Freedom Is Another Word

Do you stand “on line” or “in line”?

Freedom Writer — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 12:23:38 +0000

I’m not from New York, and something I’ve learned recently is that New Yorkers speak of standing “on line” when waiting in a queue (as the British say). I’ve always referred to it as standing in a line, and never even noticed the difference, but now that I’m aware of the phrase, I catch it sometimes on TV. (Strange how knowing about something makes it become obvious when before it wasn’t even apparent.) When it’s said by a character from, say, the West Coast, I always smile to myself and say, The writer must be from New York.

I know it’s foolish to look for logic in idioms, but for me the line in question is composed of people, and when I”m one of them, I view myself as “in” the line. Using “on” makes it sound to me like the line is something on the ground, like a painted line marking where you’re supposed stand, and the people are standing on the line.

In the past the difference between on and in wouldn’t have made much difference, but now the phrase “on line” is homophonous with the word “online” and I have to wonder about the ambiguity it might create.

Hibou, Anemone & Bear

Freedom Writer — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:59:41 +0000

In the spring I think of sex and means to ends,

Summertime I like to sit upon the grass,

Autumn nights I go to parties with my friends,

Wintertime I like to think about the past,

But of course I do a lot of things all year round,

I need all the good things that are to be found,

It’s all here, pick it up and get to work,

If you don’t, you know you’re gonna go beserk,

Or, indeed. be bored to death

(Which is worse).

—Robert Wyatt

The Perspicacious Predilection for Sesquipedalian Polysyllabic Pronouncements

Freedom Writer — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:46:54 +0000

Hear me, boys and girls. Nothing makes you sound smarter—excuse me, more intelligent—than using great, big, foot-and-a-half long words. It is always better to use a word with four or more syllables than a word with one. You can see the truth in this by looking first at the title to this post and then at the post itself. Are you not more in awe of the title than of what you are reading now? Of course you are. These words are like mere mites on the back of a moose in contrast to those words. Those words could even strike fear into the heart of a lawyer. So keep these words in mind, boys and girls, and chant them all day long: big words good, small words bad. You won’t go wrong if you do.

More on Words and Thought

Freedom Writer — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:34:01 +0000

The usual argument made against language constraining thought counters the premise that some languages are deficient, and their deficiencies are what constrains thought. I fundamentally agree with this argument. I don’t think it is the deficicence of the language’s vocabulary that holds people back; it’s deficiency of the individual’s vocabulary that constrains thought. Languages provide different tools for thinking, and I suspect that every language has both strengths and weaknesses. If a culture based on a particular language lacks certain abstractions, don’t blame the language, blame the speakers. In any language if someone bothers to think, whatever concepts are necessary can be built from the words already there. Every language is infinite in its ability to construct meaning sentences—it is the speaker who is finite.

Between You and I

Freedom Writer — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 18:51:06 +0000

“I have something to tell you, and I want you to keep it just between you and I.”

Do you ever say things like that? Do people ever correct you when you do? I hope not because it’s dreadfully impolite to correct another’s speech (unless that other is your child, and then it becomes a duty).

Between you and I is a common grammatical error, but certainly not a grievous one. It’s sometimes called an ‘over correction’ because people who make it are trying to avoid other errors involving you and me. (They were probably corrected as children for saying something like, “You and me need to talk,” and now they are frightened of the phrase wherever and whenever it occurs.)

The easy way to recognize that the phrase should be between you and me is to combine the two pronouns into the plural first person. Thus you get between us, which is just about the only way anyone is going to say it. I don’t think I have ever heard anyone say between we, which is the equivalent of between you and I.

But of course this presupposes you can tell the difference between the first person plural nominative case pronoun and the first person plural accusative case pronoun, and if you could do that, you probably never say between you and I in the first place. And now you quite likely think I”m accusing you of something when I mean no such thing. So…

Between you and I, let’s just forget this whole thing.

Language and Thought

Freedom Writer — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 21:45:42 +0000

Here’s a link to an article in Newsweek that I came across by way of this post in A Walk in the WoRds, and it supports one of my central contentions, namely that the language we think in shapes the thoughts we think. Despite having the feel of common sense about it, this contention is highly contentious, and not very respected in academic linguistic circles. Here is someone applying a scientific approach to the idea, and to me it looks promising. They say we are what we eat, but I say we are even more what we think.

Another Clever Turn of Phrase

Freedom Writer — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:14:54 +0000

Here’s a link to a post about one of my favorite words, dishabille. I’ve always enjoyed the way it rolls off my tongue and languidly falls from my lips. I think it sounds like it means. it always seems to come out in a state of…well, dishabille.

You Are What You Read

Freedom Writer — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 22:17:16 +0000

It almost goes without saying: you are what you read. Here’s a little post over at Languagehat that throws a little light on some revolutionary reading. (It’s the second post down; no permalinks there.)

Who knows? If Robespierre had been a little more broadminded in his literature, perhaps the world might have been spared the worst of the Terror.

In the beginning…

Freedom Writer — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 02:16:40 +0000

Words have power—it’s not for nothing in the beginning was The Word–but we forget these things in this twittering world. If you stop the chatter and really listen to your thoughts, will you hear anything at all? One careful word is worth a thousand streaming pictures. So take a moment and find the beginning of your thoughts—find the word that is you. That’s where we all begin.

_______________

“In the beginning we were taught that the word was high (Barrytown people got to be from another world)” —Steely Dan