"All words are pegs to hang ideas on".
How many of us love that advertisement where the dad tells the kid that the "Great Wall of China was built to keep the rabbits out?"
Who will consider that no dictionary of a living tongue ever can be perfect, since, while it is hastening to publication, some words are budding, and some falling away; that a whole life cannot be spent upon syntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would not be sufficient; that he, whose design includes whatever language can express, must often speak of what he does not understand.
An insult, real or perceived, once resulted in a duel. To defend one's honor meant to kill someone or to get killed. Thankfully, those times are behind us. Duels are now part of history, but bar-fights and other altercations show that we haven't outgrown our revenge mentality.
Imagine a world where a slight called for a verbal duel. The two parties get together and hurl the choicest adjectives at each other. Spectators cheer them on. And in the end the two shake hands and,having vented, go home.
To prepare for this fight the parties involved don't drive to a gun shop. Instead they head to the biggest, baddest dictionary they could lay their hands on and pick out words. The more obscure, the more colorful, the better. If your opponent can't even understand the word you hurl at him, what hope has he?
"Different languages highlight the varieties of human experience, revealing as mutable aspects of life that we tend to think of as settled and universal, such as our experience of time, number, or color. In Tuva, for example, the past is always spoken of as ahead of one, and the future is behind one's back. 'We could never say, I'm looking forward to doing something,' a Tuvan told me. Indeed, he might say, 'I'm looking forward to the day before yesterday.' It makes total sense if you think of it in a Tuvan sort of way: If the future were ahead of you, wouldn't it be in plain view?"
Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire. -Roland Barthes
One of my first beaus once sent me an arrangement of all pink flowers. The card that accompanied it said something like, "I hope these flowers mirror your countenance." (I gather the florist thought the note was wanting,and advocated for something different, but my would-be beau would not be dissuaded). It took me a bit to figure out what the note said because it tore as I opened the wrapping, obscuring a good portion of the word countenance,and it is true, that it is not often found on notes accompanying flowers(at least in recent decades) so I was rather stumped. Compounding the problem, I think, was this whole idea of hoping the flowers mirrored my face. I reasoned that the flowers were to be pink, which the boy knew,so there was no need to hope that they mirrored my countenance. I thought I must be missing something, but now realize that wooing the grammarian is tricky business indeed! In the end, I found I could not countenance the boy, and we went our separate ways.
The words a father speaks to his children in the privacy of the home are not overheard at the time, but, as in whispering galleries, they will be clearly heard at the end and by posterity.
'In English the verb goes in the middle of a sentence (I love you), while some languages relegate it to the end (I you love). This may sound preposterous to those not familiar with such a language (German, Hindi, Japanese, among others), but it's quite common.' For German, however, this is only partly true, i.e. in subordinate clauses. In a main clause as 'I love you', the order of the words is the same as in English ("ich liebe dich").
- Anonymous, Male, India
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