I have never studied linguistics, and the fact that Noam Chomsky made it his career before he set out to destroy Western Civilization, pretty much guarantees that I never will study it. But I think I have a sense of language and its effect on people. I pay attention to the evolution of words' meanings. I like the way words affect the human mind and emotions. I like metaphor and simile and hyperbole–not to be clever, but to actually color a reader’s mood the way tiny drop of dye colors an entire bucket of milk.