![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Modern Tower of Babble
May. 20th, 2006 12:29 pm*[This is an updated version from the one I posted originally this morning, which was a rough draft and contained numerous typos, grammatical errors and spelling mistakes - yes the irony of that is not lost on me considering what the post is about. Nor is the fact that I'm apparently incapable of doing a simple proof-read or edit, without adding entire sentences that will most likely change the meaning of the entry- this may explain why I'm a lousey editor or beta. Or for that matter the fact that I will probably miss half the typos and misspellings - because editing online is a difficult thing. My apologies to anyone who responded to this thing before the update.]
Long week. Somewhat brain dead from part of it. Restless from the other. Spent a good portion of the week wrestling with my own internal demons. This personal essay comes from my experiences, frustrations and observations of the past week - most of which hinge on the inability to "communicate". Life's a bitch, but sometimes I think it's a bitch because of other people and our inability to agree on simple things - such as which language to communicate in and which words to use. A statement whose irony is not lost on me when the legislature of my country recently voted on whether to make English the official language of the US. Okay, thought I, but which version? So we've agreed on a language, but I doubt we'll ever agree on how we should speak it.
Everyone is taught in school to use the same language. Given the same textbooks. Okay, that is an assumption. Since school's tend to vary. So everyone who goes to the same exact school and has the same exact teacher and gets the same exact text book is taught the same exact language. I'd say that the variations in language occur because we all don't get the same teacher, the same education, go to the same exact school, have the same exact text book - heck there's a whole group of experts who believe if we did then education would be "standardized" and we'd all understand one another. In fact they are working diligently as we speak on making this so. If only life were that easy. But it's not. People will still interpret words differently, they will still learn differently, and even within the same class room with the same materials - outside experiences, outside influences - physical, emotional, and environmental - will affect how people learn to communicate to one another.
At more than one point this week, I felt the need to say, oh so politely, "I fear we are suffering from a failure to communicate" or more appropriately, we've just entered the modern version of the tower of babble. I can think of other phrases to say the same thing, but this is a public post and that would be rude. It's also an essay about communication, and words, whether we like it or not, contain all sorts of meanings.
( The Modern Tower of Babble or I fear we are suffering from a failure to communicate. )
Long week. Somewhat brain dead from part of it. Restless from the other. Spent a good portion of the week wrestling with my own internal demons. This personal essay comes from my experiences, frustrations and observations of the past week - most of which hinge on the inability to "communicate". Life's a bitch, but sometimes I think it's a bitch because of other people and our inability to agree on simple things - such as which language to communicate in and which words to use. A statement whose irony is not lost on me when the legislature of my country recently voted on whether to make English the official language of the US. Okay, thought I, but which version? So we've agreed on a language, but I doubt we'll ever agree on how we should speak it.
Everyone is taught in school to use the same language. Given the same textbooks. Okay, that is an assumption. Since school's tend to vary. So everyone who goes to the same exact school and has the same exact teacher and gets the same exact text book is taught the same exact language. I'd say that the variations in language occur because we all don't get the same teacher, the same education, go to the same exact school, have the same exact text book - heck there's a whole group of experts who believe if we did then education would be "standardized" and we'd all understand one another. In fact they are working diligently as we speak on making this so. If only life were that easy. But it's not. People will still interpret words differently, they will still learn differently, and even within the same class room with the same materials - outside experiences, outside influences - physical, emotional, and environmental - will affect how people learn to communicate to one another.
At more than one point this week, I felt the need to say, oh so politely, "I fear we are suffering from a failure to communicate" or more appropriately, we've just entered the modern version of the tower of babble. I can think of other phrases to say the same thing, but this is a public post and that would be rude. It's also an essay about communication, and words, whether we like it or not, contain all sorts of meanings.
( The Modern Tower of Babble or I fear we are suffering from a failure to communicate. )