Go Cross Yourself — Wisely
It probably has something to do with the relatives of "kreuzweise" — cross-wise, cross-ways, crossed. Because that lot had some rather bewildering and abstruse hobbies. Some of them enjoyed sliding down the other person's hump. They kept at it until the hump's owner would rather have had them stolen away entirely. Which is all the more remarkable because, just moments earlier, that same hunched soul had said: "You're welcome to me." Well then — love trumps everything.
Yes, «du kannst mich kreuzweise» works in German more dramatically. Sorry.
Words are mostly in a holding pattern, waiting for a sign. A stirring, a moment they've been wide awake for. Only then do they step forward and allow themselves to be woven into a sentence, like "You can go cross yourself sideways..." and so on. Some of these waiting words carry a slightly bitter to outright nasty undertone in their luggage. That usually shows in the facial expressions of whoever receives them — how the sentence landed. Which naturally, and also somewhat artificially, raises the question of why the sender reached for that particular word. Or even had to. Had they perhaps run out of Latin? Was there really no other, friendlier word available?
The agony of word choice is a delicate business. After all, some chosen words carry more weight than their cousins. That is to say: the arsenal in the rhetoric department has plenty of explosive and toxic material on offer — but also soothing and consoling. And sometimes one rhetorician or another reaches into the wrong word-bin.
In writing, at least, there is a grace period before a text is sent off into the cyber-cosmos or printed out and tucked into an envelope. There is plenty of time to look the sentence over once more before firing it at the other person.
Such a safety system would often be more than welcome in spoken rhetoric. But the mouth is often faster than the brain. Or the frustration is bigger than the caution in the china shop.
How often have I kicked myself when a word left my mouth and aggressively demanded entry into someone else's ear. A brief moment of sending turns into long moments of regret.
And then I sat there in the word-pit, and the original anger of the moment transformed into accusations directed at myself. "Think first, then speak, you dimwit!" I heard myself say in the quiet of my little room.
Cutting, toxic, insulting, and defamatory words have staying power. And they are deeply wounding. Wounds that are never visible from the outside — but they are there. Helping themselves to a little toxin for breakfast.
Rhetorical pollution can do terrible things in a society.
Rhetorical protection of the environment can cause its hopefully smiling opposite.
But like so many other important things, this requires practice. And one pacifist, considerate filter before hitting send.
Rhetoric is a fascinating tic.
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