I’ve taken huge delight in discovering Tom Read Wilson recently. In fact I’m slightly horrified I haven’t done so before. Where on earth have I been? I now regularly watch his Word of the Day reels on Instagram which explore the etymology of words and phrases.

It’s got me wondering whether there’s room for personal interpretation when it comes to our use of language. I’ll rephrase. How much room. Which brings me to the saying ‘the writing is on the wall’, an idiomatic expression currently buzzing around my head that I find myself wanting to unpick.

According to the Collins dictionary, ‘the writing is on the wall’ means ‘there are clear signs that a situation is going to become very difficult or unpleasant’. The Cambridge Dictionary is even more fatalistic ‘there are clear signs that something will fail or no longer exist’.

But does the saying have to have such negative connotations? Can the writing on the wall not be useful in some way, the universe trying to send us a message? Cause to pause and reflect. Or a necessary wake-up call from which positive forward steps can be taken.

Perhaps the sense of impending doom associated with the phrase is because we so often use it with hindsight, ‘the writing was on the wall’. But if it was, and we can see its meaning clearly now, then surely there’s a chance we can learn from it and use it to our advantage.

More and more I find myself noticing messaging in the world around me. Not the many motivational sayings on social media (which are easy to scoff and roll your eyes at but can be incredibly powerful at the right moment) but actual physical messaging.

This summer I came across the poetry of Alyson Hallett inscribed not on a wall but beautifully carved into the paving stones of Milsom Street in the heart of Bath as part of her public art project, The Migration Habits of Stones:

Arise from the earth like water
Give birth to your sacred dreams
This world’s an ocean of mirrors
An invitation to create and be seen

"I wanted people to feel that they were being spoken to in an intimate way...to feel a sense of wonder literally arising from the stones beneath their feet," says Hallett. I did feel wonder. I could so easily have just walked over the words but I looked down, I saw them and they stopped me in my tracks.

I’m sure Hallett didn’t intend for her poem to be viewed through a single lens but through a prism, an ‘ocean of mirrors’ even which implies an element of both self-reflection and a radiating out. How we receive words can be as varied and complex as how we express ourselves.

Do we use pithy prose (used with masterful effect in Delia Owens’ Where The Crawdads Sing which I’m currently reading) or do we luxuriate in language, displaying our command of vocabulary like a male bird of paradise’s exotic (exhausting?) dance.

Some of us struggle to be succinct in spoken conversation but can convey our intended meaning perfectly in the written word, through other creative artforms or by our actions and small gestures. It’s ultimately a game of chance as to whether we’ll make ourselves understood.

But let’s return to our phrase, which originates from the Old Testament story of Daniel being summoned to interpret the writing that appears on the wall of the palace of King Belshazzar as the king and his guests lavishly toast their pagan gods.

And therein we have our answer. Interpret. If our use of and understanding of language is ultimately influenced by our own unique world view, then in mine ‘the writing is on the wall’ can be both a positive or negative phrase depending on how you see it.