The Legacy of Language

Photo by Andreas Fickl

Third in my series on “Ellen’s Eight Essential Elements”

When you rave about a book, article, essay or poem, you highlight the words that stopped, held or shook you. Often it’s just a sentence or phrase; sometimes a single word. Words that give you pause or inspire you to read them again have done their job: They have moved you to feel or even possibly, act.  

It’s the legacy that language leaves behind.

I collect well-turned phrases and sentences like some people collect shells on the beach. I study them for their selection, structure and sound. Some get me thinking. Some teach. Others I like for their rhythm or humor.

Sharing some favorites here:

It’s hard to hear a gentle voice when hate keeps shouting in your ear. Sisters

We writers are the raw nerve of the universe. Ursula Le Guin

You see an old basement of chatty old women playing mah jong. I see a complex network of relationships, favors and debts.—Michelle Yeoh in “The Brothers Sun”

There’s nothing new under the sun except your eye. Eudora Welty

The same wind that seeks to blow out a fire can cause its spread. Gil-Gilad, Lord of the Rings 

During my travels across America, I’m always looking at other cities and asking, “Could we grow old together?” From “I’m Not From Here,” by Eileen Dougharty (Thread, Summer 2015)

This counterfeit ski photo of me sitting dumbfounded on top of a grimy snowbank represented exactly where I was in life: Stuck on the Bunny Hill of a career that was on a slow downhill slide. From “The Paper Trail” by Tom Wolferman (Thread, Spring 2015)

The words we choose also serve as emotional markers. Research tells us that our language can be a reflection of how we see ourselves. Helping people reinterpret or reframe their stories using more constructive or positive words is at the core of the idea is that our first tellings - our first drafts - are not our final ones. As we retell our stories, we modify them and in so doing, we may be able to change parts of ourselves or at least the way we think about ourselves.

The best advice I’ve seen about the potency of language are the sentences Hemingway wrote about writing sentences. Stuck in a writing project, he wrote, “I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, ‘Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.’ So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there.”

Coming Up

“Words that Woo: Literary Activism” Lighthouse Lit Fest, (online) June 6, 2025, 10 am - noon (CT)

“When Everything Changed: Writing Your Marker Story,” Lighthouse Lit Fest (online), June 7, 10 am - noon (CT)

“Literary Lightning: Finding the Poetry in Your Prose,” Lighthouse Lit Fest, (online), June 9, 2025, 10 am - noon (CT)