Inflation of Language

Words. Sounds. Ideas. They change the world, shape lives and lift hearts.
We so often declare (without thinking), I LOVE those shoes, or I love that movie, I love this food, I love this activity, I love this person. We say I hate this show, I hate this book, I hate this state.. But do we really? Do we really "1. to dislike intensely or passionately; feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward; detest"? Do we really have "a profoundly tender, passionate affection" for those shoes, that food, that person?

No. We don't, at least not as often as we say it. Our language is becoming polluted and inflated, quickly declining in value and soon it will be worth absolutely nil, just as the confederate's money was worthless enough to burn. The words once used to describe true splendor and beauty, passion, loathing; the words that were used to describe the extraordinary are now being used to describe the vulgar and mundane. We say "I love you" to everyone & their mom's, but we don't really love them all that often, at best we faintly care for about 5% of the people we say that to I'd bet. So what happens when we really DO love someone? When the passion burns in our breast for them, when we want to cry when we think of the joy they bring us, when we hold their happiness above our own? If we use the words Love, adore, relish, how are we to express with clarity and conviction the well of feelings in our soul? We don't. We don't properly express our devotion, our passion, our unconditional love, we DONT convince the other person of our love and gratitude, they think that it is only another vain repetition.. More often then not, they don't FEEL it, they simply smile and nod and respond in like manner as is dictated by social edict, but they don't really know that we adore them, that we love them, that we are devoted to them, that we are FOR them. It's just another set of words strung together in a sentence to them, another three words without meaning. And how unfortunate, that we will never be able to properly convey the deep resonance in our souls, all simply because we've inflated our damned language.

"Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite."
-C.S. Lewis