Musings from the Ozone

One day while riding down the road and listening to the radio, I struck by a comment an announcer made.  He said, "people judge you by your words."  While he rattled on with a sales pitch for a book that would increase one's vocabulary, my mind jumped off of that subject and onto a memory that had stayed vivid in my mind.

The memory that popped into my mind was that of a young Jamaican man in our church.  He had never spoken more than a greeting to me and I did not know him well.  One Father's Day Sunday, we were giving out gifts to special staff members, when he was chosen to make a presentation for our assistant pastor.  I was still learning things about New York, as well as things of culture, so when I heard the very eloquent speech which poured forth like oil from his lips, I did a double-take!  Imagine that this young man had sat hidden in our church and I had never realized that he had such a beautiful manner of speaking!  However, I noticed something else in conjunction with his beautiful presentation.  We had many Jamaicans in our church at that time and it seemed that they were not particularly impressed with his speech.  I mulled the episode over in my mind, and one day it became clear to me that eloquent speech can be passed around in a culture as well as  can any other generality.  

Modern speech in Jamaica may have changed somewhat over the centuries, but it was derived largely from English, which has been the official language for over 300 years.  The British had a profound effect  on the Jamaicans as did Africa and even China.  The main ingredients of Jamaica's language stew are Spanish, African, English, including Irish, British and American idioms, and even Rastafarian.  The 'melting pot' of Jamaica is shown mostly in their language, where centuries ago, the indentured slaves combined words from their masters with the language of the African tongues.    Nearly all Jamaicans speak Patois. Patois is a unique Creole dialect that is a mixture of English and African with words from other languages occasionally mixed in.  I have visited Jamaica twice and as there are many Jamaicans in our church, I was quite aware of Patois.  However, upon researching  languages in Jamaica, I was impressed that Jamaicans learned to speak a special type of English; it is grammatically similar to British Standard English.  This  special eloquent English that the young Jamaican man spoke was quite typical of the British Standard English! 

My musings of British English could lead me into even deeper research, if I wished.  Perhaps, I will go into that later, but my focus today is on the power of words.  Eloquent words or beautifully spoken words, are of themselves, just that.  The power in those words should not necessarily entail beauty; the power should be in the message itself.  I have had the privilege to sit in 1000's of services and have heard literally 1000's of ministers either slaughter the English language or  speak it with the perfection of an English King.  I have sat in 100's of college classes, and have heard even college professors mumble and ramble their teachings with as little eloquence as a computerized robot.  I suggest that there has to be a blend of well-chosen  words, combined with a pertinent message, and an enthusiastic delivery in order to get the worth out of a speech or lecture.  The young man I mentioned above, had a tiny message to deliver, and it was not exactly an important message.  The fact that he eloquently delivered the little message both in word and delivery made the event memorable.  On the other hand, when one has to sit in a classroom or church, listening to a speech peppered with poorly spoken English and a poorly structured message, it can be as good as taking a sleeping pill.  People have to be awakened to a new thought with more than a noisy message. Loudness is welcome to the hearing impaired,  but they too wish to hear something of worth.

Words…..an isolated word can be worth as much as the mind can delve up thoughts concerning it.  However, a message generally requires  more than just one word. It can contain 2 words and say a whole lot….such as "Jesus Wept." That scripture is loaded with a message.  How about Winston Churchill's most famous words to the British people in World War 2, "Never give up?"  There was power in those words.  We do not always have the benefit of time to think before we hastily speak our words.  Perhaps that is why my beloved father kept his words to a minimum.  He never had to retract words he hadn't said.  Because we must speak many times, we should never forget that  there is power in our spoken words or written words; those words can cause wars, or they can soothe and heal.  I could add that they can even put you to sleep; as this musing will soon do, if I don't stop right here.