‘Ours is a precarious language, as every writer knows, in which the merest shadow of a line often separates affirmations from negation, sense from nonsense, and one sex from another.’

James Thurber, 1961

Ah yes fellow men, read that last bit again. Separates ‘one sex from another’ indeed. It is certainly a very dangerous thing to use language in the vicinity of females. He who dares often ends up in the doghouse. Who knows what hell can break loose at the most innocuous utterance? I’m sure we’ve all felt the wrath of using the wrong adjective to describe something – or was our adjective misconstrued?

I definitely have a favourite bit of precarious language. I’m sure all you males will be familiar with this. It involves the paying of compliments and often goes something like this. The male starts:

‘I like you’re new hairstyle!’ (In this case let’s imagine that she now has a fringe.)

‘Oh really?’ Cue a steely gaze in your direction.

‘Yeah, it really suits you.’

‘Oh, so you didn’t like my hair before?’

‘No, no, no … it was fine before but this new style really frames your face well.’

‘It was “fine” before, was it? So you didn’t like my face before either?

‘No, I mean …’

But it’s too late now. Good luck explaining yourself. You resort to spluttering more words that just come out as platitudes. The face you’re talking to darkens even more. You’ve said it now and there’s no taking those words back. Into the doghouse you go. Ah yes, the precariousness of a compliment. And take care with the word ‘fine’. For some it’s basically an insult.

Language: what a blunt instrument it is with which to communicate. Those implications of what wasn’t said in that innocent, supposedly flattering statement can be vast. Oh dear, the gulf in meaning between what we say and what we mean. I recall a conversation with a certain special someone before embarking on a trip to France (I paraphrase):

‘So I’ll be travelling most of tomorrow so probably won’t manage to call you tomorrow [Saturday] but maybe Sunday.’

My golly gosh – only later was I to find out the rage that the word ‘maybe’ inspired. ‘But Sweetest!’ I implore, ‘I totally meant I’d call you on Sunday. ‘Oh really’, she replies in a disbelieving tone; and I believe that if she had been born with that wonderful ability to raise one eyebrow she would have done so at that moment. ‘Yes’, I reply, my voice taking on the whining quality of a child who really wants something. Honestly, even though I said ‘maybe’ I truly meant ‘definitely’. (As it happens I had called on Sunday but hadn’t got through.)

That ‘merest shadow line’ was actually in my head as much as it was in the piece of language. Is it just the way I use the language? Really, how on earth is this ridiculousness possible? ‘It’s not you, it’s me’, as the saying goes. I suppose the point is that the precariousness of language exists in the interpretation of the words, the tone and accompanying body movements.

Maybe another time we can discuss some of the precarious language that females use.

9 September 2010

‘Next in criminality to him who violates the laws of his country, is he who violates the language.’

Walter Savage Landor, 1775–1864 

Well ladies, judging by the absence of a ‘she’, it looks like you got away with it. Walter has either been slack in laying down of parameters for the damned, or thinks it’s fine for females to smash grammatical rules and mangle syntax. Men, be careful. Remember to conjugate correctly if you don’t want to compound your punishment for that robbery you committed last week.

But in our globalised world – where English gets rebranded Globish – it seems violations of so called language rules are quite acceptable, as long as we achieve communication. Solecism is a thing of the past. Fair enough I suppose. Walter should probably relax and accept the fluidity ... Insert at this point whatever liberal exposition of living and evolving languages [blah, blah, yawn, etc.] that you like.

However, this classicist’s quote does give me an opportunity to hop onto a hobby horse and say ‘No! There are some lines we must not cross!’ I’m speaking very specifically about the word ‘literally’. In recent months I’ve been trying to protect the virtue of this poor, oppressed, battered word.

A couple of anecdotes to illustrate the point: Exhibit A – some months ago I walked into a grocer for a pint of milk and as I was handing over my pennies, a young man walked in speaking on the phone to his friend; ‘He’s killing me, literally’ is what he said. Exhibit B – during a presentation at work, a certain high ranking manager uttered ‘before … the company was literally on its knees.’

Oh dear [my head wearily slumps] … To my shopping friend I would say, ‘Well you look perfectly healthy, hale, hearty and whole to me. I see no grim reaper sneaking about. Although I do concede that your sentence would be accurate if you were aware that somebody was slowly poisoning you, subsequently resulting in your death.’ To my manager friend I simply say, ‘I never knew that companies had knees. That’s incredible!’

Naturally I said this to neither, not wanting to be punched by an east London native or sacked. Anyway, who likes a know-it-all? Whoops, did I just write these paragraphs? Too late now, I can’t stop. The hobby horse stumbles on.

You see, we are killing this word and rendering its meaning redundant. If I come back from meeting a now ex-girlfriend in a knife shop and say to my friend, ‘She literally stabbed me in the back’, what do I mean? Do I mean it metaphorically and idiomatically or literally? Did she or didn’t she? Well because of all those … [lost for the word I shake my fist and splutter] out there I don’t know any more. ‘Yeah, yeah but you know from the context’, you say. Not a good enough defence. I prefer accuracy and clarity.

How would you feel if you were a highly specialised adverb reduced to the mere station of exaggerating someone’s dull story? It’s like using a thoroughbred racehorse to pull a plough.

Please, I implore you all to leave this word alone and even defend it when you hear it viciously attacked. Lexicographers have even had to list it as an intensifier alongside its more precise meaning much to my disgust. It has been abused at least since 1926; and yes, I am sad enough to have come across a dictionary published then to check. There was I thinking that we all spoke beautifully proper English back in the day.

You can have your kidz, niteclub, skool, ‘He were …’, double negatives, split infinitives, even 'I'm loving it', but I beg you to be gentle with this word.

‘I am King of the Romans, and am above grammar’

Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor 1433–1437

‘Who does he think he is?’ I hear you snort. So along with this medieval heavyweight – whether he’s a ‘great mind’ I’ve no idea – let’s add professional footballers to this list of those who don’t fancy using correct grammatical forms. Though allow me to widen the issue of transcending grammar to misspeaking and usage. Being above saying things properly can give us some wonderful images.

My personal favourite comes from footballer Rio Ferdinand talking about the captaincy of Manchester United on the radio. His teammate Gary Neville had been captain but had been afflicted by so many injuries replacements were regulalry needed. But luckily for Manchester United according to Rio ‘Giggsy’s come in and taken up the mantelpiece.’ What a fantastic image. Imagine poor Ryan Giggs, in his prime a flying left winger, having the captaincy bestowed upon him only to be forced to lug around the bit you commonly find above a fire place.

Perhaps we should all rise above grammar and usage and give a bit more happiness to the world. If we dangled our participles a bit more we could have gems such as ‘After years of being lost under a pile of dust, Walter P. Stanley … found all the old records of the Bangor Lions Club’ and ‘The mice were disturbed while clearing out the shed’.

Let’s be clear that being clear with our meaning is overrated and let football commentators come out with beauties like ‘He dribbles a lot and the opposition don’t like it – you can see it all over their faces.’ I’m sure the milkman appreciated this note: ‘Dear Milkman, I’ve just had a baby, please leave another one.’

Just a little recognition of the joy that misspeaking and ‘non-grammar’ can give us.

‘# 72 Superficial knowledge. He who speaks a bit of a foreign language has more delight in it than he who speaks it well: pleasure goes along with superficial knowledge’

‘# 96 A  little knowledge. A little knowledge is more successful than complete knowledge: it conceives things as simpler than they are, thus resulting in opinions that are more comprehensible and persuasive.’

Friedrich Nietzsche, 1878

Did Nietzsche ever struggle to buy a bus ticket on a foreign holiday with his limited yet pleasurable command of a foreign language? How did he ever find his way back to his hotel? What happened when he ordered the disgusting offal on the menu he couldn’t understand? Does this little sentence deserve more consideration? Probably.

It perhaps could be argued that the early days of learning a language are the most pleasurable. After all, progress is relatively fast as we are starting with little knowledge and maybe low expectations. Headway is more discernable and tangible than at any other time of learning giving extra satisfaction and encouragement. Then comes the long apprenticeship of the intermediate learner, where advances appear to grind to a halt. Where the beginner can communicate precisely what they need to say in a specific, the intermediate who wants to say more is frustrated by their inability to express themselves fully, though they possess more of the tools to do so. They know more, but not enough.

What is more, it is so difficult to express your personality truly in a second language; the twists of humour or sarcasm which might be so reliant on accent and intonation or even missing vocabulary. Maybe without total mastery of the language you even misrepresent yourself to others.

It seems that the quotes above are derivations of the ‘ignorance is bliss’ cliché. And of course there is an element of truth in this. However, surely there is more satisfaction in progressing as far as one can and fulfilling potential than there is pleasure in a limited command of the language. On what basis Nietzsche bases this opinion we don’t know; perhaps though it is the second quotation here which suggests little knowledge actually results in more persuasive and simple opinions. Certainly having a little knowledge simplifies things to their essentials. More knowledge results in more complexity and more nuances. Thinking like this you can see how knowledge might be a burden; trying to make sense of something too complex; thinking too deeply about things. Life certainly must be simpler with less knowledge.

So Nietzsche raises some interesting ideas, yet the desire to learn (as other thinkers have suggested) probably outweighs the pleasure lost as a result of more knowledge. And hopefully, pleasure can be gained along the way while learning new things; and the most pleasure through fulfilling potential. It doesn’t seem helpful to be as pessimistic as Nietzsche regarding knowing so much, though it is an interesting idea worthy of more thought.

10 June 2009

In the 3^rd Century BC, Aristotle is reported to have said, ‘To learn is a natural pleasure, not confined to philosophers, but common to all men.’

We can only wonder if the philosopher ever faced a class of glum adolescents who felt an out of hours extra curricular English class as primarily an oppression and a burden rather than a joyous pleasure. Is Aristotle's ideal of learning in fact rather questionable? We can only imagine that learning for Aristotle was lounging about in the Greek sunshine surrounded by beautiful temples and olive groves, or strolling in the rolling hills around Athens with other like minded people discussing this and that at their leisure. When your teacher was the great Socrates, perhaps it was easy to have such a pleasant view of learning. However, not all of us had the words of that bearded mastermind to hang on. Was Aristotle ever put in a grey, featureless classroom and told ‘You’ll be thankful you did it later in life’?

It often seems that the natural pleasure in learning is an acquired taste gained at a stage in life after adolescence or even well into adulthood. How many of us can really say we applied ourselves fully at school, or even when more grown up at university? How many of us regret giving up learning a musical instrument while young because we’d rather be playing outside or watching television? Do you regret not taking advantage of your opportunities to learn when you were younger? Don’t have the time now? Aristotle’s statement might seem a touch on the shaky side when presented with this evidence. Perhaps he was having an off day when he came up with this one. Not up to his usual standard.

But it would be interesting to know if people have other ideas on this. Have you ever encountered a class of adolescents beaming with joy at the opportunity to learn? Does it all depend on the context and the quality of the teacher? Or do we even become more closed to learning as we get older? More stuck in our ways and blinkered.

So Aristotle’s little quotation gives us pause for thought on what motivates us to learn. Is learning an innate impulse or do we only do it when coerced, to achieve something specific and beneficial to us or simply because we’ve grown up?