Meanings and Moral Values
fidence in his acts and faith in his love. For the real meaning of a word is not in the dictionary but in the human consciousness. And that is the reason why bad breath and worse teeth, offensive as they are, are attractive when compared with many words that men and women daily use. Better than “good birth” is attractive speech. We may excuse faulty attire, forgive the social slips of those who have forgotten from their little book on etiquette—in a word, we can overlook almost all shortcomings and errors of conduct save those only of speech. There is something in a man’s words that marks him with the mark of Cain or puts the halo around his brow. Yet, what a curious thing is language? Words are the least part of it. Their aptness, inflections, tones, pronunciations, stresses, and combinations—their parallelisms and contrasts—all these are immeasurably greater than the mere words themselves.
Some words seem immortal, as if possessed of spirit that persists through change of form
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