A classmate from the 3rd grade.While it's no crazy feat, I remember having a 10th grade reading level in the 3rd grade. I got to check out the cool, heavy books with obscure titles. I remember checking out Plato's Republic (I have NO idea why my elementary school had that book) and reading a few pages of it before admitting that I had been defeated. At least it was by Plato, not Dr. Seuss (COUGH).
I also remember writing a story about a kid with a removable arm that was like a boomerang for my 4th grade TAKS test and making like a perfect score. I was a zany dork for words. It was the blooming of an obsession. Do you ever remember the kid in your class who would correct the teacher's usage of "burnt" and "burned" then giving a full thesis on the division of British English and American English, then asking why the heck "burned" was written on the chalkboard anyways? It was me.
To prevent this blog post from becoming some manic-depression Grammar Nazis Anonymous rehabilitation group, I'll move on. The point of this post is to make you stop and think about language. I already have you stopping, so now I got to get you thinking. Shakespeare once said, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
How I envision Shakespeare.
I also remember writing a story about a kid with a removable arm that was like a boomerang for my 4th grade TAKS test and making like a perfect score. I was a zany dork for words. It was the blooming of an obsession. Do you ever remember the kid in your class who would correct the teacher's usage of "burnt" and "burned" then giving a full thesis on the division of British English and American English, then asking why the heck "burned" was written on the chalkboard anyways? It was me.
To prevent this blog post from becoming some manic-depression Grammar Nazis Anonymous rehabilitation group, I'll move on. The point of this post is to make you stop and think about language. I already have you stopping, so now I got to get you thinking. Shakespeare once said, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
How I envision Shakespeare.That one statement is enough to really get the brain fluids juicin' up the old cortex. Do we associate the "ose" in "rose" as a soft sound to correspond with the flower's petals, or is it the other way around? Does a rock sound hard because of the "ock" or because of our mental imaging of a rock? What if we called a rock a rose and a rose a rock? Would beauty be defined by the curves and crescendos of the noun's title or does the noun march to its own tune?
Language is a beautiful, mysterious thing. All ideas must be expressed through language. Language came before a lot of our greatest ideas. So who's to say that language hasn't altercated or affected our perception of the world and our capacity to learn? Why do scientists use Latin instead of English? The answer is simple: Latin was built upon the foundation of philosophy and intelligence. English and Spanish and French and the romantic languages were diverted from this root to create more function designs for the everyday working man. Did we harm our capacity to learn by breaking away from Latin?
Next time you're in a situation and just thinking about anything, break what you're thinking about down into symbols, not words. See the rose, smell the pollen, feel the dew. Don't think "rose." It'll open your mind, try it.
But that's also why language is so beautiful. Every rose has it's thorn, and this is no exception. Language theorists not only appreciate the beauty of words, but they push past it and transcend by looking past them. Listen past the consonants and vowels, the hard and soft sounds, the lingual clicks of your tongue ricocheting from tooth to tooth. This is where I see the beauty of language.
People ask me why I'm such an English dork, and what I really wished they asked me was, "When you think of a rose, what do you envision?" Some would answer red or beauty or love or flower, but those are still just on the physical and emotional level. You must even push past that fake tier, "what the rose feels like" and enter a new zone. This zone, sadly, is not the Twilight one. In fact, it's not even a place. It's a level of thinking. When I think of a rose, I envision a soft existence, something desired but hard to obtain. I think of how the "r" makes me feel, and how the "ose" ties it up into a perfect bundle. If someone asked me about a, "baobab," my first reaction would be to classify that symbol in my language and break it down. "Bao" sounds exotic, not of English, perhaps a rushed translation of a click or hiss in some indigenious world. "Bab" dances before me. "Bab" is concrete. "Bab" applies to something that exists and is there and is not going anywhere. This is certain to me, not because I know the language, but because I know the feeling that this sound evokes in me.
For those of you still wondering, a baobab is a type of tree that holds massive amounts of water. It's a beautiful tree in itself, and indigenious to Madagascar.
Even this blogosphere that I inhabit from time to time is just a mixture of pop culture and LEDs on my screen. But I feel entranced by it. I am in a generation of instant fact-seekers. We are a generation that can explore Asia in one click of a mouse button, then rumble along in a cyber safari in Africa the next. Our language is evolving with this pace. New texting lingo like LOL pop up everyday, along with a slew of smiley faces.
It makes me wonder, will we one day evolve (or devolve?) into a language that incorporates the worn keys on a keyboard and the emotions evoked by ASCII text?
Think about it.
Language is a beautiful, mysterious thing. All ideas must be expressed through language. Language came before a lot of our greatest ideas. So who's to say that language hasn't altercated or affected our perception of the world and our capacity to learn? Why do scientists use Latin instead of English? The answer is simple: Latin was built upon the foundation of philosophy and intelligence. English and Spanish and French and the romantic languages were diverted from this root to create more function designs for the everyday working man. Did we harm our capacity to learn by breaking away from Latin?
Next time you're in a situation and just thinking about anything, break what you're thinking about down into symbols, not words. See the rose, smell the pollen, feel the dew. Don't think "rose." It'll open your mind, try it.
But that's also why language is so beautiful. Every rose has it's thorn, and this is no exception. Language theorists not only appreciate the beauty of words, but they push past it and transcend by looking past them. Listen past the consonants and vowels, the hard and soft sounds, the lingual clicks of your tongue ricocheting from tooth to tooth. This is where I see the beauty of language.
People ask me why I'm such an English dork, and what I really wished they asked me was, "When you think of a rose, what do you envision?" Some would answer red or beauty or love or flower, but those are still just on the physical and emotional level. You must even push past that fake tier, "what the rose feels like" and enter a new zone. This zone, sadly, is not the Twilight one. In fact, it's not even a place. It's a level of thinking. When I think of a rose, I envision a soft existence, something desired but hard to obtain. I think of how the "r" makes me feel, and how the "ose" ties it up into a perfect bundle. If someone asked me about a, "baobab," my first reaction would be to classify that symbol in my language and break it down. "Bao" sounds exotic, not of English, perhaps a rushed translation of a click or hiss in some indigenious world. "Bab" dances before me. "Bab" is concrete. "Bab" applies to something that exists and is there and is not going anywhere. This is certain to me, not because I know the language, but because I know the feeling that this sound evokes in me.
For those of you still wondering, a baobab is a type of tree that holds massive amounts of water. It's a beautiful tree in itself, and indigenious to Madagascar.
Even this blogosphere that I inhabit from time to time is just a mixture of pop culture and LEDs on my screen. But I feel entranced by it. I am in a generation of instant fact-seekers. We are a generation that can explore Asia in one click of a mouse button, then rumble along in a cyber safari in Africa the next. Our language is evolving with this pace. New texting lingo like LOL pop up everyday, along with a slew of smiley faces.
It makes me wonder, will we one day evolve (or devolve?) into a language that incorporates the worn keys on a keyboard and the emotions evoked by ASCII text?
Think about it.
Beautifully, eloquently written... though I would like to point out that every language has fundamentals, and that Dr.Seuss (COUGH) was a forerunner in recent children's books... Everyone has to start at the basic level of language- without Dr.Seuss, Andrew, you might never've gotten to Plato.
ReplyDelete:)
Texting for you must be quite a chore, with your large vocabulary and adherence to proper grammatical form. 'Tis the reason I don't text at all (When it comes to texting, I'm all thumbs.)
ReplyDeleteFirst came e-mails, then texting. Both are serving the purpose of ruining both the written and spoken language.
I, too, am a fan of language, and Onomatopoeia is one of my favorite literary devices, especially when combined with a hint of synesthasia.
Write on!
Hey, Andy aren't you a professor in several languages who is capable of deconstructing improper syntax on the ever-so-accurate wikiAnswers? Wasn't there also something about Captain Pepto Bismol the 8th, having crumpets with the Queen of England, Hawaii, Tom Cruise and the Lost Colony of Roanoke? Maybe they were different responses... For anyone who doesn't know, toss some of those key terms into Google and catch a glipmse of just HOW PRODUCTIVE post-AP-Exam AP Classes can really be...
ReplyDelete