Does language help us say exactly what we mean?
June 25th 2008 21:37
Some days I can write no wrong. Everything I write seems to perfectly fit with the sense I have of what I want to convey, the way two lovers bodies will lie as if crafted to fit together as spoons of flesh.
On other days, ‘(i)t is impossible to say just what I mean.’ (T S Eliot, The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, 1917) no matter that the English language is overcrowded with words like commuters on the New York underground.
Some days, search as I may, I cannot find the right words to fix to my need to say the thing inside me that is rasping for inscription. It doesn’t help that I write for what is loosely called ‘a living,’ for were it not for a fabulous husband with a nine-to-five job, this would be more like suicide.
If you are reading this on a computer screen, the word ‘rumbly’ may stand out from all the other words (assuming my spell-check has been accurate) by a red zigzag line beneath it. This is because there is no such recognized word in the English language, or at least not so far as Microsoft Inc is concerned. ‘Rumbly’ is a word my daughter used when she was six years old to describe things that are not colored neatly in their lines or are out of order. She also used this word to designate disquiet or disappointment such as a day that had not gone her way or a feeling that made her uncomfortable.
As a child I had a recurring nightmare I used to call ‘the squiggly line’ nightmare. It was a dream so powerfully terrifying, and yet when asked by my parents to describe it, all I could offer was ‘lots of squiggly lines.’ They yawned and told me to ‘go back to bed and forget about it.’ But I have not forgotten about it. I have also not stopped searching for language to convey what my dream was ‘about.’ The fear feels as real to me today as it did then, but all I have is a ‘rumbly’ feeling and an inadequate vocabulary to share it.
As much as language enables meaning and builds bridges between what Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations (1958) described as my ‘beetle in the box’ and yours, it also (and sometimes even simultaneously) reduces ‘that thing that makes a blue umbrella with its tail’ to the ‘poor and pale’ ‘peacock,’ from DJ Enright’s poem ‘Blue Umbrellas.' (for those of you who've never read it, I have copied it below).
Language is both savior and tormentor in matters of shared meaning. Sometimes as ‘the dictionary is opening, the gay umbrellas close,’ as DJ Enright writes.
Sometimes I love words. And some days I am taunted by them.
Most of the time, I whisper to them, as the thug in the Big Lebowski says as he dunks The Dude’s head into the toilet, ‘WHERE’S THE FUCKING MONEY?’
And like the Dude, they shrug at me and say, ‘It’s uh, down there somewhere. Lemme take another look.’
www.joannefedler.com
Blue umbrellas by D. J. Enright
'The thing that makes a blue umbrella with its tail -
how do you call it?' you ask. Poorly and pale
Comes my answer. For all I can call it is peacock.
Now that you go to school, you will learn how we call all sorts of things;
How we mar great works by our mean recital.
You will learn, for instance, that Head Monster is not the gentleman's accepted title;
The blue-tailed eccentrics will be merely peacocks;
the dead bird will no longer doze
Off till tomorrow's lark, for the latter has killed him.
The dictionary is opening, the gay umbrellas close.
Oh our mistaken teachers! -
It was not a proper respect for words that we need,
But a decent regard for things, those older creatures and more real.
Later you may even resort to writing verse
To prove the dishonesty of names and their black greed -
To confess your ignorance, to expiate your crime, seeking one spell to
life another curse.
Or you may, more commodiously, spy on your children, busy discoverers,
Without the dubious benefit of rhyme.
On other days, ‘(i)t is impossible to say just what I mean.’ (T S Eliot, The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, 1917) no matter that the English language is overcrowded with words like commuters on the New York underground.
Some days, search as I may, I cannot find the right words to fix to my need to say the thing inside me that is rasping for inscription. It doesn’t help that I write for what is loosely called ‘a living,’ for were it not for a fabulous husband with a nine-to-five job, this would be more like suicide.
If you are reading this on a computer screen, the word ‘rumbly’ may stand out from all the other words (assuming my spell-check has been accurate) by a red zigzag line beneath it. This is because there is no such recognized word in the English language, or at least not so far as Microsoft Inc is concerned. ‘Rumbly’ is a word my daughter used when she was six years old to describe things that are not colored neatly in their lines or are out of order. She also used this word to designate disquiet or disappointment such as a day that had not gone her way or a feeling that made her uncomfortable.
As a child I had a recurring nightmare I used to call ‘the squiggly line’ nightmare. It was a dream so powerfully terrifying, and yet when asked by my parents to describe it, all I could offer was ‘lots of squiggly lines.’ They yawned and told me to ‘go back to bed and forget about it.’ But I have not forgotten about it. I have also not stopped searching for language to convey what my dream was ‘about.’ The fear feels as real to me today as it did then, but all I have is a ‘rumbly’ feeling and an inadequate vocabulary to share it.
As much as language enables meaning and builds bridges between what Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations (1958) described as my ‘beetle in the box’ and yours, it also (and sometimes even simultaneously) reduces ‘that thing that makes a blue umbrella with its tail’ to the ‘poor and pale’ ‘peacock,’ from DJ Enright’s poem ‘Blue Umbrellas.' (for those of you who've never read it, I have copied it below).
Language is both savior and tormentor in matters of shared meaning. Sometimes as ‘the dictionary is opening, the gay umbrellas close,’ as DJ Enright writes.
Sometimes I love words. And some days I am taunted by them.
Most of the time, I whisper to them, as the thug in the Big Lebowski says as he dunks The Dude’s head into the toilet, ‘WHERE’S THE FUCKING MONEY?’
And like the Dude, they shrug at me and say, ‘It’s uh, down there somewhere. Lemme take another look.’
www.joannefedler.com
Blue umbrellas by D. J. Enright
'The thing that makes a blue umbrella with its tail -
how do you call it?' you ask. Poorly and pale
Comes my answer. For all I can call it is peacock.
Now that you go to school, you will learn how we call all sorts of things;
How we mar great works by our mean recital.
You will learn, for instance, that Head Monster is not the gentleman's accepted title;
The blue-tailed eccentrics will be merely peacocks;
the dead bird will no longer doze
Off till tomorrow's lark, for the latter has killed him.
The dictionary is opening, the gay umbrellas close.
Oh our mistaken teachers! -
It was not a proper respect for words that we need,
But a decent regard for things, those older creatures and more real.
Later you may even resort to writing verse
To prove the dishonesty of names and their black greed -
To confess your ignorance, to expiate your crime, seeking one spell to
life another curse.
Or you may, more commodiously, spy on your children, busy discoverers,
Without the dubious benefit of rhyme.
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Comment by Cibbuano
20/20 Filmsight
Science News
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
Comment by Jayne Kearney
Writers In Writing (and other writing)
1.I was thinking about your description of the 'search' for the right words to convey our meanings and thought that, although I am not a gambling woman, the feeling must be akin to that of a high roller - the hunt and the relentless hunger but then that burst of bliss when we hit the jackpot!
2. I also had a recurring nightmare as a child that I can never describe except with the words 'all fat' - it was just as if there was 'all fat' everywhere and the sensation was quite unsettling. The dream also had an aural element where everyone spoke r e a l l y s l o w l y and REALLY LOUDLY - a sensation which continued after I had woken. I dreaded this nightmare but luckily I seem to have grown out of it.
3. Blue Umbrellas - what a fascinating poem. I couldn't help but recall my visit to a wildlife park with my kids last weekend. As we entered the park my daughter (7) was saying to my son (6), "You remember, we came here once before."
"No," he replied "I can't remember."
"You know," she said, "this is where they have the..." slight pause, "you know the cock..." more searching silence, "you know, the Cocktail Feathers...":
"Sweetheart," I said, "do you mean the peacocks?"
Sheepishly she admitted that yes, she did mean the peacocks. Personally I prefer Cocktail Feathers.
"Busy discoverers" indeed!
Jayne
Comment by Ronald
nothing
Comment by Joanne Fedler
Secret Writers Business
Cib, I think it was the poet Yeats who wrote about 'finding the language that will suffice,' to say exactly what we mean. I strive to pare down the pretension, the wordiness, the vagueness of language. Sometimes words have been too 'lived in' like hand-me-downs and I feel the staleness of the language. I want to find virgin phrases. But it's painstaking.
Jayne, what a wonderful comment - thanks for sharing that glorious conversation between your children. I love listening to the way kids use language, they seem to come to it so innocently. My son said the other day that his teacher doesn't 'take a shit' about what one of the naughty kids in his class does. I told him if he's going to swear, he needs to know how to say 'give a shit' - because 'taking a shit' just doesn't conjure up a pretty picture.
Ronald, thanks for your comment. I love Wittgenstein. The bits I understand...
Jo
Comment by Mrs M
Mum's Word
Love & stuff
Mrs M
Comment by Joanne Fedler
Secret Writers Business
Jo
Comment by Ronald
nothing
Comment by Joanne Fedler
Secret Writers Business
Perhaps we could develop a whole new lexicon in smileys.
On a more serious note, I imagine deaf sign language is a form of shorthand we could learn a lot from.
Jo
Comment by Ronald
nothing