Communication

My relationship with language began in ernest as soon as I learned the word 'NO'. It resulted in my getting a fearsome slap from my mother, who I would add, seemed to emphasise her slaps with a stern and terrifying glance.

Pretty quickly I discovered that there are many ways of saying 'NO' without actually using that word.

The next word I quickly learned was 'YES' because while I was at school that word seemed to appease my belligerent teachers.

However, my real relationship with language began in earnest about two and a half years ago when I downloaded another app similar to Prose, and discovered that I seemed to have a flair for poetry (or so people told me at the time), but at first I was extremely lax in my rhyming.

Gradually, over the first year of writing poetry I discovered a love of Rudyard Kipling, and his colourful style and frequent use of colloquial English in his Barrack Room Ballads collection. A style I sometimes try to adopt (with varying degrees of success).

Poetry aside however, there are several forms of language, not least of which is speech, and my interpretation of body language and posture, combined with gestures was honed to almost black belt levels during my military service.

Speech and the written word remain my new love, and poetry in particular is truly close to my heart. Though in reality I remain an aspiring writer, the dream of becoming professional is most likely to remain just that; a dream.

But nonetheless I remain a lover of the written word as a means of conveying ones emotions on paper.

When it comes to drawing out an emotional response from readers I am I confess not so proficient, having had but one response to a poem I first penned about a year ago. It concerned a girl writing her father a suicide note and that very poem (published on Prose somewhere), drew a considerable emotional outcry.

If there is one part of language that I miss it is reading a good book. Having lost the sight of one eye several years ago, and my remaining eye hanging on for dear life I find reading difficult if I am reading a book. My eyes tire quickly if I try to read from a screen, so that avenue of pleasure is very limited.

I will say though that I do love the Children's Classics, particularly the collection by The Brothers Grimm.

All of us need a form of communication and language, with all its complexities and subtle nuances continue to fascinate me. We do it seems take our main form of communication for granted in my opinion as a glance through any decent thesaurus will demonstrate many new words a phrases which are quite new to me.

But I am by my own admission an old timer and though my eyes are dimmed by time, my brain is as active as ever it was and language just fascinates me.