How do we communicate?

The way we use language is very dependent on circumstance. Are we dealing with someone with whom we are intimate, someone we know just a bit or someone unknown to us? The more familiar we are with a person, the less formal we are.

A good example would be a close friend saying something that would be insulting if it came from someone we didn't know well. For instance, if someone I'd known well for years said something like, "How are you, you drunken old git?" then I'm not going to mind. I'll probably give either a straightforward answer or return the "compliment" with one of my own. If it came from someone I wasn't close to, I'd be offended.

We also have to consider body language. Is someone smiling or looking angry? Are they making a friendly or threatening gesture? Those sort of things always make it easier to communicate face to face. Even on the phone, it's not easy to discern a lot of things. Online, it's well-nigh impossible.
 
Duck59 said:
Ah, literary communication (as opposed to the everyday). So many schools of thought that I can't remember all of them, though I probably looked at all of them during my degree course. One bunch I couldn't get at all were the Formalists. Formalism is, essentially, art for art's sake. It's all to do with style over substance, which means that they're not remotely interested in context or even meaning. As long as it looks good and sounds good, your Formalist is writhing in ecstasy. And possibly using ecstasy.

I pressed the reject button on this lot. I want literature that means something.
Click to expand...

Sounds like something that has origin and continuity in narcissism, enjoying one's style regardless of substance. But are we (you) sure that despite this, there is not something good to save that comes up to us anyway?
 
Duck59 said:
The way we use language is very dependent on circumstance. Are we dealing with someone with whom we are intimate, someone we know just a bit or someone unknown to us? The more familiar we are with a person, the less formal we are.

A good example would be a close friend saying something that would be insulting if it came from someone we didn't know well. For instance, if someone I'd known well for years said something like, "How are you, you drunken old git?" then I'm not going to mind. I'll probably give either a straightforward answer or return the "compliment" with one of my own. If it came from someone I wasn't close to, I'd be offended.

We also have to consider body language. Is someone smiling or looking angry? Are they making a friendly or threatening gesture? Those sort of things always make it easier to communicate face to face. Even on the phone, it's not easy to discern a lot of things. Online, it's well-nigh impossible.
Click to expand...

Prossemica - Proxemic
That is, what in some way defines interpersonal distances in communication, generally divided into 4 phases.
It indicates the space that is used by people when they relate and can give important information on the type of relationship that exists between the two interlocutors.

It is not just a physical distance that is assumed according to the degree of confidence one has with a person, but also of course the way of communicating.
Following the example you mentioned, yes, based on the confidence I have with a person, if an old friend called me 'old drunkard', it wouldn't bother me (mmm..or maybe yes, but I'd give up) , whereas if another did it with which I have no confidence, well, I wouldn't let it go at all. Quite normal then.
What instead has always fascinated me and even a little worried, is how in reality the confidence we have with someone somehow tarnishes our vision, not giving us the lucidity in judging what is ok and what is not or what is not anymore. People change and with them even situations, it may be that what did not bother me before, now instead sends me to mad, confidence or not.
But I digress.

We tend to justify the people with whom we are in confidence or trivially we are nicer, even do or say things that should not be justified or excused, while we do not give discounts to others.

The body language, how many training courses I followed on this, and even when I was studying Drama, the body language was obviously an essential subject, needless to explain why.

I will come back to this topic soon, very interesting, full of ideas.
 
Last edited:
The sort of thing I was illustrating essentially follows the theories of Ronald Carter, who identified a cline of linguistic creativity, with the everyday in one corner and the literary in the other. You can do a very similar thing with familiar/unfamiliar as in my example. This is simplifying things somewhat, but I think the basic concept is a good one.
 
MypinchofItaly said:
Sounds like something that has origin and continuity in narcissism, enjoying one's style regardless of substance. But are we (you) sure that despite this, there is not something good to save that comes up to us anyway?
Click to expand...

I think that you might be able to justify the approach more in poetry, where you may prefer something that sounds more musical. Even so, I'd rather have some meaning rather than something that just sounds nice.
 
My sister recently complained she never hears from the nieces and nephews.
They adore her but won’t answer their cell phones and take ages to respond the sisters emails.

“You’re the last person in the Western Hemisphere that doesn’t text” I told her.
“If ya wanna hear from the kids activate your texting.”
Sister is that stuck in her ways and feels texting is impersonal.
Finally, recently sister relented and communication flows.

Another friend Darryl is a retired professional baseball player. Spent a lifetime career with the Athletics. Earned good money and draws a hefty players assn. pension.
A definition of cheap that the wordsmiths at Cambridge haven’t pounded out yet.
He’s on a cellphone plan that texting is $5 more a month. “Nope, ain’t gonna pay it.”

Darryl’s actively involved in special needs dog rescues. It’s a thread of its own how he can get others to pay the dogs medical bills.
My compassionate wife gets pulled in to Darryls plan from time to time. It’s all good.
Maybe it’s harder to ignore Darryl in person or talking on the phone than simply not responding to a text. No, Darryl is that cheap. No $5 texting plan.

My niece was running the LA Dodgers tickets program. A huge operation. Excellent free game tickets. Darryl was able to turn those tickets into dog surgery and meds through a chain of clever bartering.

Well, niece (I almost said girls) with that butt naked truth, mouthy attitude that runs in the Scottish blood told the teams then owner what a %?a£#!#%!! he was. Our free tickets family program ended along with her position.
 
Last edited:
I graduated from college with an English Language major. No one is happy to hear this: at best, I'll receive indifference, but more often it provokes nervousness or annoyance. The presumption seems to be that, since I'm an Expert, I will constantly try to correct their grammar, spelling, and punctuation. I find it amusing that people think this: if they learn that someone is a doctor, do they assume that they will begin critiquing their choices related to their health?

I do know English Language majors who do these things, so I suppose I'm guilty by association. But, in my case, I also minored in Communication. I am far more interested in understanding what people mean than I am in correcting the way they try to communicate. Linguistics, in particular, was a course of study that left its mark, since it demonstrated different ways that different people communicate.

In high school, we learned about double negatives: that's where two negatives cancel out and create a positive. For example, "I ain't never doing that" supposedly means "I am always doing that" because the ain't and the never cancel out. The belief, I think, was that it worked like mathematics, where 5 - (-3) = 5 + 3 = 8. But, linguistics (and common sense) tells us that the two negatives are for emphasis.

Note that I didn't say anything about "ain't" not being a word. When I was in high school, it wasn't. But, Merriam-Webster includes it now, and that's good enough for me.
 
I'm reminded of a friend who has a doctorate, which in her case is in history. She said she wished she'd had a fiver for every time someone has asked her a health question. She added that quite a few would say things like, "Oh, you're not a real doctor, then," when she pointed out the nature of her doctorate.

I remember she used to have a tee-shirt with "Don't ask me, I'm an historian" printed on it.
 
The Late Night Gourmet said:
I graduated from college with an English Language major. No one is happy to hear this: at best, I'll receive indifference, but more often it provokes nervousness or annoyance. The presumption seems to be that, since I'm an Expert, I will constantly try to correct their grammar, spelling, and punctuation. I find it amusing that people think this: if they learn that someone is a doctor, do they assume that they will begin critiquing their choices related to their health?

I do know English Language majors who do these things, so I suppose I'm guilty by association. But, in my case, I also minored in Communication. I am far more interested in understanding what people mean than I am in correcting the way they try to communicate. Linguistics, in particular, was a course of study that left its mark, since it demonstrated different ways that different people communicate.

In high school, we learned about double negatives: that's where two negatives cancel out and create a positive. For example, "I ain't never doing that" supposedly means "I am always doing that" because the ain't and the never cancel out. The belief, I think, was that it worked like mathematics, where 5 - (-3) = 5 + 3 = 8. But, linguistics (and common sense) tells us that the two negatives are for emphasis.

Note that I didn't say anything about "ain't" not being a word. When I was in high school, it wasn't. But, Merriam-Webster includes it now, and that's good enough for me.
Click to expand...


I liked your sentence " I am far more interested in understanding what people mean than I am in correcting the way they try to communicate. " That means intelligence.

Now, please mind you that I'm not referring to you but only to the examples you mentioned (in general):
if a Doctor criticizes and judges my choices of health, I wouldn't feel at all uncomfortable. Why? Because he is a Doctor and because he takes care of others, of me. He tells me what is good for me and what is not. The Doctor makes his knowledge and experience available to correct me and make me feel better.

The other, provides his knowledge and experience to make himself better off basically.

Paradoxically, they act in the same way but with different goals.
 
MypinchofItaly: not everyone is so accepting of unsolicited opinions. I will always listen to whatever anyone says, no matter how ridiculous it may seem. There's no obligation on my part to do what they say, and there's always a chance that there will be a nugget of useful information. But, many others don't feel that way (even when they're the ones going to the doctor for help!)
 
Slightly off the track of recent discussion, something has been puzzling me for a while. When did the word "average" come to mean "bad"?

It's a phenomenon common to sporting commentators. I hear cricket commentators saying things like, "That was a really average shot" and football pundits opining, "That was average defending." What they mean, of course, was "it was rubbish."

I find it irritating. Average means somewhere in the middle, neither good nor bad. I suppose it could mean bad if you had, say, a class of pupils who all got one or two marks out of twenty, in which case the average score would be bad, but you know what I mean.
 
Duck59 said:
When did the word "average" come to mean "bad"?
Click to expand...
I think this went hand-in-hand with other unrealistic expectations that a media-focused world seems to create. I'm not blaming this on the media: we're all complicit. I want to hear about the outstanding, the excellent, the fantastic.

Never mind that most of us will never achieve such heights. By comparison, average isn't all that interesting. I'm a lot less interested in the 50th place runner out of 100. Usually, an average thing is so commonplace that it doesn't even warrant mentioning. But, if it does, then it seems to always mean that average just isn't good enough.

Now, this was a thoroughly average response, wasn't it? :laugh:
 
The Late Night Gourmet said:
I think this went hand-in-hand with other unrealistic expectations that a media-focused world seems to create. I'm not blaming this on the media: we're all complicit. I want to hear about the outstanding, the excellent, the fantastic.

Never mind that most of us will never achieve such heights. By comparison, average isn't all that interesting. I'm a lot less interested in the 50th place runner out of 100. Usually, an average thing is so commonplace that it doesn't even warrant mentioning. But, if it does, then it seems to always mean that average just isn't good enough.

Now, this was a thoroughly average response, wasn't it? :laugh:
Click to expand...

A fair point. I also think there's an element of cop-out. Saying "that was rubbish" sounds a bit mean, so using "average" softens the effect somewhat. Only to a degree, however. If you keep using the word average to mean rubbish, then it doesn't take too long for people to realise that's what you're saying.
 
The Late Night Gourmet said:
Duck59: now that I think of it, the usage you're talking about might also be a bit sarcastic. For example, your ice cream scoop falls out of the cone and onto the ground before you can take a bite. You might say, "nice!" But, you don't mean it in a good way.
Click to expand...

In some cases, yes, but in the case of certain pundits (no names), I'm not sure they've got the wit to be sarcastic!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom