© Elliot Essman 2005. All rights reserved.

These pages contain the complete text of Human Action, public speaking trainer Elliot Essman's philosophy of human achievement.

Elliot Essman Public Speaking Training
Human Action Table of Contents
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An overly static word is one so laden with certain meanings that it is difficult to use in a creative, consciousness expanding conversation. The word God for example, has been so associated with organized religion for so long that I submit it is nearly impossible to use without bringing up ingrained ideas from the Bible and the organized religions. Due to its overuse it is an icon and not merely a word; those three letters create powerful static associations in the human brain. Because of this, if a commentator wanted to refer to a spiritual force or infinite intelligence that didn't jibe with the “God” of traditional religion, he or she had best use a different term. “God” is too highly charged.

At the opposite extreme is an iconized word like love, which has so many meanings, and is so overused, that it often loses meaning for lack of definiteness. As God is too static to be a useful word, love is too kinetic. In America today we have Hollywood love, we have television love, we enjoy numerous species of greeting card love, we have teddy bear love, we have love on our stamps, we © New York and thousands of other communities, and, in short, we have misused, overused and polluted the word so that, as an icon, it can mean nearly any form of liking or regard, passionate or otherwise. So love, while a kinetic word because of its openness in meaning, leads to the static result. When you use that magic “L” word, often you say absolutely nothing.

Words and images are like shells, no less integral parts of nature than are the substances they cover, but better addressed to the eye and more open to observation. (George Santayana, 1863-1952)

The Belief Overhead of an iconized word is high. Iconized words are “charged vocal particles,” each having the power to overpower the context and short-circuit the process of creative kinetic communications. For that very reason, in this book I create my own vocabulary rather than adapting terms from philosophy or psychology. The terms are meant to be new, fresh and un-laden with baggage from other thought systems.

I was present at an international convention with 2,000 people attending when an extremely well-known motivational speaker repeatedly used a certain word with disastrous results. It was a racial epithet. This high-energy speaker didn't use the term in an obviously pejorative context. If anything, he repeated the word over and over in an attempt at some kind of mind-opening shock for the audience. The technique fell flat on its face because the iconized word totally overpowered the context. The word was not the only word the speaker said, but it was the only word the audience heard.

Exercise: Words as Icons

Reflect on past conversations you've had that left you feeling awkward.

• In any of these cases, did you use single words as powerful icons?

• Do you think you misused words and were misunderstood, or offended someone?

• Would you like to go back and rephrase some of the things you said? How would you do this?

• Are there icon-like words in your own inner or outer vocabulary you feel you should stop using, or tone down.