by ButterflyEffect

Everyday talk is powerful not just because it has remarkable potential to persuade others to think and act differently, but also because it operates in such unremarkable ways. Most of us don’t recognize that we’re shaping social structures when we go about the business of everyday life. Sure, a single person’s actions can become globally notable, but most of the time, any small action such as a butterfly flapping its wings in Michigan is difficult to link to a tsunami halfway around the world. But whether or not direct causality can be identified, there is a tipping point where individual choices become generalized categories. Where a playful word choice becomes a standard term in the OED. Where habitual ways of talking become structured ways of thinking.