“Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can never hurt you”, children are often told by adults. Not true. Language matters. Words are symbols – they mean more than they say. In post-conflict Northern Ireland words and symbols are used more than sticks and stones, but they can still reinforce division and create hurt.

The common – perhaps automatic – metaphor for the political parties’ failure to restore the Northern Irish Assembly since the June elections is “stalemate”. It comes from chess, a war-game between two protagonists – black and white – each aiming to conquer the other. In a stalemate, the chess game is declared a draw and is over, because neither side can win. The players are condemned to starting again, with the aim once more of a clear victory for one or the other.

Is “stalemate” an accurate or helpful metaphor for the political situation? Quintin Oliver of Stratagem and I were chatting recently at the Repair Café at Weavers Court in Sandy Row. Quintin spontaneously used the word “gridlock”, striking me immediately as a richer and more constructive metaphor.

A gridlock is a traffic metaphor suggesting multiple participants in a complex system, all trying to get somewhere, but no-one is trying to win. (Or at least, a driver who tries to win is clearly engaging in a different, dangerous and anti-social, activity.) Vehicles may be going different places, but cooperation and courtesy are needed for each to make progress. Sometimes, vehicles may have to give way to one another.

Gridlock happens when the traffic grinds to a halt, often for coincidental reasons – roadworks, a broken traffic light, or an accident or two, or that wonderful image from US radio reports, “sheer weight of traffic”. Gradually – an obstacle is cleared, a policeman arrives to direct the vehicles – it inevitably starts flowing again.

In Northern Ireland, although it sometimes seems there are just two protagonists – Sinn Féin and the DUP – there are multiple stakeholders in the peace process at many levels, any or many of whom have a role to play in easing the gridlock. There may seem to be just a few obstacles – Irish language, equality, legacy – but there are many factors contributing to the impasse. Progress, when achieved, does not involve victory of one side over another, but steps towards a “shared future”.

Language has power. Words can hurt and words can heal. The metaphors we use can consciously or unconsciously open up or close off possibilities for action. Words themselves can help to unfreeze the gridlock.

My confident prediction is that over the imminent 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, millions of words in the UK, Ireland and the US will be spilled. I equally predict that some of those words will help the peace process, and some will hinder it; some will hurt and some will heal.