Our words shape our reality

Posted on | November 17, 2009 |

Phrases and words have their own history - and sometimes it’s not what we think.

Recently someone signing off an email to me wrote, ‘Toodle-oo!’ and then signed it. ‘Toodle-oo’ may sound like fun, but actually it’s a corruption of the French ‘A tout a l’heure’ meaning: see you before too long.

What’s wrong with that, I hear you say? Nothing, except that in about the 1890s rich air-headed young men who couldn’t speak French liked to try and flaunt both their money and their ignorance by speaking it badly, and so they came out with a phrase that they could say that just so happened to murder the language.

It is, in fact, a rather crass insult all around. Use it, by all means, if that is what you intend, and if you also wish to look brainless.

But remember that we shape our reality by the words we choose, and so we may want to select those words carefully.

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