The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword

Do words have power? How does language enhance/facilitate knowledge?
I think that words really do have a sort of power, but only because we put power into them. You can give words power by putting meaning and importance into the communication of the words, leading to the other person believing they are powerful. I think that people will put importance into words, because they feel that their ideas are important, and will try and convey that importance and message through words. This means that those words you use, were given power. We put the power into those words because of how we perceive them as important. Messages that we feel are important, like raw feelings and emotions, like I ‘hate’ or ‘love’ you are perceived as being very powerful words, simply because the feelings we express through them are strong and we mean them to be important. Another example of powerful words are extremes like ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and usually these are only powerful when the answer is very important to the giver and receiver of the message. If someone asks something really important to another person, like ‘will you marry me’ the answer of yes or no has much more power because it is something very important to both parties of the communication. If it was a mundane question like ‘do you want fries with that?’ then the answer would be much less powerful. It is still necessary, but the words would not hold much meaning, especially to the receiver of the message.

What are some problems with language? How does language impede/prevent knowledge?
Some problems with language are the perceptions that come along with it. When you use language, you are subjecting yourself to trying to express complex ideas and emotions through a set of strict barriers in order to send a clear message to the person you are communicating with. There are so many different barriers, in order to keep the message the same for both parties and in a lot of cases, the meaning of one sentence will be different between the receiver and giver of the message. This can lead to misunderstandings and double meanings as well as a loss of communication leading to false information and knowledge. Not to mention, language is subjected to changes because sometimes when you give the message to two different audiences, you must edit the content to match the type of audience, because some receivers will understand one type of double meaning, while others will not. Not to mention the variances due to ambiguity and irony as well as sarcasm, which will greatly affect what the audience actually understands from the communicator. It is difficult to portray the same thinking of the giver to the receiver without losing information in the translation of the thoughts to words. This process also occasionally happens within the brain of the giver, as you communicate with yourself in thoughts that often are portrayed in words, meaning your brain is communicating to you too. Therefore, there will always be an impediment in the knowledge transference between two parties.