Wordscape

[…] we wonder whether the phrase might not be some mis-translation or a misprint […], but no matter, the phrase as is has a certain ring to it and bids fair to be a part of our wordscape for the foreseeable future. So we accept the reality of the notion and imagine that perhaps, like leprechauns, it survives only in Ireland.

[…] influence our perceptions increasingly as we grow. In one sense we are very much what we say, and how we interpret what is said to us. The world of words that mirrors the world of our experience is our wordscape. Passively accepting the wordscape at any point leads to a 'hardening of the categories', a freezing of the metaphors through which our experience is filtered. Constantly engaging and playing with language and […]

[…] all, however, have won their place in the book by passing into wider currency and exhibiting the staying power and the tendency to spawn byforms and allusions that suggest that they are and will remain part of the English-language wordscape.