interesting point Anna..
humans, tend to place things in catagories... nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs.... even thought some words can fit into every catagory (i think of the t shirt explaining how the word F*** or Sh*t, can be any one of these parts of speech, but many common words can be one or more parts of speech)
we catorgories ourselves too, (male/female, husband/wife, single/married, young/old, conservative/liberal, and any other number of ways... and sometimes, by doing so, we effect our personality.
i used to be, stealing a line from dicken's, "a mere child". i had married young, and had children young, and more over, had married a man 7 years my senior (a big gap at age 18!)who also had many friend 7 to 20 years older than him. so i was always the youngest person in our 'set'.
at some point, i realised my tag line, "i am but a mere child" was one i used to absolve myself of responsiblity. i stoppped using it, and that was part of my process of "growing up"...
(My ex-husband, used and still uses occationaly, the cute line, "Don't try to confuse me with the facts, i have already made up my mind." --it remains one of the lines i hate!)
these little tag lines, expressions, that we use at points in our life, can be self defining. and while we use them, while we define ourselves with them, they do define us change the words, and thing change....
My former father in law was self conscious about losing his hair... but one day, (in the late 1950's) Don Ameiche (not sure of the spelling of his name) arrived in the neighborhood of their summer home, by helicopter... as he stepped off the 'copter, the strong down winds, mussed up his thick wavy hair.. his daugter, (a child at the time,) looked up to her father and said, "that would never happen to you daddy, you always look neat, you even have a neat head" -- her comment changed Frank's veiw-- he wasn't balding, but neat, right down to his head, and his didn't have thick unrully hair that would get blown about in the wind...her words let him see his baldness in a new way, and the new view was a more possitive one, one he could accept, (even if he didn't cherise) and his baldness bothered him less.
Word minstral comments reflect a perseption of Faldage... and words are very powerful. The don't really effect Faldage unless he takes them to heart, and lets them.
it is interesting that we have two adages about words and their power...
"sticks and stones might break my bones, but words will never harm me..."
and
"The pen is a mighter septer than the sword."
both are true...
i think this idea could be a wonderful thread, a wonderful way to explore how words compartmentalize, or liberate us.
