You can't hear a word and just hear it as raw sound; it always evokes an associated meaning and emotion in the brain.
Interpretation
Words carry deeper meanings and emotional connections that go beyond mere sound.
In this quote, Steven Pinker emphasizes that language is not just a collection of sounds; rather, each word invokes specific meanings and emotions in our minds. This inherent connection between sound and sentiment illustrates the complex nature of human communication, where context, experiences, and feelings influence our understanding of spoken language.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of effective communication, you might reference this quote to illustrate how words affect our feelings.
The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified.
The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed as babies, just as the decrepitude of age in the price we pay for the vigor of youth.
If we are not to abandon values such as peace and equality, or our commitments to science and truth, then we must pry these values away from claims about our psychological makeup that are vulnerable to being proven false.
We adults protect ourselves with laws, police, workplace regulations and social norms and there is no conceivable reason why children should be left more vulnerable, other that laziness or callousness in considering what life is like from their point of view.
The idea that children are passive repositories to be shaped by their parents has been massively overstated. A child's peer group is a far greater determinant of its development and achievements than parental aspiration.
Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't "believe" in reason.
There is no slave but the creature that wills against its Creator.
The engineers of the future will be poets.
Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody can read.
We have a tendency to make assumptions about everything! The problem with making assumptions is that we believe they are truth. We could swear they are real. We make assumptions about what others are doing or thinking-we take it personally-then we blame them and react by sending emotional poison in our word. That is why whenever we make assumptions, we're asking for problems. We make assumptions, we misunderstand, we take it personally, and we end up creating a whole big drama for nothing.
To be a utilitarian means that you judge actions as right or wrong in accordance with whether they have good consequences. So you try to do what will have the best consequences for all of those affected.
He had one illusion - France; and one disillusion - mankind, including Frenchmen.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.