Semantics...

A word that has been bothering me for some time now, simply because it can cause huge misunderstandings.

Today I finally decided to check it out.

Semantics appears in linguistics and logic, and is basically concerned with meaning. So we have--

Lexical semantics which deals with the study of meaning and is concerned with the analysis of the meanings of words, changes in meaning and in the principles that govern the relationship between sentences or words and their meanings

and

Logical semantics which is the study of interpretations of a formal theory, that is, a study of principles that determine the truth or falsehood of sentences in the theory, or of references of its terms, signs, or symbols; and matters such as presupposition and implication.

Point to remember: Be careful with words - they too have a life!!

Two beautifully evocative phrases...

from Robin Rice's http://bewhoyouare.com/be-who-you-are-with-robin-rice/the-barn-dance

The story is titled The Barn Dance

Talking about a phenomenally gifted violin player who was torn between playing what was in her soul, 'wishing that the smallest bit of her own special laughter and her own little tears could find expression,' on her grandfather's fiddle, and  being part of an orchestra that offered audiences beautiful music but to which she could never give the music in her soul. And she says as the years went by in this struggle between her soul music and orchestral music, 'her sorrow caused her blood to feel as though it moved through her veins as thick as pulled taffy.' 


And the second is the words Rice uses to describe and old woman's eyes - they were 'like sapphires drenched in light.'

I got this word...

from the OED Online Word of the Day

ego-surf

It means to search on the Internet for mentions of one's own name or the name of one's business, website, etc.

Jug Suraiya...

uses this unique word - 'factoid' to mean a manufactured fact

in:

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/jugglebandhi/entry/parlay_voo_france

Powerful words...

to describe a feeling of grief...or deep hurt or wound to the soul...

'The silent storm-swept barrenness...'

 ~  Howard Thurman in "Meditations of the Heart"

Chew over this...

from Olivia Goldsmith's 'Marrying Mom'...

Marital osmosis

Isn't it evocative? and thought provoking?

Again from Khaled Hosseini...

Talking to his mother whom he is seeing after ages.....after getting over the initial shock of seeing his mother aged, and with not much more time left, Dr Markos Varvaris says he worries about her. Her reply is characteristic of her: 'No need to. I can take care of myself all right.'

'But for how long,' asks he.

'As long as I can,' she says, and he comes back with, 'And when you can't, then what?'

----------------------I love the answer she gives. Here it is:

'It's a funny thing, Markos, but people mostly have it backward. They think they live by what they want. But really what guides them is what they're afraid of. What they don't want.'

--------------------Powerful words by a woman who knows how she wants to live her life out...