A palavra

"Words are cheap, the saying goes, they cost nothing, yet they have power to evoke images, sounds and feelings in the listener or reader as every poet and advertising copywriter knows. They can start or break up relationships, sever diplomatic relations, provoke fights or wars.

Words can put us into good or bad states, they are anchors for a complex series of experiences. So the only answer to the question 'What does a word really mean?' is 'To whom?'. Language is a tool of communication and, as such, words mean what people agree they mean. It is a shared way to communicate about sense experience. Without it there would be no basis for society as we know it.

(...)

We each experience the world in a unique way. Words are inherently meaningless, as becomes clear when you listen to a foreign language that you do not understand. We give words meaning through their anchored associations to objects and experiences throughout our life. We do not all see the same objects or have the same experiences. The fact that other people do have different maps and meanings adds richness and variety to life. We are likely to agree on the meaning of the words 'treacle tart' for we have shared the same sight, smell and taste of it. But we argue far into the night over the meaning of such abstract words as 'respect', 'love' and 'politics'. The possibilities for confusion are immense. These words particularly, are like Rorschach onk blots, meaning different things to diferent people."


- "Introducing NLP" by Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour