Rich language, or poverty-stricken vocabulary?

Last night I was re-reading Honey for a Child's Heart (yes, again), and came upon this selection:

"The right word in the right place is a magnificent gift. Somehow a limited, poverty-stricken vocabulary works toward equally limited use of ideas and imagination. On the other hand, the provocative use of the right words, of a growing vocabulary, gives us adequate material with which to clothe our thoughts and leads to a richer world of expression." (Honey for a Child's Heart p18, emphasis mine)

In the phrase poverty-stricken vocabulary, I experienced precisely what Gladys Hunt was describing: 'provocative use of the right words.'

As I walk through our neighborhood, and scarcely hear a sentence without the f-bomb, I cannot think of a better description than poverty-stricken vocabulary. There is no question in my mind that words and imagination are tightly knit.

This is the cycle of poverty: language, imagination and life. To break that cycle, there must be a profound change in all three. Yet in order not to suck those leaving the cycle of poverty in to the whirlpool of greed, there must be conversion. The new words, imagination and life must be characterized by visions of the Kingdom and its King, and not visions of 'progress.' That is precisely the role that literature, and Christian literature in particular, can and should play.