Steven Fry is a bit of a hero of mine. I love his take on language and I have recently found language to be one of the biggest challenges when it comes to communication especially across borders.
The English language is wonderfully coloured with idioms and phrases that to some would not make sense. I heard an old lady in the charity shop yesterday say "this is wicked" as she admired some royal paraphernalia and I wondered whether deep down she genuinely thought the royal family as wicked as witches or as awesome as the word awesome.
Personally I have found myself saying "no offence" when really there's no such thing in the context to be taken. Likewise I'll unconsciously say something that makes perfect sense to the English speaker but is a complete oxymoron to one who has merely studied the subject as a second language. Evidently saying precisely what you mean can come across as somewhat unpoetic and dull at times.
Apparently the "Philosophy of language is concerned with four central problems: the nature of meaning, language use, language cognition, and the relationship between language and reality." via Wikipedia. Something worth considering when we start spieling our words. Words in which I believe have power and are worth minding.
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