The Secret Life of Pronouns Read Online Free PDF Page B

are the content words that are highlighted. The fact is, you can get a good sense of what the speaker is trying to say by just hearing the content-related words. That’s good. Content words should convey content. Admittedly, this wouldn’t be a very satisfying interaction but you would be fairly certain what was going on in the speaker’s mind.
    Style (or function) words are words that connect, shape, and organize content words. Although this definition is a bit slippery, most style words fall into a general class of words variously referred to as function words, stealth words, or even junk words. A good way to think about style words is that, by themselves, they really don’t have any meaning to anyone. For example, a content word like table can trigger an image in everyone’s mind—the same with words like walking , blue , and bug . Now try to imagine that or because or really or the or even my . We might use words like this in most sentences but they are fairly useless on their own.
    Most function words include:
CATEGORY
EXAMPLES
Pronouns
I , she , it
Articles
a , an , the
Prepositions
up , with , in , for
Auxiliary verbs
is , don’t , have
Negations
no , not , never
Conjunctions
but , and , because
Quantifiers
few , some , most
Common adverbs
very , really
    To appreciate the significance of these often-misunderstood words, let’s return to our three people describing the picture.
    PERSON 1: In the aforementioned picture an elderly woman is about to speak to a middle aged woman who looks condescending and calculating.
    PERSON 2: I see an old woman looking back on her years remembering how it was to be beautiful and young.
    PERSON 3: The old woman is a witch or something . She looks kinda like she is coaxing the young one to do something .
    Now imagine that someone was only able to speak to you using the highlighted style words while trying to describe the picture. You would have absolutely no idea what the person was talking about.
    Why make such a big deal about style words? Because pronouns, prepositions, and other function words are the keys to the soul. OK, maybe that’s a bit of an overstatement, but bear with me. Stealth words are:
    •  used at very high rates
    •  short and hard to detect
    •  processed in the brain differently than content words
    •  very, very social
    Each of these features helps to explain why function words are psychologically important and, at the same time, why so few people have examined them closely. Stealth words, then, really are quite stylish. It’s about time that these forgettable, throwaway little words get their due.
    FUNCTION WORDS IN EVERYDAY LANGUAGE: THEY’RE EVERYWHERE
    In 1863, four months after the devastating Battle of Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the most significant speeches in American history. Overlooking the battlefield where 7,500 soldiers died, Lincoln’s brief speech helped to reframe the Civil War. Read his speech quickly so that you can form an impression of what’s being said.
    Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
    Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
    But in a larger sense we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled, here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here.
    It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which