Thoughts from an Intellect

Words. Communication. 

     What images do you think of when you read the above words? Letters and paragraphs on a page, moving lips, open mouths, or a computer screen? It probably depends on where and how you use language the most in your day-to-day life. Generally, I think, it would be natural to think of “Words” as on a page and “Communication” as between two or more people in everyday life. Anyway, these two words are so interconnected to one another that they are nearly interchangeable, but not quite so.

Image from barnraisersllc.net

     Words can be very powerful. Even the smallest of comments could crush someone else entirely. Sometimes, we just don’t think about what we say before we say it, and suffer consequences for our neglect, whether they be great or small. Others don’t have much of a “filter” at all and everything they think just comes tumbling right out their mouths, regardless of what may come from their words. Sometimes I wonder how those people get by. 

     I recently found that I was offending people with my honest-to-goodness words, which of course, I never intended. It turns out that some people are deeply offended by the truth and do their best to outrun it. But I was greatly offended because these people did not come to me with their problem with me, but told everybody else, it seems, about it; I only found out through the proverbial grapevine. “Through the grapevine” is not a good way to find things out that involve you.

     Through words, we communicate how we feel, how we think, what we think, et cetera, each of us to a different degree of everything, of course. There is no problem with my communication skills and there wasn’t when I was offending others. Where the problem lies is with their communication skills. Yes, they may have been uncomfortable with bringing their problem with my truthiness to me, but that’s how things get easily solved. When things like this happen – when people talk about their problems with others with everyone but the people they have problems with – it creates a kind of drama. With me, honesty really is the best policy and straightforwardness is appreciated and respected. Drama is highly frowned upon.

Image from dianamarinova.com

     How does a lack of communication affect the already open lines of communication? The lines become damaged or get tossed out completely. I choose not to communicate with people who refuse to communicate back to me. Sure, I may still talk to them, but it’s only on a must-need basis. How am I supposed to know if the words I’m using are okay unless they come and talk to me? I’m not a mind-reader. I am usually a pretty decent judge of character, but I can’t read the minds of those who are incommunicable. 

    You, reader, are probably wondering why I’m even posting something like this on my language blog. It’s partly because I haven’t posted in a while, partly to relieve my stress of this situation and share my thoughts, and basically to communicate how difficult communication can be when others don’t communicate back. Language barriers are tough, but with gestures, a few frustrations, and the dire will to communicate, language barriers can be overcome. Lack of communication altogether makes things impossible.

New Word

Conversate 

   That's right. Conversate is now a word, even though spell check hasn't caught up yet. I heard it in a Toby Keith song the other day, so it's now pretty widely accepted. It'll be in the next dictionary. In fact, it's already in the online dictionary as "nonstandard" at this link.

   Why? you may ask. Why, when we already had a pretty decent, usable word, do we need to reconstruct to fill in the blank when we talk about talking? The answer is simple: converse is no longer good enough. 

Search results for converse

   When we think of converse, we no longer think of it as a verb - to converse with someone. It's taken on a a higher calling: when you Google search converse, the whole first page, save for one entry near the very bottom (and one at about the middle about a college), is about shoes and where you can buy them. No surprise, right? But when you Google search conversate, you get this: search results about a word that some people still refuse to accept. 

   I must admit, the first few times I heard it, I thought to myself something along the lines of, That's not a word. The correct word you're looking for is converse. Why are you making the word longer? But lately, I've been hearing it all the time in the place of converse, and as I'm sure I've mentioned in a previous post, I've decided not to waste any more time or effort in the irrational and exhausting fight against change. Change happens every day, and no matter who likes or dislikes it, it's going to happen all the same. 

   Language is a living, breathing entity. Just as we grow older with the years, so do words and phrases. Things die and fall out of use - that's life, and there's no use to waste energies trying to stop it. The best thing you can do is to compromise and recycle to whatever degree that one can. So, the word converse moving on to bigger and better things is of little consequence. It's been replaced without much thought, except of course on the part of those who are trying to keep conversate a non-word.

   Now, about those people who are still refusing to accept language change: I now find them funny. I don't know if you will be able to share my humor, but I must share some comments here. As I was researching for this post, I noticed that there are quite a few comments on Miriam-Webster's entry of conversate, even though they listed it as "non-standard" and I thought I'd read through them a bit. Haha - such great examples of the armies opposing one another concerning language change! (Though, the way I see it, one army is sitting back sipping a drink, not needing to even get up from their chairs, while the other is storming the beach with battle axes and swords trying unsuccessfully to break through an invisible barrier, all in the name of man's tradition.) Join me while I revel in my virgin pina colada. 

 

   My reactions: 

To the first comment in the pic and its reply: If a native English speaker said or otherwise used this word, whether you accept it as such or not, and you understood what it meant, it is a word. For more information regarding this statement, and to better understand where I'm coming from saying it, read my previous posts on this blog or leave me a comment below. Also, I highly disagree that it's "sad that Webster even recognizes it (as a word)" - I applaud them for being so on top of what's happening in language today and for providing accurate information regarding this relatively new word and its history. Let's not forget who respelled a ton of words just because our language needed a spelling update. (It's passed due for another spelling update, by the way.)

To Matt DuBois and his replier: Being an independent thinker and creatively using your lexicon makes you feel stupid? Lol. Asking for a list of "non-standard" words should make you feel stupid. Shouldn't you intuitively know which words aren't really words? And hating words is okay, but hating them because they're not in a dictionary on your shelf, that's just racist. If you're going to hate them, do it because they sound bad or something more legitimate.

To the last comment in the pic: A "prison word." Just, haha, too funny. Rolling on the floor laughing here. 

   Most of the comments are something along these lines, just for your information. If you can see the humor in the ones above, and want some laughs, I suggest you visit the page and read through them. Most of the people looking up the word said they just wanted to see if it was a word (according to the only authority on the matter that they're aware of - that's another blog post). Some are frustrated that people are actually using this word, because of course they are prejudiced against new words (because they subconsciously make them feel older or less knowledgeable, or whatever). And a lot of people commented to say that whoever uses this word is ignorant, stupid, or simply dumb and looking for a way to make themselves feel or appear smarter to others (and these are all just ways to make the people making these comments feel  justified in their prejudice against the word, since they didn't come up with or popularize it themselves - this is subconscious by the way, a psychology thing). 

   None of this really matters in the long run. The life of conversate has begun, whether some people wish to kill it or not. It may have a long healthy life despite the hatred focused at it in its beginning, or it may die young. I don't know how long this newly common word will last, but I figure it's here to stay for a while. As for me and my virgin pina colada, we will sit back and enjoy the sound of the ocean while others fight for a spot on the beach. 

   Speak up if you want. I will answer between sips.

What's New

What About You, My Reader

   This post is going to be a little different. I'm asking for your opinions on modern speaking and sharing my own thoughts. I'd love to know a little about the folks who are reading my blog here, so feel free to share your feelings on the below topics. Language is my thing, it's what I'm interested in. Even if how you speak and where you're from (generally, of course) are the only things I know about you, I'd feel I have connected with you, learned a little about my readers. Knowing a little about you, my readers, will help me to expand what I currently know about language and how it's spoken around the world. So you see, there's no need to be shy. I only want to learn about the words that come from your mouth. 

   Now, on to the topics of this bi-monthly post. 

"I am 23 years new."

 

   Nothing much, it seems, is new. Especially us. Once we're born, we're at least a second old. We're always old. Some people have taken a stand against this and chosen to say, when referring to someone's age, they are so-many years new. I've heard it from people I know and from a person or two on the radio and tv. It's a way to make themselves or others feel younger, newer, or less old.  

   What do you personally think about this? Let me know in the comments below whether simply knowing of this innovation in the English language has encouraged you to change your views on age, or change the way you refer to age. Do you know why people do this, and do you know many that do? Why do you think they've made this innovative choice to change our old ways?

Littler 

Resisting Change

Incorrect or Forward Thinking?

   Sometimes I can't help but think Who made up this rule? Mostly, we all simply accept the rules we've been taught and abide by them, even going as far as to belittle those who don't do the same. Like I've mentioned before, I was one who belittled to make the written world a better place and for quite a while, but now I'm one who only does it to show how things need to change.

   Below is a picture I took while I was out and at an establishment, which I will not mention the name of due to me not asking them for permission to do so. There are a few things that look wrong. We've been taught that the technical errors in the photo are wrong. Take a look and see how many you can spot. 

   I found two on this bulletin board. I want us to consider for a moment if these are really wrong. I'll keep away from "Birthday's" because I can't think of a good reason why an apostrophe would be inserted there, but "Anniversarys" is technically not wrong. We add an s to most things to make them plural, and sometimes es. Instead of changing the y to an i and adding es, why not simply add an s? It's simpler, people will have no problem understanding it, and if you think about it, it looks more natural. The sound of the y doesn't change from anniversary to anniversaries, so why should it change physically to an i when becoming plural?

   This is just one example. There are many words in which the y changes to an i in the plural or when changing the tense. Dry, fly, try, but not tray, play, tie. Not birthdays and mondays, but category and carry. There are patterns and I do recognize them, don't get me wrong, but this is one of those rules that doesn't make much sense. 

   What do you think - is this a rule that can go, or one that we need to keep? What are some grammar or spelling rules that you can't find much sense in?

Current Change

The English Writing System

     Language changes every day, whether we as speakers realize it or not. New words are made up and old and new words disappear; new phrases emerge and others grow old and fall from use. As a native speaker of whichever language you speak, you have a right to push this change forward or to halt it, though completely stopping or slowing this change is impossible. I believe that as long as other native speakers of your language understand, you have a right to speak however you wish. When it comes to writing, however, there have to be conscious rules that everyone can understand and judge, and that is why English teachers choose to be "grammar Nazis." These rules are similar to the unconscious rules of speech, though some people disagree and others support wholeheartedly these restrictions on natural expression, though the natural rules of speech are undisputed among the populace.

Image from http://sarolta.wordpress.com/category/call/blogs-wikis/page/2/ .

    Language has interested me since high school. In preparation for college, the high school I attended recommended that students take two years of a foreign language, so I took French and found my niche. I took three years of French courses in high school and went to college and earned my bachelor's in French studies. While in college, I also studied German and English in which I have minors, and Spanish and Japanese. It is in college that I determined where I stand on modern issues concerning language, writing, and language change.

Accepting Change

     A lot of people I know hate change. They think it's inconvenient and annoying. It makes them go out of their way to accommodate. I personally don't mind change at all, partly because I realize change is the only  constant in life, partly because change has been a big part of my life, and partly because though sometimes change does make things harder, a lot of the time change makes things easier. 

     When I was ten, my parents bought a new home and we moved. That change was better, since we were moving from a trailer (with built-on additions to accommodate five growing children, a couple of them nine years apart) to a double wide. Instead of us all having to share rooms with one another, we each got our own room. And instead of my parents' bathroom having the only shower and bath, the new place had three full bathrooms. Though us kids had a rough time with the move, leaving the only home we knew and all, the improvements made it easier. The move and change of space was a good thing. And who doesn't want a bigger home, right?

To Laugh at Change

Wifi Is Now A Word, Says the Dictionary. 

    

Image via http://961wodz.com.

   One day last week, I witnessed a few sports hosts laughing at a Dolphins' fan for "Undefeated... Unforgotten" tattooed on his abdomen. They thought it was funny that a man would paint a non-word (one that is not in the dictionary) across his stomach. Yet within a minute or two they announced a CD entitled "Grrr" without a hint of humor. I was confused, and upon asking my husband for clarification on this matter, he was also at a loss for an explanation. 

Image via http://www.prepaid-wireless-guide.com. 

     Please visit http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/unforgotten and then tell me that unforgotten is not a proper word. Or perhaps you would prefer to do a Google search yourself to find if unforgotten is indeed a word. Please do whatever you need to assure yourself. Do the same with grrr, which spell check highlights as incorrect. Grrr is not really a proper word, but onomatopoeia, a sound word, or possibly slang. Whatever grrr is, it takes a little more convincing in a Scrabble game than unforgotten, which even spell check recognizes as correct. For an example of the convincing needed to call grrr a word, see http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/grrr.

Constant Change

 The English Writing System

     Language changes every day, whether we as speakers realize it or not. New words are made up and old and new words disappear; new phrases emerge and others grow old and fall from use. As a native speaker of whichever language you speak, you have a right to push this change forward or to halt it, though completely stopping or slowing this change is impossible. I believe that as long as other native speakers of your language understand, you have a right to speak however you wish. When it comes to writing, however, there have to be conscious rules that everyone can understand and judge, and that is why English teachers choose to be "grammar Nazis." These rules are similar to the unconscious rules of speech, though some people disagree and others support wholeheartedly these restrictions on natural expression, though the natural rules of speech are undisputed among the populace.

Image from http://sarolta.wordpress.com/category/call/blogs-wikis/page/2/ .

    Language has interested me since high school. In preparation for college, the high school I attended recommended that students take two years of a foreign language, so I took French and found my niche. I took three years of French courses in high school and went to college and earned my bachelor's in French studies. While in college, I also studied German and English in which I have minors, and Spanish and Japanese. It is in college that I determined where I stand on modern issues concerning language, writing, and language change.