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Cliché Therapy I
Sticks and stone may break my bones…
Today we begin a new feature which will appear occasionally in my collection of articles that no one reads. It’s called Cliché Therapy. Clichés contain the accumulated wisdom of the ages captured in pithy and memorable phrases, and in Cliché Therapy we will take a look at what they teach us and try to gain some insight into how they apply to our lives.
Let’s start with one of the most familiar clichés: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. For the sake of brevity, we will refer to this saying as S&S.
Besides being one of the best-known clichés, S&S is also one that is almost universally criticized as being untrue. It is true in one sense, and in another it is totally false.
The most obvious meaning of S&S is that in a physical sense words do not carry the same danger as a physical attack with sticks, stones, or whatever the weapon of choice happens to be. Words are just air and sound waves. The only danger in the current environment is if the air carries the coronavirus. If you get vaccinated and wear a mask you shouldn’t have to worry too much about the air.
The false side of S&S is that words can indeed hurt and hurt deeply. Not physically, but emotionally and psychologically, which in some cases can be worse and more debilitating than physical wounds. Two primary factors affect how much words can hurt.
