comes from a symbiosis of sense and sound. And, not surprisingly, every one
of them has a musical cadence. Even without their ready-made nostalgia,
the syllables are fun to say.
Evocative song lyrics are known for their power to inspire senti
ment, singing along, out-of-context quotation and even parody . . . but words
don't have to be associated with songs to similarly intoxicate. Author Amy
Hirshberg Lederman confesses, "As a little girl I would whisper words to
myself just to hear the sounds of them; magical words like canopy, arithmetic
and Ethiopia."
Stephen King recounts his personal story of two powerful words
and a litany of historical figures that capture a child's imagination:
[T]wo magic words [were] glittering and glowing like a beautiful
neon sign; two words of almost incredible power and grace;
and these two words were pioneer spirit. I and my fellow kids
grew up secure in this knowledge of America's pioneer spirit --
a knowledge that could be summed up in a litany of names
learned by rote in the classroom. Eli Whitney. Samuel Morse.
Alexander Graham Bell. Henry Ford. Robert Goddard. Wilbur
and Orville Wright. Robert Oppenheimer.7
In one way or another, these American pioneers all embodied the spirit of
a world-shaking word that encompasses a plethora of possibilities: revolution.
"The magic word 'revolution' made people hopeful, happy, and ready to
embrace each other."8 In its political sense, the call of revolution draws on a
desire for freedom that is in some ways analogous to the beckoning horizons
that infuse pioneers with their own revolutionary aspirations (be they spatial,
technological, or intellectual).
Freedom and its synonym liberty provide further examples of words
that have massive clout in both political and other arenas. "Liberty! A
magic word, a word full of feeling, a sentiment for which millions have laid
down their lives."9 A concept deemed to be worth dying for is, by the lights
of an underlying ideology, recognized as accordingly life-enhancing. And
the concept's power to rally and inspire always depends on the words that
succinctly and evocatively package this ideology. For example, at the risk of
his own life, Pope John Paul II visited Soviet-occupied Czestochowa, Poland,
where he defiantly "validated the magic word that he used over and over
again: solidarity!"10
To Life! (2004). Novelist Pete Hamill has his own mesmerizing list: "Magic words.
Europe. Steeples. The Vatican. Japan. Horses. Hallways. Pigeons. Jeeps" (Snow in August
[1998]). So, too, does Audre Lorde: "Carriacou, a magic name like cinnamon, nut-
meg, mace" (Zami [1982]).
7 Danse Macabre (1981)
8 Edward P. Gazur, The March of Time (2004)
9 Dale Carnegie, How to Develop Self-Confidence and Influence People by Public Speaking (1991)
10 Virgilio Levi, John Paul II: A Tribute in Words and Pictures (1999). On the opposite
end of the revolutionary spectrum is the concept of meekness: "Humility -- that is the
