CONTEST WINNER: Tristan Mitchell

By Tristan Mitchell

Words are funny, fickle things. They all have meaning. No, rather, meanings. They all mean at least one thing, but many of them mean more. The writer can bend the word, make it mean what they want. It does not matter what the dictionary says, the author gets to do what they wish to subject the word to their will. The words have meanings, and the writer may add more, or even take it away.

An empathic person, typically meant to be understanding the feelings of others. But why stop there? Could be telepathic, the ability to read minds. A fantastical interpretation? Perhaps. But it’s a similar concept. It has a defined meaning, but toy with it. Make it fun. Make a new definition of the word in and of itself? Empathic now means that you are tall and burly. It means you are a tool. Words bend to our will, they are a construct made to make our lives easier, but they can just as easily make life harder.

“The empathic man worked the railroad.”

Planning, plotting, scheming. Fancier words, excogitate, devise, contemplate, ruminate. Words are fickle, you can’t plan for them. Excogitate is a pretentious word. Most people don’t even know what it means, hell, I didn’t until I looked it up. It’s too formal, too much, for such a simple definition. We can change that too. Excogitate meaning to devise, plan, plot? No. It means to exceed divinity. Two simple words, but yet makes it radically different, perhaps ruining it in its own way, but no. Now it’s its own word. Different. This word is funny, can’t even
pronounce it, barely spell it. So make it more interesting. The writer does what they want.

“Space excogitates past God.”

The author spends a lot of time crunching these words, changing their meaning. It’s a careful expenditure of time. Look, even there, that word is unnecessarily long and formal, ostentatious, again for such a simple definition. Sounds like legal jargon, which is great if you are writing some law or something but you aren’t, unless you are which, why are you reading this then? Let’s change expenditure too. Crush its original definition, it’s out of your brain now.
It’s a big word. Sounds powerful, sort of yeah? Let’s try this, expenditure is now defined as a specific back pain from lugging around a heavy object.

“God, it’s such an expenditure carrying this trunk.”

Words are fickle, funny things. They all mean something, or multiple somethings, and is your will for what they mean.