Melinda Musil dot Com

In high school, I had a fantastic journalism teacher.  Two years under his tutelage shaped my writing in a way that few other events have.

One thing he taught, that I’ll never forget, was the power of language.  I can walk or run.  I can trot, scamper, scurry, race, sprint, bolt, chase, dash, gallop, hustle, jog, lope, scramble, or whisk.  These are all synonyms of “walk” or “run”, but each word implies a different type of motion.

We also discussed the strangeness of idioms.  Imagine, if you will, overhearing these phrases and not knowing the story behind them, or perhaps hearing them but not knowing their significance in the English language…
-”It cost her an arm and a leg.”
-”She was burnt to a crisp.”
-”He was as high as a kite.”
-”He was beating a dead horse.”
-”She bent over backwards for her family.”
-”He really went out on a limb last week.”

I could go on but I think you get the idea.  His point, always, was that words have power.  Words must always be chosen carefully, because the wrong word can give an entirely unintentional impression.

I’ll be the first to mention that I don’t always succeed at this.  Of course, I always try to keep these words in the back of my head, but like I said, I don’t always succeed.

An example of this is my previous post about a boy’s death at an amusement park.  I wrote, “It’s been a long time since I’ve been to an amusement park… reading stories like these makes me glad… police are reporting that another teenager died at an amusement park”.

I did not clarify the second phrase.  Reading stories like these makes me glad - not that anyone died, but that I have not been to an amusement park in a long time, and probably won’t return to an amusement park for a long time.  I think it’s tragic that anyone died, and I’m saddened for this boy’s family.  I am NOT glad, as a commentator implied, that the boy died.

Hope this clears it up…