How do we communicate?

[MypinchofItaly]

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!)

Unwanted and unsolicited opinions, I think, are in general annoying regardless, precisely because they were neither searched nor requested.

However, the doctor has a sort of duty to warn someone, it is then up to those who receive the diagnosis or advice, to make their own choice of life, taking all the risks. Bother? Well, maybe it's more frightening than annoying.
I start from the fact that I looked for him.

The key to the other aspect is something completely different, it is the final goal that makes the difference as I said in my previous post. And even the modality.

 

[MypinchofItaly]

In some aspects, the word 'average' is even more subtle and petty than "rubbish".

It will be trivial, but the word rubbish defines something that ok, it sucks (on TV or by radio it would never be pronounced because it is ugly, and indeed it is), but it has its own precise location, while "average" succeeds in swimming undisturbed between the televisive and radio waves, it is acceptable, even if it contains in itself an even worse meaning and that is easily adoptable as "new rubbish" ... and it smells less.

Average has the advantage of being able to be turned over as one wants because it is interpretable, therefore less exposed to certain communicative risks. Garbage is terribly clear, irretrievable.

 

[MypinchofItaly]

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.

I think that being able to discern certain things in general probably has to do with multiple factors and among these one's own level of empathy, regardless of the way we haveto communicate, face to face, by phone or online.

 

[Dive Bar Casanova]

We have a wonderful restaurant named the Red Lyon Tavern. Not to be confused with the hotel chain.

It’s a split level, hillside design with a German Hungarian menu. The building features a rooftop beer garten/garden and a cool, cozy Rathskeller above the dining room.

Excellent food, good prices and customers from all over the planet.

Most the employees are girls and they wear the super low cut top German Bar maid dresses. Most the girls are in the TMZ seeking to get into show business.

The wife and I were sitting at the rooftop bar and the bartender girls were from France and barely spoke English.

A group of German guys at the bar were making some low rank, cruel, crude comments in German about the girls.
My wife is Swiss, speaks 7 languages and in French was telling the girls what the Germans were saying and in Hungarian told the owner lady who was raising a glass with us.

Well, the guys got kicked out forever after the girls claimed they first pee’d in their drinks,,, in english.

 

[MypinchofItaly]

View attachment 34231

We have a wonderful restaurant named the Red Lyon Tavern. Not to be confused with the hotel chain.

It’s a split level, hillside design with a German Hungarian menu. The building features a rooftop beer garten/garden and a cool, cozy Rathskeller above the dining room.

Excellent food, good prices and customers from all over the planet.

Most the employees are girls and they wear the super low cut top German Bar maid dresses. Most the girls are in the TMZ seeking to get into show business.

The wife and I were sitting at the rooftop bar and the bartender girls were from France and barely spoke English.

A group of German guys at the bar were making some low rank, cruel, crude comments in German about the girls.
My wife is Swiss, speaks 7 languages and in French was telling the girls what the Germans were saying and in Hungarian told the owner lady who was raising a glass with us.

Well, the guys got kicked out forever after the girls claimed they first pee’d in their drinks,,, in english.

Cheers

 

[Duck59]

I don't have any desire to turn into Professor Pedanticus, but some things annoy me. Here's a couple:

1) The use of "Ironic" when all people mean is "coincidental." You hear this all the time. "Ironically, such-and-such happened exactly a year ago." It's not irony. It's a coincidence.

2) The letter H. Why do so many people pronounce it "haitch"? It's aitch. You wouldn't say "feff" for F.

That's enough for now.

 

[MypinchofItaly]

Arrogance mistaken for strong character. How many times it has happened to hear you say the phrase, like a ready justification, 'it is not arrogant, it has only a strong character'.
No but, seriously?
Having a strong character is a thing, being arrogant is another one. The arrogants do not have a strong character, otherwise they would not be arrogant (or rude, depending on the circumstances).

Having a strong character has a positive meaning, being arrogant no, neither now nor ever.

What's your opinion?

 

[Morning Glory]

Arrogance mistaken for strong character. How many times it has happened to hear you say the phrase, like a ready justification, 'it is not arrogant, it has only a strong character'.
No but, seriously?
Having a strong character is a thing, being arrogant is another one. The arrogants do not have a strong character, otherwise they would not be arrogant (or rude, depending on the circumstances).

Having a strong character has a positive meaning, being arrogant no, neither now nor ever.

What's your opinion?

Arrogance has a very specific meaning:

'a manifest feeling of superiority of one's worth or importance, combined with contempt of others'

A strong character is a woolly term without specific meaning. At best it can be used to describe someone who knows what they want to achieve and has clarity and focus. But, as you say MypinchofItaly, it is often used as an excuse fore rudeness and lack of empathy with others.

 

[Duck59]

Thinking of arrogant people reminds me of a little story from back in the 1980s. In those days, my partner worked at Bord Failte, which is in effect the Irish tourist board. She worked in Cork and one of her tasks was to take people on guided tours.

One day, she was just about to take her group into the museum in Cork's Fitzgerald Park. It's quite a small museum and one of the people there asked if she wouldn't mind waiting for a few minutes as a group was nearly finished. Catherine said "No problem" and filled in the time by giving out a bit of local info.

Suddenly, a man in a suit came barging past everybody. Quite literally, in some cases, as he pushed a few people out of his way. Catherine, unimpressed, told him to mind where he was going and also to mind his manners. The chap turned on her and said loudly, "Do you know who I am?"

At which point, Catherine turned to her group and asked, with a perfectly straight face, "Do any of you work in the medical profession? There's a fellow here can't remember his own name."

Mr Suit was not happy and threatened all kinds of repercussions. Indeed, when Catherine got back to her office, her boss called her in. But not to worry. He was grinning from ear to ear. It turned out that Mr Suit was some kind of executive who was clearly under the impression he had national renown. Ultimately, it was he that got the telling-off.

So, sometimes, arrogance will come back and bite you in a painful place.

 

[Morning Glory]

At which point, Catherine turned to her group and asked, with a perfectly straight face, "Do any of you work in the medical profession? There's a fellow here can't remember his own name."

 

[MypinchofItaly]

Thinking of arrogant people reminds me of a little story from back in the 1980s. In those days, my partner worked at Bord Failte, which is in effect the Irish tourist board. She worked in Cork and one of her tasks was to take people on guided tours.

One day, she was just about to take her group into the museum in Cork's Fitzgerald Park. It's quite a small museum and one of the people there asked if she wouldn't mind waiting for a few minutes as a group was nearly finished. Catherine said "No problem" and filled in the time by giving out a bit of local info.

Suddenly, a man in a suit came barging past everybody. Quite literally, in some cases, as he pushed a few people out of his way. Catherine, unimpressed, told him to mind where he was going and also to mind his manners. The chap turned on her and said loudly, "Do you know who I am?"

At which point, Catherine turned to her group and asked, with a perfectly straight face, "Do any of you work in the medical profession? There's a fellow here can't remember his own name."

Mr Suit was not happy and threatened all kinds of repercussions. Indeed, when Catherine got back to her office, her boss called her in. But not to worry. He was grinning from ear to ear. It turned out that Mr Suit was some kind of executive who was clearly under the impression he had national renown. Ultimately, it was he that got the telling-off.

So, sometimes, arrogance will come back and bite you in a painful place.

Really nice story

 

[Duck59]

I was thinking about use of dialect in literature. Irvine Welsh, for example, uses it a lot. James Kelman is another Scottish writer that uses dialect - Glasgow in his case as opposed to Welsh's Edinburgh (or Leith). Niall Griffiths wrote an entire novel, Grits, in dialect, using multiple narrators from different parts of Britain and Ireland.

It can be quite hard work to read stuff like this, especially if you're not familiar with the accent/dialect of the narrator. Fortunately for me, I didn't have too much trouble with any of the above, but even then I found myself reading passages again just to make sure.

It's also hard to write that way. You need to be consistent and also need to make sure that your characters sound different to one another, even when they're from the same place.

So is it a good thing? Well, I think if the novel is good enough, dialect can definitely add something. Done badly, it can sound affected and patronising. The three authors I've mentioned are, in my opinion, good ones.

Now, it's unlikely that you'll get the chance to have Irvine Welsh and me mentioned in the same sentence. I bring this up because my novel is based in Edinburgh, so we've got one thing in common. I made a conscious decision not to use dialect. For one thing, only one of my main characters, the anti-hero Vince, actually comes from Edinburgh. My novel features a young Polish woman, but she speaks excellent English and it would have been a bit insulting to give her what would have ended up as a comedy Polish accent. Much as I like Dracula, I can't help but wince when I read the van Helsing parts. I settled for having my characters speak in "standard" English. As a writer, you hope your readers will be able to imagine more or less how they speak or sound by the detail given.

 

[MypinchofItaly]

I was thinking about use of dialect in literature. Irvine Welsh, for example, uses it a lot. James Kelman is another Scottish writer that uses dialect - Glasgow in his case as opposed to Welsh's Edinburgh (or Leith). Niall Griffiths wrote an entire novel, Grits, in dialect, using multiple narrators from different parts of Britain and Ireland.

It can be quite hard work to read stuff like this, especially if you're not familiar with the accent/dialect of the narrator. Fortunately for me, I didn't have too much trouble with any of the above, but even then I found myself reading passages again just to make sure.

It's also hard to write that way. You need to be consistent and also need to make sure that your characters sound different to one another, even when they're from the same place.

So is it a good thing? Well, I think if the novel is good enough, dialect can definitely add something. Done badly, it can sound affected and patronising. The three authors I've mentioned are, in my opinion, good ones.

Now, it's unlikely that you'll get the chance to have Irvine Welsh and me mentioned in the same sentence. I bring this up because my novel is based in Edinburgh, so we've got one thing in common. I made a conscious decision not to use dialect. For one thing, only one of my main characters, the anti-hero Vince, actually comes from Edinburgh. My novel features a young Polish woman, but she speaks excellent English and it would have been a bit insulting to give her what would have ended up as a comedy Polish accent. Much as I like Dracula, I can't help but wince when I read the van Helsing parts. I settled for having my characters speak in "standard" English. As a writer, you hope your readers will be able to imagine more or less how they speak or sound by the detail given.

You quoted Irvine Welsh and suddendly my mind went back to Trainspotting and to my trip to Edinburgh a couple of years ago. I imagine it is quite obvious and even belittling to associate Welsh only with Trainspotting, but for now I only have this on him (or maybe something else but I have to look for it).

Speaking of Scottish writers, I'm reading a series of books (both in Italian and in English - for linguistic exercise) by William Boyd, a writer I find extraordinary.
Right now I'm reading Any Human Heart (in English) and I've already learned words and expressions in Scottish that I'm pleased to know.

Your novel? Interesting! Will you share more info?
Being a writer you know how important details are, which sometimes become the characters themselves.

Well, I think if the novel is good enough, dialect can definitely add something. Done badly, it can sound affected and patronising
How not to agree?

 

[Duck59]

Irvine Welsh has written twelve novels, most of them centred in Edinburgh. Three of them involve the Trainspotting characters, the original (obviously), plus Porno (the same lot ten years on) and Skag Boys, which we might call a prequel. There is also a newer one called The Blade Artist, which I've not read but is about the psycho Begbie.

Filth is about a bent policeman and there's a sequel to this one, as well, Crime. Glue is a bit of a Trainspotting copy, following four Edinburgh characters but over the course of four decades, with yet another follow-up in A Decent Ride. I've read Glue and I recall that Renton from Trainspotting makes an appearance in this one.

 

[Duck59]

Your novel? Interesting! Will you share more info?
Being a writer you know how important details are, which sometimes become the characters themselves.

Err, right, my novel. In many ways, it's a bit of a revenge job on one of my old bosses. I've made him into a businessman who runs a company running golf tours (he was and no doubt still is, a golf fanatic). Some of the office scenes are very close to things that actually happened, but I've made up a lot of the more outrageous stuff.

He - my boss - was a bit of a fantasist whose interests didn't lie much beyond football and golf. He was a total philistine and I've played on that. For my own amusement, I made his character a Hearts fan while he himself supported Hibs. There was never the remotest possibility that he would read the book (he never read anything other than the sports pages of The Sun and the Edinburgh Evening News), but I know that would have really hacked him off.

It was fun making up the characters. One of them, Sean, is essentially me. My Polish woman, Krystyna, is totally made up and I was quite pleased with her because I didn't base her on anyone. Another central character, Lucy, is based on a Glaswegian girl I used to know in Oxford.

Here's my author page on you-know-where. It lists my novel and my non-fiction book as well.

My author page