A Rosoideae by Any Other Name, or
“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate…”
- Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass (1872)
Item: The Chinese teacher and philosopher, K’ung Fu-Tse
(Confucious) noted “the beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right
names.”
Item: I once went to my doctor and old him I had pain in my
kneecap. He examined it and told me I had “chondromalacia patellae.” “What does that mean?” I asked. “That means,”
he replied confidently, “that you have pain in your kneecap.”
Item: I had a friend who was incredibly proud of his infant
son saying the word “ball.” Sure enough, when I visited, the tyke was playing
with a big red one, happily giggling to us “ball… ball…” What a prodigy! Of course, he also used the
word “ball” to describe a shoe, a hat, a cookie, and the cat. Perhaps you can imagine how pleased the cat
was to be included.
Item: "Tell us...in your own words." Do you have
your own words? Personally, I'm using the ones everybody else has been using.
Next time they tell you to say something in your own words, say, "Nigflot
blorny quando floon." -George
Carlin
*****
I propose that the fundamental purpose of language is to
communicate. By communicate, I mean that what the message receiver hears is
what the message sender meant. It doesn’t always go down that way. Maybe you’ve
noticed.
Part of this failure to communicate is because about 90%
(your mileage may vary) of communication has nothing to do with the text, that
is, communication isn’t limited to the actual words you say. The largest part of the meaning in the
message is non-verbal: posture, gesture, facial expression. Another chunk is
para-verbal: volume, pitch, tone, pace, inflection.
Actors
do an exercise in which they play a scene, say, a couple breaking up, but
instead of dialogue, they just say the alphabet. They focus on the non-verbal
and para-verbal elements, stemming from what actors like to call the
“sub-text.” As in, “What’s my motivation in this scene?” That’s why you can understand what’s going
on in an opera sung in Italian, even when you have no idea of what words
they’re singing. It’s also why email is such a lousy method of communication.
But to be fair, ANY print medium deprives the message senders and receivers of
the para-verbal and non-verbal dimensions of communication, emoticons,
notwithstanding.
Another part of the communication problem is that not
everyone uses language to clarify, elucidate, and illuminate. Some people use
language to confuse, obfuscate, complicate and confound.
Yes, Virginia, some
people are liars.
Language can serve to identify who’s in with the
in-crowd, who’s hip and who’s a drip. That’s why teenage slang is always
changing; once adults get hip to it, it’s not cool anymore, i.e, it’s no longer
a reliable identifier of US as distinguished from THEM. Criminal slang changes when the cops get hip
to it. When the enemy knows the
password, you change it.
Some people use language as a power trip, to denigrate, ridicule
or disenfranchise others who don’t know the right secret words -- thereby aggrandizing themselves. For example, in a recent online (there’s two
strikes against communication, right there) discussion of the longsword, I
mentioned that I had had the opportunity to learn something of this weapon from
a mentor many years ago, about a decade prior to the other party’s involvement
in it. The other party –who for some
reason believes that the longsword had been dead and forgotten until he and his
little pals discovered it--- then, rather rudely demanded to know what “sources”
(arcane and sacred texts) I had used. He further demanded to know if I knew this or that medieval
German longsword term.
This gentleman’s
position was 1) that I could not possibly learn long sword from an actual
teacher, without meticulously scrutinizing some ancient book and 2) that I
could not possibly know anything about the longsword if I did not use the same
arcane pet-names for it that he did himself. The
gentleman’s underlying error here is learning domain confusion. He’s likely
very good at the cognitive domain, but it leads him to believe that the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, can be found exclusively in and
through his sacred text.
He doesn’t appear to realize that a book no more contains truth than a
clock contains time.
Well. I don’t speak German, that’s a fact.
And neither does
a longsword.
It has no idea whether you are speaking German, French or Klingon, and it doesn’t care. Whichever language you choose to describe it is
irrelevant to how the weapon is used. In fighting, form follows function. When,
in fighting, form follows fashion, you’re foolishly and formidably fucked.
A third part of the problem is that context often defines
the meaning of a word, for example when used in a court of law. Many words that
are commonly used with a broad latitude of meaning have more specific, narrow and particular
meanings as terms of art, the jargon of a particular field. Therein lies the hub of the rub.
For example, the word “attack” is used by most people to
indicate any forceful aggressive action. As in: “He attacked her in the alley.” “The bombers
attacked the city.” “They attacked his
character.” “He attacked that steak with gusto.” “She attacked the assignment
with enthusiasm.”
It can also mean a sudden incident of something such as: a heart attack, an attack
of hunger, an attack of loneliness or anxiety – or an attack of silliness.
As a term of art in music, “attack” has a particular meaning
and refers to the manner in which a tone is begun.
In hoplology, “attack” refers to the initial
offensive action in a phrase comprising more than one offensive action.
Good science requires that you define your terms as narrowly
as possible, and use them in accordance with those definitions. Avoid using two
different terms to describe the same thing, and avoid using the same term to
describe two unlike things.
I believe the lexicon of a particular discipline should
facilitate understanding and communication. It should be as precisely definitive as
possible. The use of foreign language terms,
for any other reason, is merely an affectation and an obstacle.
Many languages have a word that means, “cut.” If your
language is German, then it makes perfect sense for you to use the German
term. If your language is French, what’s the point of adopting the German
term? Is it somehow more precisely descriptive of a “cut” than the equivalent
French word? Probably not. But it is
possible.
Take for example the English fencing term “deceive,” as in
“to deceive the blade.” To deceive the
blade means that your opponent intends to make some blade contact, to touch your
blade with his own. When you avoid that blade contact, that is to “deceive” his
blade.
Fair enough.
But suppose there are, tactically, two very different
situations.
In the first, the opponent’s attempt at blade contact has an
offensive character, that is, it’s an attempt at preparation (engagement, beat,
press, etc) to facilitate a subsequent
attack.
In the second situation, you are making an attack, and the
opponent’s attempt at blade contact is defensive in character, That is, your
opponent is attempting to parry your attack.
In English, the word “deceive” is used to describe both
situations.
But in French, there are two words “tromper” and
derober. Derober can mean to slip away
or shy away from or to hide from.
Tromper can mean to cheat, swindle, tease, trick, fool, falsify or hoax.
(President Tromper?)
If the opponent’s attempt at blade contact has an offensive
character, then when you avoid or “deceive” his blade contact, you are slipping
away, shying away, or hiding from it.
If the opponent’s attempt at blade contact is defensive, in
response to your particular attack (or feint of attack) then when you avoid or
“deceive” his blade contact and continue your attack in some other line, to
some other target, you have tricked, fooled, teased, cheated or swindled him –
having appeared to be doing one thing, but actually doing quite another thing.
I submit that using the French term "derober" to describe your
“deception” in the first situation, and "tromper" to describe your “deception” in
the second situation, is more accurate and precise than using “deceive” for
both situations. Therefore, in the
interest of clarity, I would favor using the
French terms "derober" and "tromper" over the single English term “deceive.”
(Don't confuse "derober" and "disrobe," either.)
Let’s consider another example.
In fencing, there are various trajectories (called “lines”) that
a blow, whether cut or thrust, can take to reach the target. The trajectory can
be above or below the opponent’s swordhand. In English we refer to that above
the hand as being in the “high” line. That below the swordhand we call the
“low” line.
(WRONG. The lines are NOT areas of the target; they are the spaces through which the blade travels to REACH the target, and are infinitely mobile, defined by the position of the opponent's weapon.)
In French, the two words are dessus (on top of) for the high
line, and dessous (under, beneath or below) for the low line. Despite their similar spellings, and, to the
untrained ear, similar pronunciation, these words mean opposite things.
Further, these words have no special meaning that the English words do not
have. That is, they do not define the high and low lines any more precisely or
accurately than the English words do. I
would submit that, for an English-speaker, the lack of any greater clarity with
the French terms, combined with the high likelihood of confusion and error in
using the French terms, suggests that the best choice would be to use the
English terms “high and “low, and not the French terms “dessus and dessous.
The reason that selecting appropriate terms is important is
that the way you talk about a thing strongly influences the way you think about
that thing. And how you think about the thing strongly influences how you act in regard to that thing.
It's important to understand this because, as already noted,
terms are not always used to improve understanding and facilitate accurate
communication.
For example, let’s consider the word “terrorism.”
Back when I was first learning about such things,
“terrorism” had a very narrow, specific and precise meaning. It described a very particular type of
coercion. In the law, “coercion” means the use of force or the threat of force
to compel a person to do something that they have a legal right NOT to do, or
to prevent someone from doing something that they have a legal right TO do.
Terrorism is the use of force or the threat of force to
coerce a given civilian population to do or not do something in order for the
coercing party to achieve some political end. The political component is a sine
qua non. Using coercion so you can rob a bank is not “terrorism.” Further, not only must the end be political,
but with “terrorism” the coercion must
target the innocent, non-combatants – especially children -- and be characterized
by extreme depravity, brutality or cruelty (the intentional infliction of
unnecessary pain for it’s own sake) that one could say “shocks the conscience.”
Given this history of word “terrorism,” it is no wonder that in the
popular consciousness a “terrorist” is considered to be a vicious and sadistic
person, lacking compassion, common decency, fairness, courage – indeed lacking
ANY respectable human qualities at all. A “terrorist” is nothing but a bully, and,
like all bullies, fundamentally a
coward. Such a person is typically regarded with an immediate negative
emotional response, disdain,
contempt, outrage, and/or hatred.
Knowing this, savvy political propagandists, employ the term
to deceive rather than to inform. They have no interest in maintaining the
once-narrow definition of terrorism. On
the contrary, their interest is in expanding the term to include anyone and
everyone who opposes them or might oppose them. Indeed, they have spent the
last couple of decades broadening the definition of terrorism to include --- well, practically
everything. People who have the gall to
resist a foreign army invading their country and killing their friends and
families, are all most certainly “terrorists.” People trying to protect the
environment from wholesale pollution and destruction by parasitic
mega-corporations are now “eco-terrorists.”
People who want to save animals from living lives of unimaginable horror
on factory farms are now “agri-terrorists.” Peaceful protestors, people who
esteem the bill of rights, Muslims, Christians, Gays and Feminists have all
been described as some form of “ domestic terrorist.” Once there were jaywalkers; now they're
pedestrian terrorists.
It
is the hope of the political propagandist that by dubbing someone a “terrorist”
other people will automatically respond emotionally to the long-established
connotation, immediately condemning the “terrorist” based on those
characteristics that they associate with someone who is, in fact, a true
terrorist, according to the narrow, accurate and precise definition of that
word.
To the propagandist,
eliciting that emotional response is important because they know that their
audience cannot respond emotionally and rationally at the same time. And
“rationally” would give the lie to their use of the word. But to the extent
that they can keep you emotionally aroused with some combination of fear, anger
and hatred, they can be sure that you will remain incapable of the critical
thinking that would almost certainly conclude that the propagandists,
themselves, are liars, thieves and murderers.
Truth-seeking is contingent upon rational analysis and
critical thinking. It can be greatly facilitated --- or substantially
obstructed --- by the use of language.
That’s a good lesson.
Courtesy of the Sword.
-aac
