I love language because it is a code; because it is so malleable. I love watching young people pick it up and turn it into their own code. My Classical Greek professor once said that babes and children create and change language more than adults. I suppose this is because children are still being indoctrinated, don’t know all the rules, make their own. His example was caca, a baby word for shit. Once children becomes expert enough working within the language, I suppose they start working within the code, changing its periphery instead of its nexus.
Where I am now, as a relative adult, I can love language because within this code others can be created, codified, destroyed, reinvented. Simile and metaphor are perhaps the most basic of codes within The Code. Puns, riddles, double entendres — these are, perhaps, the second level of speciation? If I am in a conversation with two people, I can speak one sentence that has vastly different meanings to each person. Or, at least, I can do it if I am sufficiently skilled in creating these codes.
This breaks down when a code is misinterpreted [always a threat] or when a code is only understood by the person creating it. Skill level comes in when a code is created and disseminated. The skill is teaching others how to read the code. Communication is an art, and Art is communication. blah blah blah.
Poetry, painting, sculpture, these are art forms that to a great extent have become estranged from general society because their code is no longer accessible. Or, perhaps, it was not accessible for so long that most people lost interest in it. or maybe its just TV. yeah that sounds fine.