Language, vehicles, and googling - New English

As the Christmas season enters its peak, and family members from across the world return to be with their loved ones, we see an incredible opportunity for communication. Think about it. The world is full of perspectives, and those abroad may find themselves more easily exposed to other ways of thinking. I've been back in Fort Kent for nearly 48 hours now, and have found the blur of new (old) faces to be an exciting opportunity for continued personal growth.

To provide us the opportunity to better understand the multitude of perspectives whirring by, I propose a lesson of language. While my finds are complete compensation for the amount of labor expended, I understand if there may be skepticism facing this re-conceptualized English (or whatever language you speak).

Let's start with an example.

"My truck is in the yard."

Now this sentence provides us with an idea of the scenario, right? But what color was the truck? Let's look at the same sentence after adding a little more detail.

"My red truck is in the backyard."

Interesting. Now what about:

"My burning red truck is in the neighbor's backyard."

We've taken this sentence through two iterations, and what do we know? Do we know the year of this truck? Where I live (providing the location of my unfortunate neighbor's backyard)? What is in the front seat of this truck? I've taken an example that is Fort Kent appropriate, but think about it. To what extent can we recreate an image to someone else? We are using a system that is incomplete-an arbitrary referential system that is entirely based on context, given that context is infinite.

What this does do, however, is afford us some great fun.

Language as a dynamic mode of signification affords us the pleasure of creation. The world is a changing one . I mean, "googling" wasn't a verb until 10 years ago, right? Yet we do it all the time. It allows for great precision in our communication, if we are able to disambiguize it. In a world where words can often have antithetical meanings (e.x. peruse), it may behoove us to avoid words like 'thing' unless such a word is sufficient to deliver the intended message.

In a rapidly evolving world, we see the same in our language. Hybrids such as franglais are not uncommon to the rest of the world, though certainly uncommon when out of place. As we return to our families ready to convey experiences as best we can, it enriches the lives of all involved to be as vibrant and clear in description as we can be. This means concise, not verbose.

There are also, however, modes of communication beyond the content of speech. For example, after spending a summer in Egypt studying Arabic on a Department of State scholarship, I came home to Brunswick, Maine. I mentioned this summer in the Brunswick barbershop, to which my attendant queried, "Did you see a lot of terrorists there?"

Now, there is no judgment coming from me here, but an assessment came from this question. It is clear this man knows little about Egypt. Why should he? Apart from a passing knowledge of President Mubarak neither did I before I went. This barber was not bigoted. He was curious and dealing with preexisting knowledge in his effort to learn more. In a world where mediation occurs on a structural level, where semantics systems are colored, a healthy dose of skepticism would have to exist. Face value is eddied by parody and manipulation, which has some perks counterbalancing the obvious potentials for some..well...nastier bits.

I'll leave you with this. Modern English is a vehicle for anything. It is a tool. But so is the anything. The mode of communication has itself become a form. I've been lucky enough to have grown up in Fort Kent to discover this. The study of these human signifiers made itself further accessible to me through the theater, and as a result so have the skills accessible to it. For example, I'm sometimes contort my hand into a misshapen mass before presenting it at a first meeting. The response of others to this is as telling as anything one could explicitly communicate to me, if not more so.

What does this mean for us? Stay attentive, because everybody is offering a lesson 24 hours a day. The stories we tell say much more than their content, and we can triple their use to us with that pinch of extra effort (I hear the same can be said about Christmas dinner).