I was with a friend of mine having lunch and I wanted to share a tweet on something he had said. Allow me to put you in the context of our conversation first. This will also aid you to understand the conclusion of this article.
My friend told me, ‘I have just received a security proposal from this lady. She wants to supply me with guards for my properties, yet she runs a club. So I asked her why she is leaving the club business and she said that people nowadays don’t drink beer. The economy is bad.’
Of late I have been obsessed by the state of the economy in Kenya. So immediately I wanted to upload and tag my followers. It’s news just in and it’s hot. Imagine people giving up on the bottle; it’s proof people are broke.
I have always found the placement of propositions tricky in recent times as language transforms. It reminds me when I was in college and our Indian professor used to say, “Propositions are the most difficult in the English language.” So I wanted to get clarification of the word pray on/for.
Upon asking him which proposition to use (he holds a PhD in Agriculture), he said Pray On. I was not in agreement so we began arguing about it.
After a few sentences flew, my friend realized that I meant the word PRAY, but he thought it was PREY. This automatically sent me thinking why he chose the meaning of Prey and not Pray. I discovered that You respond to words according to your context/situation.
“Unconsciously, we find ourselves reporting our situation. We understand words and statements in the current context: the situation you are in makes you understand words differently that have the same pronunciation.”
I asked my friend if everything is ok. And he quickly answered YES. Then I started to pay attention to his words and statements. Once in a while laying traps to see what words he will use. I chose words that were similar In pronunciation but different in meaning – Homonyms. And I paid a lot of attention to the words he picked.
Unfortunately, he fell to my trap and chose words that reflected his current context. I took him for a drink and there he opened up. I discovered that he was going through a challenging time in his life and he had not disclosed it to anyone. I was happy I paid attention and now we are walking the journey of healing and prosperity.
I discovered that the context you are in makes you choose the words that are closer to that context even if it has multiple meanings. Start paying attention to words with the same pronunciation but different meaning when conversing with your friends and you could be the person saving your friend.
Another Homonym that you can try to test financial stability is broke. It can mean not having the money or something that’s been tampered with. Test and see how your friends are doing financially. The list is endless. We just need to pay attention.
This is a very powerful tool for people to assist their friends who are going through mental health or facing certain challenges. But unfortunately, we don’t pay attention to these statements that appear as a mistake.
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