Speaking for impact, literally

by Byron Woodson II

Some words simply have more impact or juice than others. For instance compare the two sentences:

1. He walked down the street

and

2. He sauntered down the boulevard

I'll be that if you compare what happened when you repeated those two sentences to yourself you'll find that the second sentence had more 'story' or 'nuance' to it. The word 'sauntered' gave a little nuance to how the guy walked, and 'boulevard' probably conjured images of a bigger street with multiple lanes of traffic and storefronts on either side. The thing to take from this is that some kinds of words evoke more than others. This post is about starting to identify some of the words that do just that.

We'll be taking a brief foray into what grammarians call "sensory predicates". These are words that evoke or require the use of a particular sensory system for you to understand them.

Sensory words
Visual (see) - perspective, see, light, clear, sunny, dark, bright
Auditory (hear) - loud, soft, deafening, tone, ring, bells, whistle
Kinesthetic (move) - shift, slide, climb, run, saunter, bolt
Emotive (feel) - heavy, light, damp, warm/cold,
Olfactory (smell) - rancid, flowery/floral,
Gustatory (taste) - salty, sweet, bitter

These are not all the sensory words that there are, they are just there to 'whet your whistle' (i.e. give you a taste) of them.

Anyway, who would have thought grammar could be fun? You should go apologize to your English teachers, but complain that they never told you.

Do this:
Next time you talk to someone, listen for when either you or they say a word from any of the sensory systems (visual, emotive, etc). If they say one of the words from one of the sensory systems, make sure that when you say your next sentence, use one of the words from the same sensory system. If you say one of the sensory words, listen to hear whether they say a word from the same sensory system or a different one. And watch their reactions when you two start matching sensory systems. If you do it well enough, it'll be like 'being on the same wavelength'.

Why would you try to match sensory systems?

Because each sensory system has its own way of interacting with the world. You could say that each sensory system has its own 'language'. When two people use the same sensory systems, and talk about things using the same sensory systems, then you're almost literally 'speaking the same language'. When you do not use the same sensory system langauge: "what we have here is a failure to communicate"

So, practice this for a couple days with a couple of people. Don't tell them what you're doing, just notice the different reactions you get. And feel free to email me your results, or post a comment.


*you can get a few more exercises about this by going to this link)
*you can also learn to sharpen your listening skills if you'd like
*or check out other words to play with in a conversation