I played in a soccer tournament with Pelé at Aloha Stadium… well, let me restate that. On April 7, 1976, I was fortunate enough to play in a tripleheader soccer event- the Aloha Soccer Festival. Our Hawai’i All Star team (amateurs) was vanquished by the North American Soccer League’s San Diego Jaws, 6-0, followed by the Philippines 1-0 win over Taiwan. The final match of the day saw the incredible Pelé score four goals as his NASL New York Cosmos beat Team Honda of Japan, 5-0.
The point of this story is not about soccer or the glory days of the new Aloha Stadium. It’s about word usage; how we must carefully select our words. Living in a sometimes post-truth world nowadays, far too many people say far too many things, then deny their words or suggest they were misquoted by a malevolent mainstream media, or tricked by a manipulative editor in some backroom editing bay. Hogwash.
Business advisor Mary Lynn Ziemer once said this this about words: “They have the ability to carry us to far off, amazing places. Unfortunately, our words can also lead us to places we wish we had never visited”.
Sound bites, cell phone pick-ups, press conferences, campaign speeches. We’ve all heard ‘em and seen ‘em. And yet, we have verbiage deniers who insist we simply did not hear what they said… but we did. Or that they did not mean what they said… but they did. Or that someone in the must have edited their words… but they didn’t.
Sure, people err. But invariably, we must be held accountable for not only what we do, but for what we say; especially as it might affect others. We (sadly) tend to excuse those we adulate, like, or vote for when they say something reprehensible, false, or off-putting. We put on our moral, truth-canceling ear plugs and ignore reality because we just really don’t trust the other side, or because we don’t wanna hear when our guy blathers. Selective ethics; short-term memory recall dysfunction.
Call it what you like, but words matter. Yes, I played with Pelé in a soccer tournament. We both played, just not at the same time. The concept, as a whole, might hold up, even if the details suggest otherwise. We can all watch our words and not allow kinda sorta or outright lies define us or those we follow.
Think about it…