yearn for the arrogance to be able to do so. Its force, its felicity is in its reach toward the ineffable.
Toni Morrison – Nobel Lecture - NobelPrize.org
“To fit in with the change of events, words, too, had to change their usual meanings. What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member. To think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt... See more
L. M. Sacasassubstack.comA computer, meanwhile, remains more functional. Phrases like “desktop” and “taskbar” create a metaphor that this is a workstation; you have “trash” and “files.” Of course, there are still work-like aspects to the phone and home-like aspects to the computer, but the phone takes on a far more domestic role in our lives. It is not a utility: it is an
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