Dr. Carolyn Lee reflects on a different cliché each week. Recently, in her blog “Once Upon a Time,” she takes a look at the place of story-telling in our lives. This week Carolyn explores the cliché, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Learn more about Dr. Carolyn Lee on her biography page or investigate 29 more clichés in her latest book, Keep Your Eye on the Ball And Other Clichès to Live By.
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
Some believe “A picture is worth a thousand words” was an ancient Chinese proverb first spoken by Confucius. The original saying was “bai wen bur u yi jian,” which meant, literally, “one hundred hearings does not match a single viewing.” In 1862, Ivan S. Turgenev expressed a similar opinion when he wrote, “The drawing shows me at one glance what might be spread over ten pages in a book.” The expression was popularized in the 1920s by Fred R. Barnard, an advertising manager who was promoting the idea of drawn and photographic images to illustrate advertising. Barnard ascribed the saying to the Japanese who, he claimed, suggested that a picture was worth ten thousand words.
Whatever its origin, and however many thousands of words are involved, this idea of the visual image outranking the written or spoken word has been around for a long time. And, of course, the opposing theory has existed right alongside it. Pictures cannot replace words when conveying factual information. Written text and spoken conversation are necessary—and preferred—in certain communication situations. Leo Rosten, an American humorist, once said, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, please paint me the Gettysburg Address.”
Instead of engaging in the picture vs. word controversy, perhaps it is wiser to say that communicating ideas is more effective when pictures and text work together. Combining words and images might be the best way to convey meaning.
What I have come to realize is that experience is worth a thousand pictures or a hundred pages of text. Reading about something or seeing pictures of it in no way compares to actually being there and having an immediate, first-hand experience.
For me, one of the most dramatic examples of this realization happened years ago when I was vacationing with friends on the South Carolina coast. On a peaceful evening, as we were lounging in the living room of our beach house, one of my friends went into the kitchen to refill her cup of coffee. Immediately, she came back to the living room and said, “Girls! The house next door is on fire!” We, of course, became alarmed and suggested going to the rescue with a fire extinguisher. Our friend said, “Oh, no. This is WAAAAY beyond a fire-extinguisher!” We all three dashed out the front door then, and what we saw was the house next door completely engulfed in bright, orange flames. The wind was blowing in our direction, and it carried ashes and burning bits of debris. The terrible heat kept us from getting any closer to this scene of destruction, so we could only stand there and watch—in horror and helplessness—as the firefighters attempted to save the building which, before our eyes, burned to the ground.
The next day we walked around the smoldering ruins of what twenty-four hours earlier had been the residence of neighbors. What I kept thinking was that I had seen dozens of newspaper photos of burning buildings. I had watched videos of four-alarm fires in which complete structures had been totally destroyed. I had read accounts of fires in skyscrapers and apartment buildings and fraternity houses. But no picture I had ever seen and no video I had ever watched in any way compared to what I had experienced the night that beach house burned down. I could smell the burning wood; I could feel the searing heat on my face. I could see those hot ashes floating toward our house and experience the fear that we could be next.
What happened to me that night still affects the way I see pictures or read accounts of news events. On the evening news, I see pictures of a refugee camp in Syria. I watch a montage of shots: whole families living in tents, skin-and-bone children playing in the mud, people standing in a long line waiting for a bag of rice. It is terrible. It is heartbreaking. But I know it is nothing like being there. I understand that we don’t begin to know the truth or the reality of these kinds of situations while sitting comfortably in front of our television sets. The pictures are worth something, but they tell only a small part of the story.
Of course, this theory also holds true when I share with friends the photographs I have taken in gorgeous spots around the globe. People might oooh and aaah over a picture of an African sunset or a close-up of a silverback gorilla, but I know the pictures don’t begin to express what it was like to experience that sunset or look into the eyes of that gorilla.
We must keep taking pictures; we must keep telling stories. We must continue trying to communicate our experiences to each other. But we must also realize that pictures and words are only partly effective; we must use our imaginations to fill in the blanks, to flesh out the narratives.
Yesterday, as I was walking in the mall, I realized that at least half of the people I saw were displaying colorful tattoos. I saw butterflies and lotus flowers, dragonflies, hearts, shafts of lightning and portraits of Jesus. All of these people were trying to say something, I guess, with pictures. I’m still trying to fill in those blanks and flesh out those narratives.
Want to Read More?
Check out Dr. Carolyn Lee’s blogs on her website, she features a new cliché each week or you can order her new book, Keep Your Eye on the Ball And Other Clichès to Live By. Want to know more about the woman behind the words? Read more about Carolyn here. We hope you enjoyed this article learning more about the cliché, a picture is worth a thousand words.
