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Archive for the ‘Language’ Category

A Lesson on Grammar

In English, Language, nature, What people are on December 18, 2009 at 4:22 am

In English, an obviative form of a verb is used to differentiate two otherwise ambiguous third-person pronouns.  For instance, the sentence “Melanie borrowed Linda’s car” can be expressed as “She borrowed her car,” or even more ambiguous, “Melanie likes what Linda likes” can be expressed as “She likes what she likes.”  So, an obviative form would likely be a marker—some sort of affix—used to differentiate “she” from “her” or “she” from “she.”

Of course, in English we don’t have an obviative form.  We allow for the ambiguity, relying on the speaker—or writer—to avoid using pronouns in ambiguous situations.  So, for the cost of a single, extra rule of grammar, we pay by having a limitation imposed on the language.

The reason I bring this up—other than to show that English has its limitations—is to point out that we have words in English that exist only as a means to express things we don’t do.

“Obviative” is an English word that describes something we don’t do in English.

I use this to illustrate the fact that, while there are plenty of things that we do that don’t make sense, there, too, are plenty of things we don’t do that do make sense.  But we still don’t do them.

In both cases, change comes with rationality.  Or reality.

Or a gentle prod from someone who cares.

I attempt to prove the existence of reality

In Dreams, English, Imagination, Language, nature, What people are on October 8, 2009 at 5:03 pm

I think, therefore I am.

I am, therefore I do.

I do, therefore I act.

I act, therefore things happen.

Things happen, therefore things change.

Things change, therefore there exists something outside myself.

There exists something outside myself, therefore I am not alone.

Writing (as it pertains to Darwin)

In Language, novelish, Writing on September 13, 2009 at 10:57 am

It’s a landmark moment in every writer’s life when he receives his first rejection letter, and it can affect him in a number of ways.

Possibly,

If he is foolish enough to believe that his work was actually as good as he felt it was—to chew the very truffles he dug up—the letter comes with humility. It is the recognition that it is not a perfect work, that he is not infallible. That some people just don’t jive with everything he writes, lean on every word, enunciate the last phoneme of every sentence. That nothing is ever finished as long as there is someone who disagrees with it. That if everyone agrees with something, it must not really say anything.

This man—he, who had been foolish and ignorant—can either learn his lesson or he can become a brick wall, believing the rejection is no fault of his own; the publisher simply has bad taste and it is to his detriment that he rejects such a fine piece of literature.

Or,

If this man lacks the confidence to withstand criticism, a rejection might mean the end. Some people take resistance as a challenge; others shy from it, choosing instead to live safely within their limitations. Why risk failure when the alternative is so comfortable? There’s regret, sure, but regret is for the feeble. Regret only irks those motivated enough to do something about it. And if one is willing to do something about regret, a challenge should have been of no consequence in the first place. In which case, we are talking of cowards and misers.

To whom criticism is of no consequence.

For it is their nature.

But,

If this man is realistic enough to realize that even the smoothest roads need to be repaved from time to time—that achievement is relative to what one is capable of—he will see rejection is a rite of passage, something every author experiences, a yardstick for measuring miles.

* * * *

Which is interesting, because:

An author will go back on his previous works and read, utterly embarrassed.

The work is alien. Commas are not where they should be. Too many superlatives. What awful, contrived dialogue.

The embarrassment is not that it is poorly written; rather, the embarrassment is that, at one point—maybe not even that long ago—the author had been convinced that the writing was very nearly flawless.

Writing evolves.

Like anything worth doing, it gets better the more it’s practiced.

But the feeling upon completion never changes.

What, no schwa?

In English, Language on August 11, 2009 at 8:58 am

It’s interesting to me that in the English language we have all sorts of sounds that our letters shouldn’t naturally make. We take words from other cultures–if cultures exist–and integrate them into our own without respect for whether or not these words are pronounceable given our previous set of sounds. And, rather than integrating new letters to represent these new sounds, instead we appraise our established set of letters and decide which one is closest.

Most people don’t write, yet, we refuse to change our written language because we imagine words to be something stagnant, constant, quantifiable. We imagine that we can put a o- next to a u- next to a g- next to an -h and we can learn to pronounce it the same way we always have, independent of the fact that we never have, that we pronounce things differently, all the time, over space.

Even more interesting to me: We generally ignore sounds we’ve used since the language first diverged from German.

And not just sounds we use every once in a while. I’m not talking about eñes or umlauts.

Get this: The schwa is the most common vowel in the English language.

Languages are the cornerstones of cultures–if they exist. How a given people interact with their given language tells you much about who they are, as a people.

So, what I’m saying is, extrapolate.

Extrapolate, people.

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