When I was little, I don’t know why, but in my mind, some words had other correspondents in reality than they should. For example, the image I associated with the word ‘button’ was that of a helicopter. I realized at one point that something was wrong, I didn’t say anything, but I tested it at home and then learned to make the associations correctly. But I remember that I was a little scared, I was afraid my mother would find out that I didn’t know the words correctly.
With all its words and structures, the way we use language reflects how our thinking is organized. Sure, we all make mistakes. I am careless and I make mistakes quite often.
But the responsibility is even greater when someone has a public role. If you work in the media, in public institutions, if you are a teacher or politician, then you have a greater responsibility to have a correct, balanced, informative speech.
Unfortunately, even pretentious televisions forget an ‘i’ for the words that should be written with 3 , or an ‘pe’ from ‘care’, have some doubtful plurals, not to mention commas placed between the subject and the predicate of a sentence (I know, I shouldn’t be the one to speak, I sometimes don’t follow a few newly imposed rules: niciun, nicio, eu sunt – for example. I studied foreign languages and I had very good arguments for writing in a particular way).
But I don’t count, I don’t have a public role.
I read somewhere about the philosopher and politician Confucius. He was asked what he would do first if he were to govern. His response was:
‘The key is to name things correctly. If the names are incorrect, the words will no longer match. If the words don’t match, state affairs go wrong. If state affairs go wrong, neither rites nor music can flourish. If rites and music can no longer flourish, judgments and punishments cease to be just. If the judgments and punishments cease to be just, the people will no longer know how to behave. ‘
But of course, that was from other times, other lands.