Quote:
Originally Posted by Rev
I will never forget my High School English teacher teaching us about S. I. Hayakawa. He was a semanticist (and near the end of his life a Senator from California). He taught that it is impossible for two people to have a meaningful conversation unless they first defined all words they would use. Without this common definition, each would be interpreting what the other said accoring to their own definitions, rather than as the speaker actually intended it.
A lot of the conflict that occurs in this world is due to these misunderstandings.
If you are a Star Trek fan, do you remember the Star Trek episode (Darmok) where Picard tried to communicate with the Captain (Dathon) of the Tamarian ship. The language was so different from ours that the universal translator had no reference points from which to establish a meaningful translation. Picard finally learned to communicate by sharing experiences with the Captain.
It is much the same with all of us. We can learn the language. However, without the shared experiences, we are looking at a 3-dimensional language in a very 2-dimensional way.
Still. One has to start somewhere.  |
Yes, I do remember that episode. And I volunteer to be stranded somewhere remote with Alizée until we work out a complete understanding of our languages, however long it takes. Of course I make this offer purely in the interests of knowledge.
