A Note on Language.

My midwife said something that struck me at one of our visits.  She said that she felt bad whenever someone called a baby a "good" baby because the use of the word "good" to describe an easy baby implied that all other babies were bad babies.
She has a point, and now, whenever someone asks me if our little one is a "good" baby I tell them that he is an easy baby.  Because now I feel sad for the more difficult babies that are being labeled as "bad" by default.  I know that this isn't what people are saying when they ask if he's a "good" baby, but I can't get it out of my head.

This line of thought was provocative; I started thinking about the words we use and how it affects our perception of people, places, and objects.  To use another baby example, hubby referred to the little one as pathetic one night while we were driving home and he was crying in his car-seat.  I got defensive because I associate "pathetic" with negative connotations.  Hubby was using the word for it's actual definition, and he had to explain that to me.
But, how many times have you heard someone use the word "pathetic" to paint another person or thing in a bad light?  How many times have you used it in that way?

Another thing this makes me think about is the way words can lose their meaning a little over time and use.  The word "awesome" has been sort of dulled over the years for me because of how frequently it's used.  Awesome is supposed to mean that something leaves you in awe, like mouth gaping, speechless, awe.  I hardly ever hear it used this way and so it has sort of lost the potency of its meaning.

And then I start thinking about my own language.  I can sometimes have strange diction, or sentence structure when I'm speaking (or writing for that matter).  This leads to bad impressions, or that face-tingling embarrassed me that can't do anything but say the wrong thing - occasionally it leads to hilarity and good times.  For this reason, I don't mix well with people who offend easily.  I generally spend most of my time with them backtracking, trying - in vain - to explain what it was I meant to say when I said whatever asinine thing that actually came out of my mouth.

So the station at which my train of thought arrives is this: my language use is something that I should pay more attention to, but I like the weird things that I say sometimes.  Even if they get me into trouble, which they do. 
I guess it makes for good stories later?