Logophobia

“Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.” 

~ Benjamin Lee Whorf
 

“Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.”

~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“Every language is a world. Without translation, we would inhabit parishes bordering on silence.”

~ George Steiner

Logophobia


Small minds only use little words.
Monosyllabic habits breed dum-dums
Who hear statements in their own language
As if they were spoken in some foreign dialect.

Creative turns of phrase irk the unthinking.
Lummoxes hate having to mull meanings
Over and above one's personal presets;
Pitiable specimens of sensibility!

Yet we mustn't fear any mutations.
Heck, let your mouth run the gamut
From the mundane to haute gambits
And may mimicry work in your favor.

Neither allow xenophobic tendencies
Ever taint thine appreciation of tongues.
Yea! Every phraseology offers us keys
That open portals to many worlds unseen ...

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