Wouldn't it be strange if words came out in solid formwhen we spoke?

Every time we said something, words would fall from ourmouths and gather on the floor in a pile of conversation. Or maybe they wouldfloat to the ceiling in a cloud of gossip. It would make you think twice aboutwhat you said if everyone could see it afterward.

Having substantialwords come out when we speak could cause a lot of problems. We would have ahorrible word pollution predicament. Where would we dispose of all our used-upwords? I suppose we could use special dumps and landfills, or maybe even toss theexcess words into space. Then astronauts on their way to the moon would look outtheir spaceship windows and see words spoken by people from all over the worldfloating around.

The morning news would be different with this languageproblem. We'd hear reports like this: "The traffic today is especiallycongested around the library and theater due to performances and story time.Drivers have to slow down around those areas to avoid hitting any words. Try tostay away from 927 Oak Street this morning. A fight between the owners of thathouse has resulted in numerous insults flying back and forth all over the place.Young children are definitely advised to stay away. We have an accident over onI-88 that is backing up traffic for miles. The driver of a red Eclipse wastalking on his cell phone and filled up his car with so many words that hecouldn't see and ran into a tree. Fortunately, he was not hurt.

"Today's weather is predicted to be wordily overcast due to anespecially talkative day yesterday. A thunderstorm is expected to hit laterbecause the Presidential candidates are scheduled to talk up astorm."

Sayings like "Talking up a storm" would be proventrue if words were solid. Other sayings that would become literal, thanks to thesolidity of conversation, include "She swallowed her words." If you hada word "On the tip of your tongue," all you'd have to do is stick itout at someone and they could tell you what you were trying to say. And whensomeone told you to "Just spit it out," you could. It would maketalking a lot easier. Unless, of course, you "Choked on your words."And that saying, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will neverhurt me," would officially be proven wrong because there would be a constantdanger of tripping over words, or getting hit by the ones flyingaround.

Only some of the words would fly though, because every word isdifferent and therefore would have its own behavior. For example, the word"flower" would be leafy and green and would probably grow as it wasspoken, then sink to the ground. "Air," on the other hand, would beclear and flexible, constantly changing shape. It would probably slowly float tothe ceiling and stay there until it had the chance to get outside and drift away.

As for foul language, people would probably swear a lot less because ofthe behavior those words would take on when solid. In three-dimensional form,swear words would be dirty and odiferous. Once said, they'd cling to the speakerfor a day or so before finally settling on the ground anddecomposing.

Just as words would behave differently based on theirmeaning, they would change depending on their speaker. Each person would speak inhis or her own font, like a typewriter that can be identified by the littlesmudge it leaves above the "e."

The appearance of the wordswould vary depending on the mood of the speaker, as well. Anger would make thewords sharp and bright so it would hurt to look at them. They would come flyingout of the mouth and zoom haphazardly around. Sadly spoken words would be dampand grayish, and would melt into puddles after being said. Of course, whenbeautiful words were recited, their beauty would not only be heard but seen,touched, smelled and tasted thanks to their wonderful 3-D solidity. And best ofall, loving words would glow and wrap themselves around the nearest person with awarm feeling. You would always be able to tell what mood the people around youwere in.

The best thing about having solid words would be that when youreceive loving words or compliments, you could keep them forever. All you wouldhave to do is take them after they were spoken and tuck them into your pocket.Then whenever you felt blue, you could just take them out and read them to cheeryourself up.

Although that would be the absolute best part about solidwords, there would be a lot of other good things. The world would be a lotquieter due to the problems of solid words. Silence would be appreciated evenmore than it is now. And since the troublesome words would be so difficult todispose of with not many places to put them, no one would say anything unneeded.We would have to watch what we say, literally. Now wouldn't that be strange?