Words too have an inner voice!

Surprised?

Well yes, you’d normally mumble before you actually let all your past readings have a rerun in your mind and admit defeat. You need examples.

OK. Life is always asking you to take decisions but at the same time listing option after option until your normally clear mind is completely surrounded by lots of mischievous IFs! It is always like: you could be here IF you go there OR you could be there If you’re here OR you could be IF you could not OR you could not only IF you could… and no, I’m not discussing decision-making here. The point is that the word ‘life’ has an ‘if’ inside it. Thus ‘if’ for ‘life’ becomes its true inner voice! Got it?

Inner Voice

I opened the dictionary and to my surprise, these inner voices in words began popping out even before the actual parent word even became discernible. Of-course, there will be a lot of words where the inner voice is actually camouflaged into a single alphabet that very intelligently gives you the message. Let me introduce you to a few of these alphabet-induced voices first:

Air has an ‘I’ in it which shows it has a fair amount of ego or bloated id in it. And I mean all sorts of airs and winds unless they happen to have an adopted name that gives them an added identity and, maybe, an inner voice too. For instance, a tempest is nearly always a pest, a hurricane strikes like a teacher’s cane, a blizzard is colder than a lizard with a double z, a gale has enough ale in it to break all sobriety laws, a windy uproar suggests that you venture out with all your oars,  whirlwinds are born to win, and a tornado cares little about keeping anything intact… whatever be their inner voice, you’ll always find them strutting around with bloated egos inherited from their parent ‘wind’.

Have you noticed that whenever or wherever someone wants to ‘TRY’ out something new, a lot of ‘WHYs’ surround it in its before- as well as after- avataar? Ah! This is because of the most inquisitive alphabet ever created: Y. Thus we have the sky that poses innumerable questions, a ministry that remains perpetually hidden under WHYs, and all paltry and faulty times keep getting suffixed and prefixed with ‘Why Me’? Bygone moments dwell interminably on the poetry of WHY, a prey waits with a silent beseeching query, and a query exists because it questions! Hope you are now able to see the inner voice of seemingly silent words.

Let’s not forget the bouncer ‘O’ that gives words like strong a commanding presence… though some words also let themselves be subjugated by it, for instance, a LOW intensity gets carried around on the broad shoulders of ‘O’. Words like tOll, mOll, grOwl, prOwl, smOte, stOke, bOx, rOcks, lOss, bOss, and so many others like them have preferred a strong (OOps! StrOng) inner vOice. GOt it? UnderstOOd? Words with ‘O’ as their inner voice can zOOm up and sOar higher than the highest or drOp lOwer than even Hades would bother to go!

With so much strength on display, it is easy to overlook the calm inner voice that exists to keep things together… but it is staring at us from a lot of words that we tend to use so frequently in our daily conversations. Yes, I am talking of the indefinite article ‘a’. No, ‘a’ isn’t the spineless, gutless, infinitely cowardly alphabet that grammar has converted it into. The alphabet ‘a’ has a vast spiritual reservoir built into it. Let’s examine the relaxed word lAter – doesn’t it have a sublime and inspirational rationale built into it? See words like cAlm and bAlm that have such a controlled effect. I know you’ll be tempted to throw words like hArm and ask: where is the calm inner voice here? Well, it isn’t hArm, it is hARM… you see now what the ARM of rowdy companionship does to your attitude? Words like rAm, mAr, bAr, slAm, dAmn, bArk, stArk and their likes are actually promoters of calmness and not calamity! For instance, when you slAm doors, you get more awakened to the need for cAlmness, and when a boss bArks an order he is actually clAmorously aiming for peace through discipline.

This morning I just happened to read a friend’s status update and the ensuing conversation on FB that has lead to this article. Let me share this conversation with you.

The voice

——————–

Friend 1:
Alwyz remember…there is
LIE in beLIEve
OVER in lOVER
END in friEND
US in trUSt
…EX in nEXt
IF in lIFe

So lIFe must go on.

Friend 2:
What came first? The EX or the nEXt?

Friend 1:
Wen d X goes, only den vl d nEXt cum in…

Friend 2:
Look deeper… and if one sees the EX inside the nEXt, is the EX really an EX? Thats philosophy, now.

Friend 1:
Of course… d EX has 2 b an EX, shud nvr b’cum d nEXt…coz it screws!

Friend 2:
Another witty corollary to the nEXt Theorem: Every nEXt has potential EX in it.

Friend 1:
It shud b d potential X factor n not d EX factor… dat’ll be gr8 fun. Rite?

Friend 1:
Coz more d X factor… more d fun to have d nEXt…

Friend 2:
Hmmm… thats interesting. Though if the promised X-uberance gets flaccid, all that remains is a NET.

Friend 1:
Hmmmmm… so d X or d nEXt shud knw hw to hold on to the NET…

——————–

Well, the conversation did lead me on write this small article on the ‘inner voice’ in words.

Let’s try and find a few words that have words within them functioning as their inner voice. I know there’ll be thousands of such words, but here are a few to get you started on this adventure of epistemological discovery:

There is a REACH within pREACH… though who is trying to reach where is anybody’s guess.

Notice that flamboyance hides a BOYishness of extravagance within it!

One of the most proactive words is forward as it has FORward as well as forWARd helping it shape concepts and ideas with its inner voice.

What makes the word stITCH so connected to life and relationships? Well, a sITCH can hide but never stop ITCHing to make its presence felt. So the word actually implores us to remain away from hurting each other.

Even a simple word like bLOCK is vociferous with its inner voice as it has a LOCK in it.

We know that there is a gambler’s instinct to just run away and not face the consequences in the word cowarDICE.

There will be so many words like the ones that I have mentioned… and I do hope people will keep adding them with their own quaint explanations and reasons. This is really what makes any language so much more fun to dabble in.

These words have impressed me so much, that I did end up writing this short rhyming poem as well:

Inner Voices

There is a lot to earn if you learn
To let in art inside your heart
And never rush, for you may crush
Or just scramble everything apart!

You get thematic if you’re mathematical
And never sick if just physical
But remember that every member
Of an actuary can’t act theatrical!

Poetry, we know, is strong
And you may rue if you’re true, but truly
The ‘if’ in life does no wrong
Quite unlike the bull in bully!

Spring can ring in a lusty time
Of courtship that is ours
And if we don’t rime with crime
We’ll find a new high in bars!

No ape or goat in a scapegoat
And there’s no car in scare
An inner voice floats in afloat
To make the word seem fair!

Words too then have a life within
They wait until they’re called
And then get drunk when origin
They find, with gin, installed!

Follow Your True Inner Voice

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© Arvind Passey
18 February 2011

Featured image credit: WDCore Editorial