Words Are Just Words

“Words, he decided, were inadequate at best, impossible at worst. They meant too many things. Or they meant nothing at all.” 

― Patricia A. McKillip, In the Forests of Serre

We supply the meaning.

Why is this important?

I look back at times I entered into relationships, believing we both wanted the same thing, and discovered that was not quite so. We both said we wanted a relationship yet what that meant was different to each of us. Our meaning of the exact same word was completely different.

How can that be? Isn't it the same exact word? Doesn't it have one definition in the dictionary?

This past May I attended an NLP Practitioner Certification Training. If you are not familiar with NLP (short for Neuro-Linguistic Programming) it is a fancy to call a process of modeling success. In NLP we model the successful behavior in one person and recreate it in order to create success in another. You find the "how-to" of successful people and apply their formula to create your own success.

NLP is also known as the study of excellence in communication. Language is key here. The language we use to speak to ourselves and to others.

I participated in an interesting exercise to demonstrate that words are just words and we supply the meaning behind them. Until I did this exercise I had a fairly tenuous grasp on that really meant.

The exercise is simple. Select a word, say relationship and write down five words that express what relationship means to you.

Relationship:
Commitment
Closeness
Intimacy
Respect
Appreciation

Next we compared answers. No one had the same five words. Frequently people would share one single word in their unique meaning combination, less frequent was two shared words, fewer yet were three shared words. I do not recall a single instance where anyone had four or five words that matched.

That's because words are just words and we supply the meaning.

Think about it next time you argue with someone about what they meant. You just might be applying your own meaning and that does not necessarily have anything to do with theirs.

Understanding this now I find myself asking people "what does that mean to you?" more often. I have learned to dig a bit deeper. To not make assumptions.

So the next time someone uses a word you don't agree with, remember you are supplying the meaning.