Assembling letters is one thing. Assembling words is something else entirely.
And now let me say just a few words… about words.
It's not news that we live in an intensely visual culture. The ubiquity of imagery bombarding us every day has dramatically changed the way we communicate. Even the concept of a text message, itself a small bit of fragmented thinking, has devolved into pictograms: emoji! We use pictures to communicate things where we used to use words. It's as if the extraordinary technological web we’ve created for ourselves has reverted to the cave paintings of Lascaux.
If people wonder or even debate which of our five senses holds cognitive primacy, I’ll suggest that our sensory apparatus is not the first thing on the list. Language is not a sense, per se, but in many ways it’s still the top of the food chain, and despite every emoji, Instagram message, or animated GIF, it has no risk of losing its pride of place anytime soon. Where we click and swipe on photographs and videos all day long, the words that commend our attention to those images or otherwise surround them or give them context have become surprisingly powerful. But then, they’ve always been powerful, even before those visual mediums existed. As they saying goes, words matter.
It's vital for each of us to recall that what we say will profoundly affect how we are perceived. This may sound obvious on its face, but the distinction between a clumsily constructed turn of phrase and a sublimely constructed may have dramatic implications on what our audiences interpret. Where a picture maybe worth a thousand words, a few well-placed words can make all the difference to giving that picture lift and heft and context all at the same time.
Despite the intense pressures of our visual experiences, it’s interesting to note that most of what we do at work and at play still requires a measure of language to function. There is no software design, for example, without a meta-language describing the goals of the app, the intentions and strategies that will make it work. There are no highway off ramps built without carefully documented texts describing construction plans, schedules, and financing. The documentation that underpins even the lowest budget movie, from script to technical notes to marketing strategies, all get spelled out in prosaic words. Managed well, words give velocity to success. Managed poorly, which is really to say used clumsily, words set up preconditions for mediocrity or even irrelevance.
Sadly there's no way a novel is going to compete for immediate attention against a couple of quickly swiped photographs on a handheld device. I lament this, but it’s true. That said, quantity does not describe quality. I’m aware that a few photographs given the right few words around them will have a cultural punch that's hard to match. Photos may speak on their own, but a smart turn of phrase helps cement the concept—not the image, but the concept of the image—in mind. It’s true that what we say and what we mean are sometimes incongruent, but what we say still matters profoundly. Therefore, use your words carefully, and use them well.