One word, or half-word,
missed, or misheard,
or out of place
can utterly deface
the beauty of a sentence
which carried good intentions.

The fragility
it seems to me
of the language that we use,
so readily abused,
renders speech a fraught enterprise;
I am constantly suprised
that we continue to converse
without such matters getting worse!

Now, if we could 'talk' without speaking
as if there were a meeting
of minds, acheived with empathy,
our thoughts might be more clearly understood,
would
they not?

Hmmn.. 'Not' - the best example; its omission in a phrase
by accident impacts in multiplicities of ways.
(Its erring inclusion, similarly
is dangerous, it occurs to me) .

The reversal of intention
with one single word wrongly mentioned.

Context is all, surely, it seems;
and to understand what someone means
one needs to go that extra mile

and see if the speaker wears a smile.

Tara McH

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-fragility-of-language-ed-repost/