Much ink has been shed lately concerning language. Political correctness. Most of it has been true and well-founded. Yet, maybe something is missing.

In her 1994 Nobel lecture, Toni Morrison told a story. A story about an old woman. “Blind. Wise.” She’s visited by some young children who are bent on ridiculing her and disproving her wisdom. A young boy holds a bird in his hand and asks the old lady if it’s dead or alive.

She does not answer. The kids try not to laugh.

“‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘I don’t know whether the bird you are holding is dead or alive, but what I do know is that it is in your hands. It is in your hands.'”

Morrison reads the bird as language and the woman as a writer.

Language is dying. Hear it?

“…children have bitten their tongues off and use bullets instead to iterate the void of speechlessness, of disabled and disabling language, of language adults have abandoned altogether as a device for grappling with meaning, providing guidance or expressing love.”

“F—-.”

That “f——-g” word, used in every other “f——-g” sentence.

Neutered.

It doesn’t mean a thing anymore. Just another word. Like hello.

Language is dying.

It is dying out of carelessness, misuse, disuse and indifference.

Tongue suicide.

What can language do?

He says he’ll never marry. No. Never. Not because of the rain or how it sometimes can be so frigid and how sometimes you can feel each drop. No. Because of her. He’s walking. He sees her and stops for a bit; keeps walking.

She’s sitting there. With her fiancé, with her family, with her friends, with her little lap dog, with her boss. They’re sitting at some restaurant with big chandeliers and waiters with white coats and mustaches. She looks happy, sitting there laughing, eating, drinking, giving knowing winks to the dapper man sitting next to her massaging her thigh.

He gapes through the window.

She’s damn stunning. She has on a crimson satin evening gown and her neck sparkles.

The rain is colder than ever.

He loves her. She used to love him. He let her slip away like he dreamt he would. He walks away.

He knew he’d let the one he really loved with all his heart and burnt up soul get away. There’s no reason to be with the one you almost love.

The maitre d’ looks nauseated. He’s drenched from head to toe. He runs his fingers through his wet, brown hair. Smiles. They slip a nice green coat on him with yellow elbow patches. His heart almost beats out of his chest when he sees her again. After a while he can’t take it anymore and ambles up to her sitting there amongst the royalty. They all stare at him. His hand trembles and he tells her to go with him. Now. He needs her. They laugh. Bruno, the bouncer, is big and throws him on the sidewalk.

She used to say love was just something you say. Insignificant words to allay weak hearts and emotions. He’d say it to her anyway. She’d blush and lean her head a little forward and steal a glance at him from the corner of her eyes. Maybe this was the one, she’d think.

He remembers how she felt under his touch. Her soft, ivory skin and her golden locks. The rain numbs.

She catches a glimpse of him as she’s leaving. She stops. He saunters over. They stand under the neon haze and kiss. They run down the empty streets. Nothing can catch them now. He’s not ever letting go. He can’t feel the rain anymore.

Language can lift you up and let you down. It can make you feel, laugh, cry, think, believe. It is everything and nothing. Expansive in one breath and limiting in the next.

Life is ephemeral. Language is what we are. It can bridge any gap.

Maybe we should as a whole stop trying to say things we really never meant and say what’s on our minds. Maybe someone somewhere should dust off a dictionary once in while and open it.

Learn a new word. Annoy your friends with it. Maybe not.

The girl usually gets away anyway.