lunes, 31 de enero de 2011
Language
Language is a way for humans to communicate. It is the simplest way to do so and also the laziest way. We name things and then we teach them to others. Then when a kid reaches Kindergarden he know more than 2000 words. None of those he came up with, there fore sense kids are born we are destroying their imagination and teaching them that the word is already defined by others.
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Why do you say language is the laziest way to communicate?
ResponderEliminarbecause we dont do any effort into description any more. Now we use metaphors and similes to describe everything. For example, the car was as a big as an elephant. We know elephants are big, so we know the car has to be big, but we never actually described the car.
ResponderEliminarThat's... strange.
ResponderEliminarI mean, if we're talking about what constitutes as more "work", I would say creating metaphors, or similes or whatever you want to call them, is much harder than just describing the situation.
If you just say 'the car is big' and 'the elephant is big', you have two autonomous statements.
Now, 'the car is as big as an elephant', is a simile, a figure of speech, an analogy.
It is a much more complicated statement, and in order to get there the person has to understand the infinite nuances of similarities and comparisons. Not only that, but they also need to understand that it is an exaggeration, there's use of figurative language there. Some people can take such statements literally, when there is very little chance the car is actually as big as an elephant.
I don't think understanding or using comparisons like that is lazy at all. One might not think so, but it takes quite a lot of knowledge and experience and interpretation.
I think that's much more refined and sophisticated than just a description.
Also, you use the words "now" and "any more".
Are you implying that there was a time when we didn't use metaphors and similes, then?
And, if so, do you think "back then" is better than "now"?
Ok, metaphors and similes are complex in their own way. And I think that I explain myself wrong.
ResponderEliminarIn a society where people have the same or similar backgrounds, its easy to use metaphors and similes like the one before, because we share a mutual knowledge, and we know its a exaggeration. Therefore there is no need to go into a deep discussion of how big the car is, if we know that this is a metaphor.
I dont think im making any sense. but im my head it makes sense.
But lets take for example what texting and communication have done to our language.
we rarely see anyone writing ¨ talk to you later ¨ now is TTYL os stuff like that. and this is not only on text. I have heard people saying stuff like BRB, ILY, TTYL when the person is right in front of them.
to the question about times.
I do believe that when language was ¨starting¨ or whatever was better than now. People don´t understand how powerful the word is, and we use it without much thought. Language can not only communicate easily but it can deeply hurt people...
therefore I think that ¨back then¨ was better that ¨now¨