Hello Everyone
According to the Global
Language Monitor and Google we now have more than a million words in the English
language.
The millionth word was the
controversial ‘Web 2.0′. Currently there is a new word created every 98 minutes
or about 14.7 words per day!
Some other interesting
numbers include: 6,912 for the number of living languages; 516 for the number
of those languages that are nearly extinct.
Chinese Mandarin is the language
with the greatest number of native speakers and English is spoken by about 300
million non-native English speakers.
With all of this interesting
information about the English language, there is just one word that I would
like you to consider right now. The word
is ‘away’. We use this word with such
abandon but very few of us have given any thought to the implications of its
usage, especially if we looking at having a sustainable world.
We often say we are
throwing something ‘away’ but I and other environmentally conscious people are
asking where is away?
When that challenge was
first brought to my attention I was taken aback. I used the word as much as
anyone else but had never really considered where is away?
In fact there is no ‘away’. Many things we create on planet Earth do not
go away. They might change form or move
to another area but they do not go away.
To even think they might disappear is doing our intelligence a great
disservice!
You might like to consider
over the next few days which other words we have taken for granted without
really considering their implications.
Think! Live!
Love! Laugh!
