Blog Post #3

Blog Post #3

Alright. So I was thinking a lot about words recently and how it's used. And I realised that a lot of people like to use exaggeration. For a certain example, "I'm so tired I'm gonna die." It's alright to say this once in a while but I found out that people are using it too much and it's overused. Like everywhere, you hear people saying it. I mean of course the people who use it dont actually mean it but imagine what it sounds like to people who are actually going to die. How would they feel about it? There are people who are actually dying out there and people here are saying it like a joke.

Another phrase I heard a lot was "I'm so hungry I'm gonna die." Similarly, I have also read a magazine article by a magazine editor and he talks about kind of what I'm talking about now. I cant find that article anymore though but I was actually kind of convinced by the editor. That's why I'm writing this post. In his article, he talks about people overusing this phrase and not knowing the effect of it; that somewhere out there, people are actually starving from hunger.

Maybe you think it's ok to use hyperbole. It's a literary device after all. But these things are so overused they dont have the effect anymore. There's no more value to that word anymore.

Come to think of it, words are like goods. If goods are in high stock and there's a lot of it, the price and value of it decreases. But if it is rare, then the value increases. Say for example the word Sorry. If someone uses the word Sorry too frequently, there's no value to the word  anymore. Why? Say if this person says Sorry countless times to the person sitting next to him because he bumped him with his elbow countless times. And the next time, he feels really apologetic to someone else and says Sorry. This Sorry doesnt carry much value anymore. Sure maybe the person is sincere but you cant exactly feel the sincerity in his apology because it comes too easily. To get an apology from him is so easy, it's not even precious.

And after you hear everyone say it so casually, it doesnt even have that exaggeration effect anymore. I'm not trying to tell you to stop using this phrases and it's perfectly fine if you carry on to use them. But just remember, words have values too :)