WORDS (Power Of Words and their Intensity)

Welcome back to another edition of CORE-man SENSE^TM, today we will be looking at the power of words and their intensity.

Over the years, words have been used to carry expressions thoughts and ideas all around the world. But this same words and lexical construction carry emotions which gives them expression in times of tone and modalities in which they are been used. For example are you crazy? (Soft tone) sounds more like a surprised compliment or a kudos to doing something extraordinary rather than are you crazy? (Harsh tone), this often doesn’t end without a fight.

Words also can be used for personal transformation and emotional balance, many times we all can have the same experience and represent the experience with words differently depending on how vast our vocabularies are individually. According to world leading linguists, on the average we use up to 2000-10000 words in our lifetime when we have the disposition of about 500000-750000 in the English language. Isn’t that amusing?

So far so good, the more interesting part is that the words that are linked to emotions are a little more than 3000 words according to an American neuro-psychologist Anthony Robbins, in which the positive ones have about 1051 and negative emotions 2086 words. What an irony?

Little wonder when people find it easier to respond to negative words and emotion than the positive, have you ever noticed the intensity of  little sally’s response to ridiculous metaphors used on her? But did you realise if you as well give her a compliment on her outfit, all you’ll get is a shrugged thank you with lesser intensity. According to Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Daniel l. Schacter in a research, discovered that the part of the brain that respond to the motivation and emotional behaviour which are the amygdala, the prefrontal cortex and glyrus. The lateral prefrontal cortex responds more to the negative than to non-negative words, whereas the medial PFC (prefrontal cortex), precuneus/inferior parietal lobe, and superior, middle, and inferior temporal glyri responded more to positive items than to negative ones. Thus, the amygdalar response to high-arousal stimuli appears to generalize across a range of stimulus types and experimental tasks. It is important to note that a prior study (Royet et al., 2000) suggested that olfactory stimuli may be more effective than visual stimuli in activating the amygdala i.e. words trigger off the brain faster than pictures.

Sometimes, people respond to words based on the kind of words used in interaction. We can have the same experience but represent them differently. Sometimes ago Juan, Harvey, Tolu, Stephen and Joe all won a million dollar in a TV game show. Juan said he was excited when he got the last question correctly, Harvey said he was ecstatic, Tolu was happy, Stephen was elated, and Joe said “cool”. Did you hear that? Cool for a million dollars! Seriously. You can see that we represent our emotions with words based on how wide our vocabulary is. Here are few words you could use to improve your vocabulary.

WORDS	STRONG	MEDIUM	LIGHT
HAPPINESS	Delighted	Happy	Fine
	Ebullient	Light-hearted	Contented
	Ecstatic	Gleeful	Cool
	Elated	Elevated	Genial
	Euphoric	Cheerful	Pleasant
	Vibrant	Buoyant	Serene
	Excited	Aglow	Satisfied
FEAR	Terrified	Afraid	Anxious
	Alarmed	Fearful	Cautious
	Petrified	Spineless	Goose-bumpy
	Horrified	Troubled	Worried
	Panicky	Scared	Tense
	Terror-stricken	Fidgety	Uneasy
ANGER	Livid	Annoyed	Dismayed
	Vengeful	Hostile	Galled
	Vindictive	Sore	Irritated
	Bitter	Resentful	Sullen
	Burned up	ill-tempered	Impatient
	Enraged	Fuming	Chagrined
	Wild	Irate	Irked

With these you can tone down the negative feelings you’re experiencing and amplify the positive feelings.

“The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart:  his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.”                            --Psalm 55:21 by King David.