I almost got married once. I got to the engagement part before I panicked and realized it was not going to work. I didn't feel like a whole person with him. I remember getting to the gaijin house (it was never home) after work and going downstairs to the communal living room. My friend Greg, the Canadian manga artist, was there drinking screwdrivers. He offered me one and asked me questions about myself: what was I doing in Japan and what did I want from the experience? I rattled off my story about how my fiance had always wanted to live in Japan and we were going to be there for five years. Greg stopped me in midsentence. He said that if he had wanted to know about what my fiance wanted, he would have asked him. He was asking me. What did I want?
I froze up. I couldn't answer. I had no idea.
I started crying and had to leave to hide the tears. I had no idea what I wanted. I had no idea why I was in Japan, other than that I had agreed to go because that's where my fiance was going.
I had always thought that I loved him. I now know I didn't. I never had.
I have had other relationships and told men that I loved them. Now I wonder whether I did.
What I feel with Jeff is huge and scary. The biggest difference is that he doesn't fill up the empty spaces in me. He is himself and has his world; I am myself and have my world. It's like a Venn diagram with big circles for both of us and our love is the overlapping part.
I suppose a person can fall in love as many times as necessary, and for me, it's really been just once.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Homesick
A little over two years ago, I was on the front porch of the Hope Hotel in Idaho, looking out over Lake Pend Oreille. I was sitting next to Jeff, who was an infrequent patron of the bar. I mostly served food there, so I had never served him, only talked to him in passing, or while we were both indulging our nicotine habits. Servers have a habit of remembering who a person is by what he drinks (we know where the money is), and there were a lot of Jeffs that came in, so we would refer to this particular Jeff as Guinness Jeff.
So Guinness Jeff and I were on the porch together on the peeling white bench, companionably smoking, and somehow, we got around to my leaving that September. I told him I was going to Cheney to get my English degree now that my son was grown up.
"And what will you do with that?"
This is when I give my flippant answer: "Hang it on the wall and admire it." "Make a paper airplane." "Tattoo it on my butt and work at McDonald's." I hate that question. I'm not here to get a degree for a job. I'm here to learn, period. That's all. But Guinness Jeff had never been rude to me, and he had always been respectful, so being flippant to him would just have been arrogant and unkind.
I told him that when I had my degree, I was going to pack the car with clothes, the dog and the cat, and I was going to start driving. It didn't matter which direction I went. I was just going to drive and when I felt like stopping, I would stop. I'd try to work in diners and bars, just enough to pay to eat and stay clean, and I would write. I would stay on the road and write.
I don't think he believed me at first, and I'm sure you don't believe me now, but I meant it. I lived in London for about 10 months. I got a Eurail Pass and stayed in a hostel room worse than a jail cell, and got somewhat better rooms in Brussels and Paris. I flew from London to Bangkok on Aeroflot, the Russian airline, before the Berlin Wall fell. I lived on the beach in Koh Samui back when you could live comfortably on $2 a day. And I stayed in two roach-infested gaijin houses in Tokyo for about 11 months. I don't mean itty bitty roaches. I mean black three-inch fliers that will attack your face.
I was tired of Idaho. I was tired of the conservative politics and the religion. Before the Hotel job, I was an Admissions Clerk at the hospital. One day during the Presidency of George W. Bush, the wife of one of the doctors came in and sat down in one of the booths next to mine and started talking to one of her friends. The two of them were talking about the struggles with Israel and Palestine, and the deaths, and how it was under siege from all these Arab countries. The doctor's wife suddenly started crying. "It's all coming to pass," she said. "The prophecies are coming true. Israel is coming to power, and that means Jesus is coming back. I'm so happy! I can't wait."
I was just getting sick. Honestly, at that point, I wanted Israel obliterated from the earth. I thought maybe, if those prophecies were proven false once and for all, this nonsense would stop. People would stop exulting in other people's suffering because it would no longer be some sign to them that they were right and that other people were wrong, and they were going to heaven and everyone else was going to hell.
I hated Idaho at that point. I listened to people like this every day. Very few of them went as far as the doctor's wife, but you could still hear the sanctimony in their voices. I finally left the hospital job, not because I could get away from these people, but because I needed a night job to go back to school. Once I did, I realized that I could go to school in another state, and I could escape the neoconservative politics and the evangelical Christians.
The night job at the Hotel, waiting tables, put me into contact with different people. I met people with broken lives and addictions. I met people who talked casually of having been in jail, usually for DUIs. I met an artist who set up her studio next to our restaurant and bar. I reconnected with my son's grade school teachers. The publisher of Lost Horse Press was a regular patron. I met musicians and drunks, fishing boat captains and crews. Pool sharks and millionaires who played dice for thousands of dollars spread on the weathered wood of the hundred-year-old bar.
And one night, I sat out again with Guinness Jeff, who I had learned was from Alaska, who had been a carny, a salmon fisherman, a prankster, a roofer and in all kind of trouble. I learned he was a little shy of me, but that after a Jack and Coke (yes, he switched his drink on me), he would loudly declare my praises. And that night, I deliberately left my coat in the server station, sat on the bench with him, lit up my cigarette, hugged myself and shivered. "It's cold tonight," I said. He smiled and hugged me to him.
That was how it began.
I got my wish. I got out of Idaho.
Now I just want to go back.
So Guinness Jeff and I were on the porch together on the peeling white bench, companionably smoking, and somehow, we got around to my leaving that September. I told him I was going to Cheney to get my English degree now that my son was grown up.
"And what will you do with that?"
This is when I give my flippant answer: "Hang it on the wall and admire it." "Make a paper airplane." "Tattoo it on my butt and work at McDonald's." I hate that question. I'm not here to get a degree for a job. I'm here to learn, period. That's all. But Guinness Jeff had never been rude to me, and he had always been respectful, so being flippant to him would just have been arrogant and unkind.
I told him that when I had my degree, I was going to pack the car with clothes, the dog and the cat, and I was going to start driving. It didn't matter which direction I went. I was just going to drive and when I felt like stopping, I would stop. I'd try to work in diners and bars, just enough to pay to eat and stay clean, and I would write. I would stay on the road and write.
I don't think he believed me at first, and I'm sure you don't believe me now, but I meant it. I lived in London for about 10 months. I got a Eurail Pass and stayed in a hostel room worse than a jail cell, and got somewhat better rooms in Brussels and Paris. I flew from London to Bangkok on Aeroflot, the Russian airline, before the Berlin Wall fell. I lived on the beach in Koh Samui back when you could live comfortably on $2 a day. And I stayed in two roach-infested gaijin houses in Tokyo for about 11 months. I don't mean itty bitty roaches. I mean black three-inch fliers that will attack your face.
I was tired of Idaho. I was tired of the conservative politics and the religion. Before the Hotel job, I was an Admissions Clerk at the hospital. One day during the Presidency of George W. Bush, the wife of one of the doctors came in and sat down in one of the booths next to mine and started talking to one of her friends. The two of them were talking about the struggles with Israel and Palestine, and the deaths, and how it was under siege from all these Arab countries. The doctor's wife suddenly started crying. "It's all coming to pass," she said. "The prophecies are coming true. Israel is coming to power, and that means Jesus is coming back. I'm so happy! I can't wait."
I was just getting sick. Honestly, at that point, I wanted Israel obliterated from the earth. I thought maybe, if those prophecies were proven false once and for all, this nonsense would stop. People would stop exulting in other people's suffering because it would no longer be some sign to them that they were right and that other people were wrong, and they were going to heaven and everyone else was going to hell.
I hated Idaho at that point. I listened to people like this every day. Very few of them went as far as the doctor's wife, but you could still hear the sanctimony in their voices. I finally left the hospital job, not because I could get away from these people, but because I needed a night job to go back to school. Once I did, I realized that I could go to school in another state, and I could escape the neoconservative politics and the evangelical Christians.
The night job at the Hotel, waiting tables, put me into contact with different people. I met people with broken lives and addictions. I met people who talked casually of having been in jail, usually for DUIs. I met an artist who set up her studio next to our restaurant and bar. I reconnected with my son's grade school teachers. The publisher of Lost Horse Press was a regular patron. I met musicians and drunks, fishing boat captains and crews. Pool sharks and millionaires who played dice for thousands of dollars spread on the weathered wood of the hundred-year-old bar.
And one night, I sat out again with Guinness Jeff, who I had learned was from Alaska, who had been a carny, a salmon fisherman, a prankster, a roofer and in all kind of trouble. I learned he was a little shy of me, but that after a Jack and Coke (yes, he switched his drink on me), he would loudly declare my praises. And that night, I deliberately left my coat in the server station, sat on the bench with him, lit up my cigarette, hugged myself and shivered. "It's cold tonight," I said. He smiled and hugged me to him.
That was how it began.
I got my wish. I got out of Idaho.
Now I just want to go back.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
This post doesn't count
It's just links:
Snopes investigates the email I forwarded to them out of frustration: Health Care Reform Requires Microchipping?
(Remember that friend I broke with? It was over this. Remember how I told you the writers' logic was bad and that the sources addressed weren't saying what they were saying they said? Snopes discovered even more: they were quoting an irrelevant, dead bill and saying it was the one that passed. I love Snopes.)
Compassion Reading, from Willow Springs's Bark
Eliminating the absolutes in your writing.
Get Up, Come on, Get Down with the [sic]ness
Correcting the grammar of Jesus Freak texts sent to you at ungodly morning hours by well-meaning but sanctimoniously defensive people. Fantastic for linguistics students to read.
More later.
P.S. And not a link, but only Pyrite will get this one: My land mass erupts with kittens.
Damn you, Pyrite, for stealing away all my studying time with Dominick Deegan!
Snopes investigates the email I forwarded to them out of frustration: Health Care Reform Requires Microchipping?
(Remember that friend I broke with? It was over this. Remember how I told you the writers' logic was bad and that the sources addressed weren't saying what they were saying they said? Snopes discovered even more: they were quoting an irrelevant, dead bill and saying it was the one that passed. I love Snopes.)
Compassion Reading, from Willow Springs's Bark
Eliminating the absolutes in your writing.
Get Up, Come on, Get Down with the [sic]ness
Correcting the grammar of Jesus Freak texts sent to you at ungodly morning hours by well-meaning but sanctimoniously defensive people. Fantastic for linguistics students to read.
More later.
P.S. And not a link, but only Pyrite will get this one: My land mass erupts with kittens.
Damn you, Pyrite, for stealing away all my studying time with Dominick Deegan!
Chigau, yo
I brought up the "concerning" linguistic issue in class (and derailed the discussion that was happening--people were panicking about the test, and since I rarely panic about tests, it never occurred to me I was causing harm until people got frantic. I still feel bad about that). I realized something important.
People have a violent reaction to the word "error." I know, I can be naive. I tried to explain my thought processes on how the word usage of "concerning" changed. I tried to use words that weren't loaded, but I failed.
Error equals wrong, for a lot of people. For me, it has a subtler meaning, maybe because I've studied science. An error can produce marvelous things, especially in genetic code. Twelve generations ago some cells in one of my ancestors had an error--known in science as a mutation--after a certain number of divisions in the zygote and forgot how to make a certain protein. It's an error, but it produced what we call our genetic heirloom in my family: the white marks that appear in the forelock, insides of elbows, backs of knees and a small patch on the abdomen. (I only got three of these, a little tummy mark, a tiny spot on the back of my left knee and the white patch you see in my hair.)
Now this is definitely an error, because in the standard operating manual of a human cell, the ability to make or turn on or off a specific protein is standard. Deviation is an error. And yet this is not something that turned out to be wrong. It turned out to be something beautiful (and useless, and bothersome in the sun) and valued.
I wish we had a word for this like they have in Japanese. The word "chigau" is often used for "that's wrong." But what it also means is, "that's different." (Let's not get into the disturbing idea that "different" thus equals "wrong" in Japanese society. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt, okay?) When you put forth an idea, asking if the party is happening on Friday at 6, your friend replies, "Chigau, yo. Haku-ji desu." He's saying, "No, it's different. It's at 8."
Lots of language changes from errors. In linguistics class, we learned that many African American speakers are closer to historically spoken correct English than the rest of us, because the way they say "ask," "aks" (sounds like "axe"), is how the word was said and spelled, until someone or several someones made an error and spelled it the way we spell it now. Our standard speech as we know it now is based on an error.
And you'll tell me, then, stop saying it's an error. Say it's a change. It is a change. But it was also an error that made the change. And there is nothing bad about that. At all. The judgment is not coming from me. I use the word "error," but I hope by now you can see what I mean by it. The judgment is in the reaction to the word "error." People hate to be told they're bad, even when they aren't being told they're bad. There's no judgment in my use of the word "error." I explained in my blog entry last time that the change creates a valid use of the word; it just sounds wrong to my ears. My opinion about something is not the final word on something, but I am entitled to it. "Concerning" in that usage still doesn't sound right to me, and I would never use it that way, but I recognize others' use of the language to be correct.
I am just fascinated with the origin of the change, and what that means for language change in general. I am beginning to understand that virtually all language change begins as an error and becomes standard usage over time.
Part of me would like to write my theoretical paper on the "concerning" change. It would help me to understand it, and maybe help me to explain it without hurting people's feelings.
People have a violent reaction to the word "error." I know, I can be naive. I tried to explain my thought processes on how the word usage of "concerning" changed. I tried to use words that weren't loaded, but I failed.
Error equals wrong, for a lot of people. For me, it has a subtler meaning, maybe because I've studied science. An error can produce marvelous things, especially in genetic code. Twelve generations ago some cells in one of my ancestors had an error--known in science as a mutation--after a certain number of divisions in the zygote and forgot how to make a certain protein. It's an error, but it produced what we call our genetic heirloom in my family: the white marks that appear in the forelock, insides of elbows, backs of knees and a small patch on the abdomen. (I only got three of these, a little tummy mark, a tiny spot on the back of my left knee and the white patch you see in my hair.)
Now this is definitely an error, because in the standard operating manual of a human cell, the ability to make or turn on or off a specific protein is standard. Deviation is an error. And yet this is not something that turned out to be wrong. It turned out to be something beautiful (and useless, and bothersome in the sun) and valued.
I wish we had a word for this like they have in Japanese. The word "chigau" is often used for "that's wrong." But what it also means is, "that's different." (Let's not get into the disturbing idea that "different" thus equals "wrong" in Japanese society. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt, okay?) When you put forth an idea, asking if the party is happening on Friday at 6, your friend replies, "Chigau, yo. Haku-ji desu." He's saying, "No, it's different. It's at 8."
Lots of language changes from errors. In linguistics class, we learned that many African American speakers are closer to historically spoken correct English than the rest of us, because the way they say "ask," "aks" (sounds like "axe"), is how the word was said and spelled, until someone or several someones made an error and spelled it the way we spell it now. Our standard speech as we know it now is based on an error.
And you'll tell me, then, stop saying it's an error. Say it's a change. It is a change. But it was also an error that made the change. And there is nothing bad about that. At all. The judgment is not coming from me. I use the word "error," but I hope by now you can see what I mean by it. The judgment is in the reaction to the word "error." People hate to be told they're bad, even when they aren't being told they're bad. There's no judgment in my use of the word "error." I explained in my blog entry last time that the change creates a valid use of the word; it just sounds wrong to my ears. My opinion about something is not the final word on something, but I am entitled to it. "Concerning" in that usage still doesn't sound right to me, and I would never use it that way, but I recognize others' use of the language to be correct.
I am just fascinated with the origin of the change, and what that means for language change in general. I am beginning to understand that virtually all language change begins as an error and becomes standard usage over time.
Part of me would like to write my theoretical paper on the "concerning" change. It would help me to understand it, and maybe help me to explain it without hurting people's feelings.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Do we steal what we love?
A friend of mine posted this link on his Facebook: $20 DIY Book Scanner from Wired
Naturally, in the comments, a spirited discussion of copyright infringement ensued.
One of them lamented that he must have been silly to think he could make money writing. Someone else said, "Your failed business model is not my problem." I think it was a signature line but it fit perfectly with the situation.
I've been thinking about copyrights lately. I hate digital rights management software (known as DRM) because it's buggy and invasive. It never does anything to enhance the product, and in the case of games, often renders then unusable. We're often told that we should buy digital copies from legitimate sources, because the pirated versions have viruses attached and may have missing code, but generally, a pirated copy is a clean copy, DRM-free, and will work on your computer for years. Just try passing your "legitimate" copy from one machine to another and see what the DRM does to you. No computer upgrades for you!
DRM also uses data mining code to spy on you and report back to the host. When Sony started putting DRM on its music CDs that not only locked up the data but launched itself into the computer, dug in tight and ripped other things out when removed, I vowed never to buy another Sony CD or any other music format as long as I lived. I have kept and will keep that promise.
I know I'd like to be paid for my writing someday, but before that happens, I need, as one commenter wrote, to write something worth buying. Not simply worth reading, but worth buying. I've bought Anna Karenina at least four times. I've owned Strunk and White's Elements of Style about the same number of times. There are books I'll buy again and again because I've loaned them to friends and never gotten them back, lost them in moves from one house to another, or simply misplaced.
By contrast, I've bought plenty of books I wish I hadn't, and there are plenty of books I've borrowed and given right back. I took John Grisham's A Time to Kill off my mother's shelf because she told me it was his best. I read 15 pages of prose so dry and dead that I felt my brain desiccating and peeling back from the inside of my skull. I'll never read him again.
Likewise, I'll never read the Twilight books. The prose is an estrogen swamp with ethical quicksands and self-justification vines to hold you still until the Love Monster eats you. I've opened each of the Twilight books in the store, read a page or two and had to laugh just to keep from feeling pain. They reminded me of the time I visited some friends of mine. These friends, a guy and two girls all platonic and living together in a tiny room in a gaijin house in Tokyo, had a lovely idea. Every night before they'd all go to sleep, they would take turns reading a chapter from some novel. If I ever live with a group again, I am completely stealing this idea.
I had come over to spend the night, and my friends were in the middle of The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy. They were worshipful of the book. I, coming into it from the middle, and having no context, fell headlong into the swampy prose. I tried not to laugh out loud. I really did. But I failed, and I wasn't invited back to Bedtime Story Hour ever again.
So there are things we'll buy, things we'll sample and put down, things we'll avoid, and things we'll laugh at from a comfortable distance. What are the things we steal? Do we steal what we love?
Sometimes we do. I know I've "stolen" a whole catalogue of music from the 80s by paying a tiny fee to a Russian music site. They claim they are legal and the artists are paid, but I don't believe them. I don't care. I love 80s music and I'm not willing to pay 99 cents a song from iTunes (plus DRM, yay) when I've already paid a bunch of money for all that music when I was a kid. The artists aren't getting paid from Apple much more than they are paid from the Russian music pirates, really.
Would I steal a book I love? I've never felt the need. There are book torrents. I've never been interested in exploring them. As adorable as the Kindle is, and as much the geek in me wants one just to pet and coo over, I really prefer having a page-turnable book or magazine in my hands. I love the smell of books. I love the sound a hardback makes when you close it. (thump) I love the physical stacks of books and there is nothing more sinfully lovely than a fashion magazine's September issue. Our children, if they're still able to breathe and haven't burned up in the global warming, will hate me someday for all my inch-thick, glossy September Vogue and Elle copies.
My point, I suppose, is that the issue of copyright is a simple one. We really ought to pay for what we consume. But as a consumer, and a reader, I won't pay for what I don't love, or for what I've paid for once already. And I'm not willing to load down my computer with buggy malware that allows a company to market me more accurately and aggressively, just so an artist can get a few pennies. There's the simple "should" and the more complicated "is."
Or maybe it's not so complicated. Here's a business model I think will work: give me a clean copy of what I want, and I'll pay the artist the whole amount directly. Or I'll pay the artist the majority and a portion goes to the computer geek who programs the site, formats the artwork digitally and arranges the pay process. Is 70-30 fair enough?
Then a copyright will actually mean something.
Naturally, in the comments, a spirited discussion of copyright infringement ensued.
One of them lamented that he must have been silly to think he could make money writing. Someone else said, "Your failed business model is not my problem." I think it was a signature line but it fit perfectly with the situation.
I've been thinking about copyrights lately. I hate digital rights management software (known as DRM) because it's buggy and invasive. It never does anything to enhance the product, and in the case of games, often renders then unusable. We're often told that we should buy digital copies from legitimate sources, because the pirated versions have viruses attached and may have missing code, but generally, a pirated copy is a clean copy, DRM-free, and will work on your computer for years. Just try passing your "legitimate" copy from one machine to another and see what the DRM does to you. No computer upgrades for you!
DRM also uses data mining code to spy on you and report back to the host. When Sony started putting DRM on its music CDs that not only locked up the data but launched itself into the computer, dug in tight and ripped other things out when removed, I vowed never to buy another Sony CD or any other music format as long as I lived. I have kept and will keep that promise.
I know I'd like to be paid for my writing someday, but before that happens, I need, as one commenter wrote, to write something worth buying. Not simply worth reading, but worth buying. I've bought Anna Karenina at least four times. I've owned Strunk and White's Elements of Style about the same number of times. There are books I'll buy again and again because I've loaned them to friends and never gotten them back, lost them in moves from one house to another, or simply misplaced.
By contrast, I've bought plenty of books I wish I hadn't, and there are plenty of books I've borrowed and given right back. I took John Grisham's A Time to Kill off my mother's shelf because she told me it was his best. I read 15 pages of prose so dry and dead that I felt my brain desiccating and peeling back from the inside of my skull. I'll never read him again.
Likewise, I'll never read the Twilight books. The prose is an estrogen swamp with ethical quicksands and self-justification vines to hold you still until the Love Monster eats you. I've opened each of the Twilight books in the store, read a page or two and had to laugh just to keep from feeling pain. They reminded me of the time I visited some friends of mine. These friends, a guy and two girls all platonic and living together in a tiny room in a gaijin house in Tokyo, had a lovely idea. Every night before they'd all go to sleep, they would take turns reading a chapter from some novel. If I ever live with a group again, I am completely stealing this idea.
I had come over to spend the night, and my friends were in the middle of The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy. They were worshipful of the book. I, coming into it from the middle, and having no context, fell headlong into the swampy prose. I tried not to laugh out loud. I really did. But I failed, and I wasn't invited back to Bedtime Story Hour ever again.
So there are things we'll buy, things we'll sample and put down, things we'll avoid, and things we'll laugh at from a comfortable distance. What are the things we steal? Do we steal what we love?
Sometimes we do. I know I've "stolen" a whole catalogue of music from the 80s by paying a tiny fee to a Russian music site. They claim they are legal and the artists are paid, but I don't believe them. I don't care. I love 80s music and I'm not willing to pay 99 cents a song from iTunes (plus DRM, yay) when I've already paid a bunch of money for all that music when I was a kid. The artists aren't getting paid from Apple much more than they are paid from the Russian music pirates, really.
Would I steal a book I love? I've never felt the need. There are book torrents. I've never been interested in exploring them. As adorable as the Kindle is, and as much the geek in me wants one just to pet and coo over, I really prefer having a page-turnable book or magazine in my hands. I love the smell of books. I love the sound a hardback makes when you close it. (thump) I love the physical stacks of books and there is nothing more sinfully lovely than a fashion magazine's September issue. Our children, if they're still able to breathe and haven't burned up in the global warming, will hate me someday for all my inch-thick, glossy September Vogue and Elle copies.
My point, I suppose, is that the issue of copyright is a simple one. We really ought to pay for what we consume. But as a consumer, and a reader, I won't pay for what I don't love, or for what I've paid for once already. And I'm not willing to load down my computer with buggy malware that allows a company to market me more accurately and aggressively, just so an artist can get a few pennies. There's the simple "should" and the more complicated "is."
Or maybe it's not so complicated. Here's a business model I think will work: give me a clean copy of what I want, and I'll pay the artist the whole amount directly. Or I'll pay the artist the majority and a portion goes to the computer geek who programs the site, formats the artwork digitally and arranges the pay process. Is 70-30 fair enough?
Then a copyright will actually mean something.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Concerning "concerning"
Rereading Strunk and White, particularly the misused words and phrases, reminds me of something that's been bugging me lately: the recent use of the word "concerning" to mean "worrisome." I hear it a lot with teenagers. "That's very concerning...."
My son used it, and I, being a mother, corrected him. "That word doesn't have that usage. It means, 'about,' or 'related to.' It doesn't mean 'to be worried about.'"
But maybe I'm wrong. I'm taking linguistics this quarter, and I'm discovering things about the language I never knew before. For example, there's the bold linguistic statement, "No native speaker of a language can make a verbal mistake in that language. It is not possible." What that means is that however a person was brought up to speak is correct for that person, and no person should have her spoken grammar "corrected" after speaking. However she spoke the language is correct, because she is a native speaker.
Is your hair on fire yet? Wait, before you explode, understand that the rules for writing are different and more codified than for speech. All that means is that you'd better make your verbs and subjects agree (even though that's an arbitrary Latin rule imposed on the Germanic language in the 14th century) in your writing. Don't worry about it in speech.
So, what's to be done about "concerning"? The kids can't make mistakes in their native language. That usage of that word is correct and carries meaning for them. It separates them from me, yes, but that's what happens over time. Youth and age are separate, and ever will be separate. Time does that. But what do we do about this word? It's right for them. It's wrong for me. Is it their language now, and they form it, leaving me behind? Is that what language does? I know it's what time does. Does language, also?
Here's my problem. The paradox is that the children coined new usage for this word out of ignorance of the old. They saw the word "concerning," knew that "concern" had a particularly intimate connotation, and, not knowing the meaning of "concerning," applied what they knew about "concern" to it. Now this is coinage from an error. However, the children cannot make an error in their native language. Thus they have coined a new, valid usage of the word.
And yet, my mind rebels, and insists this is an error. Am I wrong? But I am a native speaker of English, and so I can't make mistakes in it, either. What do we do about this?
Here's what I foresee happening. It will take a decade or two, but it will happen.
Only some of these children will be "corrected" by teachers and professors. Eventually, some of them will become teachers themselves. They, using the word in this way, will not correct those who do. (This word is proliferate on the internet in this usage. It's really taken hold.) In time, there will be more users than nonusers and the word will have the power similar to the split infinitive. There will be holdouts stomping their feet and screaming, "It doesn't HAVE THAT USAGE!" but they, like most cranks, will be ignored. And then it will appear in the dictionary with that usage.
(The dictionary thing may happen sooner than that, as dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. We think of them as rule delimiters, but what they really are is pattern describers.)
What do you think?
My son used it, and I, being a mother, corrected him. "That word doesn't have that usage. It means, 'about,' or 'related to.' It doesn't mean 'to be worried about.'"
But maybe I'm wrong. I'm taking linguistics this quarter, and I'm discovering things about the language I never knew before. For example, there's the bold linguistic statement, "No native speaker of a language can make a verbal mistake in that language. It is not possible." What that means is that however a person was brought up to speak is correct for that person, and no person should have her spoken grammar "corrected" after speaking. However she spoke the language is correct, because she is a native speaker.
Is your hair on fire yet? Wait, before you explode, understand that the rules for writing are different and more codified than for speech. All that means is that you'd better make your verbs and subjects agree (even though that's an arbitrary Latin rule imposed on the Germanic language in the 14th century) in your writing. Don't worry about it in speech.
So, what's to be done about "concerning"? The kids can't make mistakes in their native language. That usage of that word is correct and carries meaning for them. It separates them from me, yes, but that's what happens over time. Youth and age are separate, and ever will be separate. Time does that. But what do we do about this word? It's right for them. It's wrong for me. Is it their language now, and they form it, leaving me behind? Is that what language does? I know it's what time does. Does language, also?
Here's my problem. The paradox is that the children coined new usage for this word out of ignorance of the old. They saw the word "concerning," knew that "concern" had a particularly intimate connotation, and, not knowing the meaning of "concerning," applied what they knew about "concern" to it. Now this is coinage from an error. However, the children cannot make an error in their native language. Thus they have coined a new, valid usage of the word.
And yet, my mind rebels, and insists this is an error. Am I wrong? But I am a native speaker of English, and so I can't make mistakes in it, either. What do we do about this?
Here's what I foresee happening. It will take a decade or two, but it will happen.
Only some of these children will be "corrected" by teachers and professors. Eventually, some of them will become teachers themselves. They, using the word in this way, will not correct those who do. (This word is proliferate on the internet in this usage. It's really taken hold.) In time, there will be more users than nonusers and the word will have the power similar to the split infinitive. There will be holdouts stomping their feet and screaming, "It doesn't HAVE THAT USAGE!" but they, like most cranks, will be ignored. And then it will appear in the dictionary with that usage.
(The dictionary thing may happen sooner than that, as dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. We think of them as rule delimiters, but what they really are is pattern describers.)
What do you think?
Saturday, April 3, 2010
When I have money, I never want to spend it
Sometimes I play the slots after work. I don't always win, but sometimes I do. Tonight, I won.
I started thinking about what I could spend it on, if I was going to spend any at all.
For some reason, I couldn't think of anything.
I could certainly pay bills with it. I could put it toward a new laptop, as mine is old and slowing way down. I could buy some new clothes, some nice ones. I could use a new purse--and I usually get one in the spring and in the fall. I could buy some groceries, or take my son and boyfriend out to a really nice dinner.
I just don't want to do any of that. I like having it, and looking at it and thinking about what I could have, but I don't really need anything. I have enough things.
This never happens when I don't have money. When I don't have money, I want everything. I want books, clothes, games, toys, notebooks, pens, food. If I see it, I want it.
But now I have money, and I don't want anything.
So I think I'll put it away and let it grow with some compounding interest, and when I need it, it will be there. If someone else needs it, it will be there.
I like that.
I started thinking about what I could spend it on, if I was going to spend any at all.
For some reason, I couldn't think of anything.
I could certainly pay bills with it. I could put it toward a new laptop, as mine is old and slowing way down. I could buy some new clothes, some nice ones. I could use a new purse--and I usually get one in the spring and in the fall. I could buy some groceries, or take my son and boyfriend out to a really nice dinner.
I just don't want to do any of that. I like having it, and looking at it and thinking about what I could have, but I don't really need anything. I have enough things.
This never happens when I don't have money. When I don't have money, I want everything. I want books, clothes, games, toys, notebooks, pens, food. If I see it, I want it.
But now I have money, and I don't want anything.
So I think I'll put it away and let it grow with some compounding interest, and when I need it, it will be there. If someone else needs it, it will be there.
I like that.
Friday, April 2, 2010
First shot over the bow
I completely lost my patience yesterday. One of my Facebook friends, who has been showing a disturbing singlemindedness over the Obama Administration, posted two links that claim the newly passed health care reform mandates every single American will be forced to have a microchip implanted 36 months from the signing of the bill.
If you really think you need to read these, here they are:
House and Senate Health Bills Require the Micro Chipping of Americans
Microchipping (Mark of the Beast) to Begin in 36 Months Under ObamaCare - Project Nsearch
If you read the things carefully, and you read the links provided within those pages, you realize something profound. These people do not understand logic. Particularly formal logic. They use a lot of "thus" and "therefore" but they have not a clue how to properly use them, because their syllogisms are broken. There is nothing in those documents about every American being required to wear these RFID chips. They just saw the words "registry" and "RFID" and started swinging the baseball bat at their favorite dead horse.
Since the friend was pleasant enough in high school and really is, for the most part, a caring individual as long as he's not spewing hate in Barack's direction and promises of a bloody revolution to the rest of us, I started typing up a comment. I intended to show him the broken logic, ask him to reread the statements with that in mind and consider taking another, non-hysterical point of view. About two sentences in, I scrapped it and broke the Facebook connection with the guy.
Cowardly? Maybe. I just realized there was no point. If he is unable to recognize the obviously broken logic, he likely doesn't have the same tools I have to approach a critical reading of the sites, and so it would be unfair of me to debate him on that level. It would sound condescending to instruct him on those skills, and I would be willing to bet he'd reject them, or worse, claim he has them already while I obviously don't, because I can't see the obvious truth. Yes, I've had similar arguments before.
This has been bothering me all day, and I'm one of those people who are really interesting when bothered. I'll walk around the grocery store, having arguments with myself out loud (okay, muttering to myself, but that is out loud) about why this happened, what I could have done differently and why the hell is milk so expensive these days? Someday I'm going to be one of those old ladies that talk to the air and find my imaginary conversations more interesting than those with living, breathing humans. (If I'm not mistaken, someday was about five years ago.)
I blurted something out in my mutterings that I didn't like to hear myself say. This former friend of mine has a lot in common with my sister, father and mother. He wasn't a great student--I believe he took the advanced math and physics, but I don't think his GPA was much anywhere else. My sister was a C and D student before she dropped out. My mom dropped out of high school two weeks before graduation. My dad took a year of tech school after college, but didn't finish.
None of these people have had a liberal arts education, or as far as I can tell, even exposure to a university environment. They're all intelligent people, but they're intelligent in different ways than I am. I tend to be book smart, but street stupid. My parents are both very intelligent people. I don't think they could have produced me if they weren't. But their intelligence has never been challenged or directed. My sister and my mom are both highly sensitive on the subject of intelligence. Both will claim they are "not smart like (me)" and start hand waving and walking away if they feel out of their depth, rather than staying, listening and asking questions for clarification.
I think that the people that gravitate to this sort of information are people who feel inferior intellectually, even though they're not. What they really are is lazy. My mom has an obsession with being right, but she never takes the time to research something or think carefully about what is said. She just goes with a feeling that says, "This is right but that is wrong." If you ask her why, she starts that handwaving again and says, "I just know. It's obvious." Or my favorite, "It's in the Bible!"
There are lots of things in the Bible. Lots of nice, contradictory things. Of all the logical fallacies, only false dichotomy angers me more than appeal to (Biblical) authority.
My dad told my son, "If you read Sarah Palin's book, you'd understand why she's going to save this country when she's President." Had he read the book? Not exactly. But Glenn Beck had a very fair and balanced analysis of it on his show. Yeah.
Dogma, whether religious or political, is the last resort of people who want to talk about big things, but don't want to actually think. They're desperate to be right, so they fall victim to shrill rhetoric and logical fallacy, often quite deliberately used to mislead. This is true of liberals and conservatives, lest you think I am lumping all conservatives into this category while sanctifying myself. It's no more useful to let Stephen Colbert think for you than Glenn Beck.
The problem is that, like with my friend, they don't see the problem. They think I'm trying to trick them, or that the Devil is using me to tempt them off the path, or that--and I love this--their untrained ability to reason is better or more valuable than mine. Until I took my Logic and Critical Thinking class, I was in the same predicament. Once introduced to formal logic, my brain said, "Thank you! The world makes so much more sense now." I don't draw diagrams every time I'm presented with an argument, but I do test all the premises and see how syllogism fits together. If it's broken, I know to mistrust the information.
But that's not necessary to thinking critically. My mom and sister don't have to take that class. What they do have to do is stop, listen and ask themselves, "What does this person have to gain by telling me this? What is he citing? Is that a reliable source? What does that source have to gain? Does that source really say what he says it does?" It's so much easier to just accept what is said and disseminate it untested.
I should have argued with my friend. I should have asked him every one of those questions. Instead, I sent the links to Snopes and asked them to do it for me.
Ah, irony.
If you really think you need to read these, here they are:
House and Senate Health Bills Require the Micro Chipping of Americans
Microchipping (Mark of the Beast) to Begin in 36 Months Under ObamaCare - Project Nsearch
If you read the things carefully, and you read the links provided within those pages, you realize something profound. These people do not understand logic. Particularly formal logic. They use a lot of "thus" and "therefore" but they have not a clue how to properly use them, because their syllogisms are broken. There is nothing in those documents about every American being required to wear these RFID chips. They just saw the words "registry" and "RFID" and started swinging the baseball bat at their favorite dead horse.
Since the friend was pleasant enough in high school and really is, for the most part, a caring individual as long as he's not spewing hate in Barack's direction and promises of a bloody revolution to the rest of us, I started typing up a comment. I intended to show him the broken logic, ask him to reread the statements with that in mind and consider taking another, non-hysterical point of view. About two sentences in, I scrapped it and broke the Facebook connection with the guy.
Cowardly? Maybe. I just realized there was no point. If he is unable to recognize the obviously broken logic, he likely doesn't have the same tools I have to approach a critical reading of the sites, and so it would be unfair of me to debate him on that level. It would sound condescending to instruct him on those skills, and I would be willing to bet he'd reject them, or worse, claim he has them already while I obviously don't, because I can't see the obvious truth. Yes, I've had similar arguments before.
This has been bothering me all day, and I'm one of those people who are really interesting when bothered. I'll walk around the grocery store, having arguments with myself out loud (okay, muttering to myself, but that is out loud) about why this happened, what I could have done differently and why the hell is milk so expensive these days? Someday I'm going to be one of those old ladies that talk to the air and find my imaginary conversations more interesting than those with living, breathing humans. (If I'm not mistaken, someday was about five years ago.)
I blurted something out in my mutterings that I didn't like to hear myself say. This former friend of mine has a lot in common with my sister, father and mother. He wasn't a great student--I believe he took the advanced math and physics, but I don't think his GPA was much anywhere else. My sister was a C and D student before she dropped out. My mom dropped out of high school two weeks before graduation. My dad took a year of tech school after college, but didn't finish.
None of these people have had a liberal arts education, or as far as I can tell, even exposure to a university environment. They're all intelligent people, but they're intelligent in different ways than I am. I tend to be book smart, but street stupid. My parents are both very intelligent people. I don't think they could have produced me if they weren't. But their intelligence has never been challenged or directed. My sister and my mom are both highly sensitive on the subject of intelligence. Both will claim they are "not smart like (me)" and start hand waving and walking away if they feel out of their depth, rather than staying, listening and asking questions for clarification.
I think that the people that gravitate to this sort of information are people who feel inferior intellectually, even though they're not. What they really are is lazy. My mom has an obsession with being right, but she never takes the time to research something or think carefully about what is said. She just goes with a feeling that says, "This is right but that is wrong." If you ask her why, she starts that handwaving again and says, "I just know. It's obvious." Or my favorite, "It's in the Bible!"
There are lots of things in the Bible. Lots of nice, contradictory things. Of all the logical fallacies, only false dichotomy angers me more than appeal to (Biblical) authority.
My dad told my son, "If you read Sarah Palin's book, you'd understand why she's going to save this country when she's President." Had he read the book? Not exactly. But Glenn Beck had a very fair and balanced analysis of it on his show. Yeah.
Dogma, whether religious or political, is the last resort of people who want to talk about big things, but don't want to actually think. They're desperate to be right, so they fall victim to shrill rhetoric and logical fallacy, often quite deliberately used to mislead. This is true of liberals and conservatives, lest you think I am lumping all conservatives into this category while sanctifying myself. It's no more useful to let Stephen Colbert think for you than Glenn Beck.
The problem is that, like with my friend, they don't see the problem. They think I'm trying to trick them, or that the Devil is using me to tempt them off the path, or that--and I love this--their untrained ability to reason is better or more valuable than mine. Until I took my Logic and Critical Thinking class, I was in the same predicament. Once introduced to formal logic, my brain said, "Thank you! The world makes so much more sense now." I don't draw diagrams every time I'm presented with an argument, but I do test all the premises and see how syllogism fits together. If it's broken, I know to mistrust the information.
But that's not necessary to thinking critically. My mom and sister don't have to take that class. What they do have to do is stop, listen and ask themselves, "What does this person have to gain by telling me this? What is he citing? Is that a reliable source? What does that source have to gain? Does that source really say what he says it does?" It's so much easier to just accept what is said and disseminate it untested.
I should have argued with my friend. I should have asked him every one of those questions. Instead, I sent the links to Snopes and asked them to do it for me.
Ah, irony.
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