Why Can’t the
English…. ??? – Part II.
We are suffering, as a culture, from little errors in
communication all the time. Some of them
don’t matter; some do. But cumulatively,
the little errors are leading us to the deterioration of the language system as
a whole. It works like this: Every interface is an opportunity for one
party to Encode a message, attempting a delivery; and the second party to
Decode the message, attempting some sense-making of the words. Sometimes all it takes is the removal of ONE
WORD from the sentence and it changes the meaning. The new meaning can cause trouble. The MEDIA in the United States KNOWS this and
is capitalizing on this to cause deep
turmoil in our culture.
When we read articles or listen to news pieces, we can miss
a critical word, or it can be removed on purpose at the delivery of the
message, and there are important ramifications. For instance, when we are talking about drugs
– one word may change the value of the message:
legal. A legal drug can be a
prescribed pharmaceutical substance that can heal someone. Granted, in the wrong hands it can become
illegally used by someone to whom it has not been prescribed… or perhaps worse
it could fall in the hands of a child or mentally compromised person and have
tragic results. But the word still
matters “legal.” “Legal” is an important
distinction from “illegal,” in a sane world.
Words paint a picture.
The media has been playing a colossal word game, at least since 1973,
which is about as far back as I am able to remember. When the country became divided on the issue
of abortion, the media began crafting words to sway public opinion. “Choice.”
Every American soul rallies to the sense of entitlement to be “master of
my own ship, captain of my destiny.” The
word “choice” deeply resonates within us.
But we forget that choices can be morally good, or morally evil. When my choice eclipses someone else’s choice
because they cannot speak for themselves, that is a significant problem and a
grave injustice. When we strip the word
“choice” of an adjective that defines the morality of a choice itself, we do no
one any favors…. Not the woman who undergoes a mechanical rape, not the child
who is removed from the safety of the womb, not the culture amidst a war of
words. Instead of us as an entire
culture, striving to support women in making better preliminary choices (ie.
chastity outside of marriage), we deify the choice-making machine itself, and
the social problem continues.
Here’s another example of the value of one word. A couple of years ago, I sat in a very
important meeting of parish leaders in a community. I said to them: “I refuse to teach an irrelevant Catholicism.” The
woman next to me shouted: “Catholicism
is not irrelevant!” I replied: “That’s NOT what I said.” She only heard part of the sentence, where
the descriptive article “an” was removed.
She came away with an entirely different message than I delivered to her
because her pre-existing bias blocked her ears.
I see the same thing happening in the media today. I see it primarily on Facebook where people
react, react, react. So much of Facebook
users’ weighing-in on political news-pieces is a reaction. We lack the intellectual thoughtfulness to
craft a better response when we let the knee-jerk typing take over. I know.
I’ve done it myself a couple of times.
Then you ask yourself, “at the end of the day, did I share something
that really mattered, or did I just vent?”
I look at how the conversation-based interview shows go on
television and I can only tolerate a few minutes. You can begin with the presumption that, like
most everyone else, I am tuning into shows that are of particular interest to
ME for some reason… and yet I can hardly tolerate listening to the
interface. How I HATE
interruptions! And yet, most of these
talk shows are bantering without allowing one person to fully complete a
thought before there is a response. This is just very, very bad communication
technique that leads inadvertently (I think) to the wholesale breakdown of
communication. It is how teenagers
sometimes deal with parents – the “but’s and the and’s” and the attempting to
talk over the adult’s A-to-Z monologue about whatever. It really terminates any sort of true
communication. I am seeing this more and
more in the routine of daily interactions.
It is going to bring us to a very bad place.
You may or may not have heard of St. Thomas Aquinas but I
think his method of explaining would be a useful guide to all of us. I believe he borrowed his technique from St.
Albert the Great who was very big into the sciences. And some may recall how back in our own
educational days we learned the scientific method. You would have a hypothesis, proofs, and
conclusion. Aquinas actually took that
and applied it to his theological study.
He began with re-stating the question of his intellectual opponent in a
way that led you to conclude he had listened
carefully enough to understand it, and therefore he would be able to competently address it. He then undertook to present logical proofs
or statements to either support a position or prove its non-sequitur (“It does
not follow” ie.: it’s nonsense). Think
of the possibilities if we took this technique into our classrooms, our
business dealings, our marriages, our friendships. How much conflict could be alleviated! Yes – it DOES take longer to get to where you
are going with this method, but it provides a clarity that we cannot live without.
Back in the 1970’s, the Psychological world was teaching us
a method of this in conflict resolution. Condensed, it goes like this: Person A says something. Person B responds: “What I hear you saying is < and repeats
what A said>.” Then Person A can say,
“Yes, that is what I meant” or “No. Let
me re-state that more clearly.”
Nowadays, we just call the person a name or slap on a derisive label and
move on. The lack of respect for both
people and the process breaks the whole system of communication itself
down. This has an impact on the
wholeness/integrity of culture itself.
Can we afford a society of babbling imbeciles? Ooh. I’m sorry did I say that too
clearly? Can we afford to keep the
divisive rhetoric going, at the expense of PEACE within our culture? Should we continue to let the Media hold the
baton and call the moves for how we relate as a people who live in the Nation
with the very greatest opportunities to be excellent in so many ways?
In the classic movie “My Fair Lady,” Rex Harrison sang a
song that encapsulates the importance of the use of good English diction but I
would propose that it also relates well to my point on content and culture.
“Why
can’t the English teach their children how to speak?
Norwegians
learn Norwegian. The Greeks learn their
Greek.
Use
proper English, and you’re regarded as a freak …
Oh why
can’t the English?! Why can’t the English? Why can’t the English
Set a
good example ….”
Yes. Why can’t the
English …. And the Americans as well …
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