Free!!

What a powerful word.  We all want to be Free.  If something is ‘free’ we grab it, whether we want it or not. People die in the name of Freedom; they torture and maim in its name.  Today I discovered that my mother, a very shrewd and canny lady, had been conned by the lure of a ‘free’ holiday.  Some shysters told her that she had won a free holiday and then asked her for her card details just to cover taxes and registration.  Next thing she knew they had charged her £400!

What is it about this word that disarms our critical faculties?  I can think of few words that are more powerful.  The thing is that our words are packed with layers of meaning, only some which can be found in the dictionary, and some which are more emotionally based.

Although we can all buy and use the same dictionary, but that doesn’t mean that words mean the same thing to different people. Small wonder that communication breaks down.  I wonder just what fall out will come from English becoming a virtual world language when  it is so tough even within the same country.

If a conversation is important, you not only have to say your piece, but also to check that the other person has received it ‘in clear’ rather than scrambled.  (The picture is of an enigma machine that the Germans used to send and receive coded messages.  The key was you had to have two identical machines and the code key to understand the message.  Cracking this system was a key step in defeating the Germans in World War 2)

“The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.”  Joseph Preistley

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”  Rudyard Kipling

This entry was posted on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 18:07 and is filed under Business Change, Communication, Personal Change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.