76 thoughts on “all we have to do is keep talking”

1. What a cool conversation! Also, I studied Portuguese in college (although I can’t remember much of it anymore, thanks to not having to use it for a long time) and took a course on how Portuguese developed in the Middle Ages. I wrote a paper for the class comparing Medieval Portuguese troubadours and the way they played with language in their songs to Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins and her wordplay. (I incorporated ’80s postpunk/alternative music a lot in my college papers, in whatever way I could sneak it in.)

   1. Oh, my goodness, Joshua! Few things give me more pleasure than listening to the Cocteau Twins’ Heaven or Las Vegas album. Now putting that in conjunction with how beautiful and lyrical the Portuguese language is gives me quite a lot of food for thought. (Most likely paella, but I digress…)

2. Quite deep, thanks for sharing!

3. Back in my college-ish days I got really into semiotics, studying Derrida and reading stuff like Barthes’ Mythologies. It can become a bit of a rabbit hole, words being defined by other words which must in turn be defined by…other words and so on into infinity. I was particularly interested in how Barthes used semiotics to explore how culture/society takes words and images, strips them of there individual back story and turns them into symbols. From the book: “I am at the barber’s, and copy of Paris-Match is offered to me. On the cover, a young Negro in a French uniform is saluting, with his eyes uplifted, probably fixed on a fold of the tricolour. All this is the meaning of the picture. But whether naively or not, I see very well what it signifies to me: that France is a great Empire, that all her sons, without any colour discrimination, faithfully serve under the flag, and that there is no better answer to the detractors of an alleged colonialism than the zeal shown by this Negro in serving his so-called oppressors …” Of course, as he points out, the image tells you nothing of the story of the young man in the picture. Probably a tangent, but it was what this post got spinning in my brain.

   1. I blame SF author Samuel R. Delany for getting me into semiotics. Not that I understand most of it, but at least some of it has seeped into my brain.

      1. Ah Samuel Delaney. I think I picked up Dhalgren about the same time I was studying/reading all the semiotics and linguistics stuff. It did very little to make the book more accessible, though I thoroughly enjoyed it. By comparison Nova was practically a beginning reader.

4. By default I think many people would have a knee-jerk reaction of being corrected by someone who refers to themselves as a Grammar Nazi (of any language) but I love that you responded the way you did and it evolved into a really interesting thread. My understanding of Latin is SUPER limited so I found it fascinating. I do wish I understood the language. People can call it a dead language all they want, it doesn’t change its importance.

   Thanks for sharing this!

5. Really fascinating read, but now my head hurts and I’m going to go lie down. And I really loved Arrival as well.

6. I think you’ve hit on something there with the thought that we’ve lost the art of communicating WITH each other. I also find it ironic that the medium you are using (the internet) is primarily responsible for stultifying and petrifying language and influencing the problems we’re experiencing. As we narrow and micro-define each word for common reference we lose the flexibility of mind necessary to receive and INTERPRET communications. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “medium is the message” and I find that to be incredibly relevant in current techno-society. Even in your and Felicia’s Youtube channels (and I love them, by the way) the medium influences the audience and facilitates the message acceptance.

   In part, our world is now too small to hold a meaningful, private conversation. In part, mob-mentality rules most public conversations which leads to the phrase (one of my favorite) “All of us are dumber than some of us”. Generally, it’s only when we can talk in small groups, without an audience, that we can hold to our beliefs and opinions. What a person would say to you in private or in a small group might not be what they would say to you on camera in front of the country (though in my case I would probably say the same thing ’cause I don’t usually give a fuck what others think.).

   Anyway, long winded I can be but I wanted to thank you for being a bright spot in my day.

7. This is such a thoughtful and beautiful exchange– it exemplifies what good dialogue can be, as you were saying. I especially love it as a medievalist and lover of Latin myself!

8. this is why i love you man.

9. Love this. In a past version of my life I got a Master’s degree in theology. A big part of that was learning how to read ancient texts. When you get past the typical Sunday morning armchair theology of the modern evangelical individual, you find that academia is rife with nuanced interpretations of scripture. Not to get too deep into religious things here, but in the academic study of the bible you need to look at the context in which it was written. For example, trying to read the story of creation in Genesis as a literal, historical, accounting falls apart when you understand the anthropological context in which it was written.

   All this to say that understanding what people say needs to go hand in hand with who is saying it. The context and culture surrounding the words that people use needs to be taken into account when trying to understand someone. We do this naturally, everyday, with people close to us in our lives. However, their stories are often similar to our own, and it’s easier to understand. When we are confronted with someone who has a completely different background, culture, and history, than us we struggle to understand their words, even if they’re the same language. I see this more and more as I get older, and at the same time I need to check myself all the time on my own biases. If I want to understand what ‘the other’ is saying, I need to understand ‘the other’.

   But as I type that, I even see how the use of the word other is loaded and could form the basis of a whole different path of unpacking.

   Great stuff to keep thinking about. Thank you so much for sharing this!

   1. @Jamison – I love this: “If I want to understand what ‘the other’ is saying, I need to understand ‘the other’.” Well said.

   2. Sunday morning armchair theology of the modern evangelical individua

      If you feel like spending some time thinking about this, I’d love to hear your thoughts: I feel like modern evangelicals are cultists the same way Sea Org Scientologists are cultists. The world is divided into a select few who march in step, and enemies who must be destroyed (converted).

      Presuming that my definition is fair and reasonably accurate, has it always been this way? I feel like there is so much beauty and wisdom in a lot of Christian mythology and scripture, once the religion is removed. I realize that is a profoundly insulting statement to the Faithful, but I can’t think of a different way to say it that conveys how I honestly feel about religions.

      1. May I jump in here, Wil, and say I understand your perspective? I’m a Christian (not a very good one, though), and I often feel incredibly alienated by others around me. The “quiver full” movement is horrifying, and it gets under my skin to hear flippant comments about feminism, conservation, and environmentalism. I’m often left feeling like “THIS is why people disparage Christianity! No one is acting very Christ-like!” It’s very much and Us vs Them mentality, and I completely understand why it smacks of cultism. It’s scary from this side, too.

         Now, in our defense…ha. “Not all Christians…” 😉 Really, though. Like internet trolls, I think the some of the bad sort are the ones that take advantage of the public platforms afforded them. They want the world in their image, to believe and act per their rules, just because. Yes, evangelicals “spread the Word”, but it’s supposed to be supplying it the people, teaching them, and letting God work. Definitely doesn’t look that way right now. We’re surrounded by a lot of folks that scream about God and the Bible so they can use it as a weapon to get their way. It’s so far removed from what Jesus said and did, I can’t wrap my head around it.

      2. Where I live and work in Australia, more people go to church on a single Sunday, than the number of people who go to Aussie Rules football games for the entire year. Yet in the workplace, around the water cooler, it’s football people mostly talk about.

         The people who are known to be Christians, don’t raise the topic. Except perhaps to describe their slightly unusual weekend plans.

         I’d say that is it also common for many church members to only socialise with other members of the same church. Particularly the Pastor and other administrative staff. Along with the call to share their gospel, that alone can lead to an Us and Them division.

         IMHO, there are a small number of very vocal evangelicals. I wouldn’t say they are representative of christians in general. Maybe that meets the definition of a cult. If anyone has a good definition…

      3. Generally I try to avoid generalizations, especially in matters of religion, but, your statement is reasonably accurate. I’ll try to unpack this without writing a novel, but basically my religious journey started in evangelicalism, moved into more moderate mainstream Christianity (think Methodist or Lutheran), and then back to evangelicalism before I pushed the nuclear button and went full Roman Catholic. That might sound really odd, especially when you consider some of the crazy things various bishops say, but I found myself at a crossroads; it was either Catholicism or atheism. I found myself asking this question because I could no longer accept a faith that was so driven by adherence to a single historical text that it missed the bigger picture. In evangelicalism the gold standard is the bible, and the bible guides life. Tradition, history, culture… all of these things are either very, very secondary (at best) or shunned (at worst) in the evangelical worldview. If you want to know God, everything you need to know is in scripture.

         Even when I was studying in an evangelical graduate school we were taught to put a critical eye towards scripture. We needed to understand the historical, and cultural, context that scripture was written within. It’s not a mistake that the New Testament was written in koine greek; a dialect(?) of greek that was distinct from classical greek. Koine greek was chosen because it was the language of commerce throughout the middle east and the mediterranean. It was the best vehicle to spread the word, which was the primary purpose of the apostles. When you understand that the apostles were trying to communicate a message to certain people, in a certain place, at a certain time, it changes how you read what they wrote. There are reason that many moral issues are not addressed in scripture; they simply never came up, or weren’t relevant. Therefore, we do a big disservice to the history of the text when we try to read our current context into what was written thousands of years ago.

         I say all this because in Roman Catholicism scripture is held up against tradition in a balance that creates something that feels more ‘real’ to me. Scripture is still the primary source of knowledge about God, but it is interpreted in light of the 2000 years of tradition and history that have followed it. Modern evangelicalism is only a couple hundred years old, and has no deep tradition to draw upon. This is why in the Catholic church you get crazy stuff like saints who can fly, and pieces of flesh that never rot. These are artifacts of the tradition of the faith, from the time it lived and breathed, despite being silly and dumb by today’s standards.

         The Catholic church in America (in particular) seems to want to align itself with the evangelical movement, but this is just a moment in time. I look at Pope Francis and see hope for a church of the future that will continue to grow with the society around it. My hope may be misplaced, but hope is what keeps many of us getting up every day. The church has been used as a weapon of war at times throughout history, almost as often as it has been used as a vehicle for peace and servitude. But, it’s also a faith that teaches that despite proclaiming that the way of faith is through Christ, as humans we can never limit the power of God, and others may come to salvation through another path. It’s a small tiny tidbit in the catechism, but it gives me hope. As I mentioned above… for me the other choice is rejection of it all and taking the path of the loving atheist.

         Now, having typed all this I should add the disclaimer that I rarely go to mass, and I’m married to an atheist, and am pretty dang liberal politically. I often feel that evangelicalism is ruining the faith, precisely because of what you state about their view that the world is divided into those who are with God, and those who are against God. It hasn’t always been this way though, and history is littered with examples of amazing scientists who did what they did because of their desire to study God’s creation. Even Newton wrote hundreds of pages on theology in addition to his science. Yet, the evangelical church will have you believe that science is a myth, and that anyone who disagrees with scripture is a heathen.

         That’s not the type of faith that I read in scripture, nor see in the lives of sacrificial people. I fully agree that it’s sad to see how much beauty has been co-opted by the desire to set ourselves up against another. I just hope that this current reactionary hatred eventually turns back to more rational and sane view of love and acceptance of others.

         Hopefully, I got to what you were asking. Or maybe I just needed to vent a bit 🙂

         1. Thank you! I’m sorry this sat in moderation all day; I was busier than I expected and just now got to approve the queue. I’m so glad you took the time to write this and share it with me.

            1. No worries. I actually enjoyed writing it up and thinking about concepts like that again. I don’t get enough opportunities to use those talents and skills anymore.

      4. I too am a Christian, and also feel alienated from many of the others who call themselves “Christians”. I have accepted that, there is now a segment of society, especially in some regions of the US , where there is a subculture that has appropriated the word “christian” that is, in reality, merely a subculture not an actual fellowship of believers. This subculture is akin to those these days who claim that their twisted view of American ideals is accurate and reflective if what our country stands for. In neither case, with these “patriots” or “christians” is there even the slightest basis in the knowledgeable reading of the founding literature, documentation or scripture that the actual original movements were built upon, in what these people claim to believe and the rhetoric that they spew forth. The appropriation of the noble titles IS merely an attempt to cover up naked self interest and essentially, put lipstick on a pig. You will know a true Christian by their nonjudgemental, humble and giving behavior, and a true patriot by their inclusive words, and noble actions. Realize that and you’ll go a long way towards having insight into what these false movements really are. Understand that true Christians are as frustrated by these so called “christians” as true patriots are by the trumps and pences who try to perpetuate hate in the name of the United States. The level of frustration and sheer exasperation i feel when unknowing people buy into these false labels is staggering at times…
         Thanks for this varied and fascinating thread.

      5. “I feel like there is so much beauty and wisdom in a lot of Christian mythology and scripture, once the religion is removed.”

         That is the key, Wil. True Christianity is not a religion. It is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

         I would define myself as an evangelical fundamentalist, as I understand the meaning of the term. Here is how I would define Christianity:

         Sin came into the world through Adam and Eve. As a result, all humans who came after them were born into sin, and sin separates humans from God. Jesus Christ made the supreme sacrifice to provide a way of salvation from that sin. That salvation is accepted by simply admitting that humans are powerless to justify and reconcile themselves to God, and accepting the promise of God that the sacrifice of Christ is sufficient to justify and reconcile everyone who will believe that it is so. For those who believe, Christ teaches that they should strive to live their lives as He did, according to His example and the principles that are given in Scripture, and spread His message to others and encourage them to accept it, all in gratitude and humility for the sacrifice He made for us. That’s Christianity.

         It’s not up to believers to force this onto others, but to inform them that there is a way to be justified and reconciled to God. The choice to believe is between the individual and God and the consequences of that choice are clearly laid out in Scripture. God is willing that everyone makes the choice to believe, but recognizes that not all will do so. On the other hand, Scripture is very clear on the point that God hates sin and is also very clear about what sin is. Believers are commanded not to glorify or condone sin in their own lives or in the lives of others. God commands that this is to be done in a respectful and loving way, and this is where the majority of “Christians” get it wrong. On the flip side, those who do not believe often call it hate when their sinful actions are not condoned by believers, and while it is true that “Christians” often express their disapproval in a hateful manner, in true Christianity it is to be done out of love for the non-believer and concern for their relationship to God. There may be no way to get around that response, though. The message of Christianity is by its very nature a confrontational one, even offensive. Man is sinful by his own choice. God is sinless. God will not have a relationship with man as he is. God pays the price for man’s sin at great cost to Himself and confronts man with this and gives him a choice to continue to live according to his own, sinful will, or submit to His perfect will. Man is offended at God’s disapproval and must either get over it and accept the gift of salvation or accept the consequences. No question it’s a harsh message, but it’s delivered out of love, not hate.

         I don’t know what your particular experiences with Christianity have been, but I would encourage you not to discount the message out of hand just because the messengers are flawed in their delivery. Study it out for yourself in Scripture and come to your own conclusion.

      6. Interesting position. I wonder how one can really remove the wisdom and the beauty from the religion though. The theological standpoint is rather important here, I think, for context.

   3. My formal studies were all in Christian theology. However, since then I have done a lot of reading of people in the vein of Karen Armstrong.

      1. Cool history you have. And I agree that the Catholic church has not been immune to the human lust for power like it should have been. It’s sad to see how it’s been used and abused over time.

         Karen Armstrong is the author of the Case for God and History of God books that were all over NPR many years ago. She’s a comparative religions person who looks for the truth in all faiths. There’s more scholarly works out there, but her writing is very approachable.

10. This is all very fascinating, and big thank you to Stephanie for sharing all that great food for thought. In another life, I would have studied linguistics (I’ve been reading the dictionary since I was a kid because the threads that connect words/thoughts/history has never ceased to amaze me). I’m sort of mind-blown by the concept of writing, as Stephanie puts it, “…a series of symbols which function as a kind of telepathy allowing you to read the thoughts of other people.” I feel like there’s a great story to be written around that concept. We are so reliant on such a mutable thing as language to see across time, and I think many of us (myself included) take written histories without enough of the proverbial grain of salt. Language is not static, and thinking about how it changes, and how that in turn changes our understanding of history over time makes my head spin in the most enjoyable way. Thanks for sharing all this.

11. On so many levels this passage of conversation demonstrates why there is still hope in the USA; and why you must hold on to that hope (and probably, as a Brit, struggling to come to terms with our own democratic self-destructiveness, I enjoy reading your blogs, to see the parallels at work either side of the Pond…). Despite recent set-backs, as a people you still have the capacity to be a beacon of light in the world. You make us think; you make us laugh; you entertain us…

    Is that view way too much to take from a blog conversation on Latin usage? I think not. The depth of thought on both sides of this conversation, the ability to see and interpret a wider world from a few passages – a single quote in fact – of a foreign language, is really engaging. Stephanie’s beautiful interpretation of language’s capacity to bridge the ages also gave this history nut goose bumps! Thank you.

    To finish on splitting the infinitive and a slightly tenuous link to history, as a mature student reading for a degree in the subject I used to get reduced to jelly (jello?) by my tutor whenever I committed that grammatical sin. Drilled into me as it was, it came as a surprise to read OED’s more pragmatic interpretation of the ‘rule’:

    https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/grammar/split-infinitives

    I got the degree; but I’ve never split, spliced or in any way separated an infinitive since… (!)

    1. There is a good discussion on the split-infinitives and other “rules” that have no basis in English language history is at:

       http://www.chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid-Grammar/25497

       Much of the blame for many “rules” can be attributed to the error filled high school English class staple – Strunk and White.

12. I loved ARRIVAL! Just last night, as I was working on Portuguese using Duolingo, my sweetie remarked that it sounds very different from the other Romance languages she is familiar with. Now, thanks to your reminder of Louise’s words, I will have to go down that rabbit hole to know more.

    Stephanie’s comments about language and scaffolding put me in mind of THE MATRIX, with the ability to see the underlying constructs that frame our world. Further contemplation took me to Ursula Le Guin’s THE DISPOSSESSED, in which two related but very different cultures are using the same words to mean very different things. Even when the protagonist is aware that that is going on, it is still almost insurmountable.

13. Can’t think now, must go listen to Pink Floyd – Division Bell Music is my preferred language anyway. I suspect the same origin principles apply to music as well, regional aesthetic differences, the way one can hear a Russian composer a mile (or frozen landscape) away, the happy water music of a affluent society.

14. As much as I love history, especially studying the roots of our modern world in ancient Rome, I wonder if we fetishize the Latin language and Roman culture a little too much. There was a lot of ugliness in the culture of ancient Rome: crushing poverty, slavery, gladiators, despotism & depraved emperors. By modern standards the ancient Romans were hopelessly backwards.

    1. Not really. The modern world has it’s depraved emperors in the CEO’s of major corporations; we have crushing poverty; our sports teams are our gladiators and reality TV is our Colliseum. Today’s news gave us word of some serious despotism getting ready to happen. Granted, we don’t have slavery, currently.

       We aren’t as far ahead of the Roman Empire as you might like to think. At least, not right now.

    2. Like it or not, there is an undeniable straight line through history from Rome –> Western Europe –> America, so whether or not we as a culture “fetishize” it, it is important to our history. Likewise, Latin is important to our language. I took 4 years of Latin in High School, and the verbal portion of the SAT was several orders of magnitude easier than it would have been otherwise. Even if I had never seen a word before, in most cases I was able to figure out enough about it from its Latin root to be able to pick the correct circle to fill in. (Then I went crazy and took Medieval Latin in college, but I digress..)

    3. History has been a passion for me since I was a very small child (a very long time ago!) and I’ve always worried about the way we project contemporary views and ethics onto peoples of the past. If we only see these societies through the lense of the 21st century we will struggle to truly understand them; it’s a bit like dismissing the terrible sacrifice of the First World War, its futility, and so on, without considering what the views of the people who lived through (and of course, those who died). Wonderful as they are, the war poets only gave one viewpoint (yes, a generalisation; but you probably get what I mean). To many it was noble and right to fight the good fight. The futility of the damn thing only really comes through in the Depresiion that followed, the realisation that it hadn’t created any lands ‘fit for heroes’.

       In the same way it’s easy to view the Romans as this barbaric dictatorship (although of course they grew from a republic), stamping across Europe and much of Africa and Asia, subjugating the locals. Their method of government required more than a tacit by-in by the locals whose lands they usurped, though; look at the Romanisation of Hispania (and here another plug for Portugal, which has some remarkable Roman sites) and Gaul and Britannia. Although the various British tribes made it a rough ride for Rome, the end product was a real home from home for the empire. And if you get a chance to walk Hadrian’s Wall (which I did last summer, dressed in full Roman armour, to raise money for my University’s research into dementia…) you’ll marvel at what these folk could do, nearly two millennia ago. As for Rome itself, which I visited for the first time in the Fall/Autumn: well, breathtaking doesn’t begin to describe it.

       How will we be viewed by historians looking back from three, four or five centuries out? What will the real people of Wes Crusher’s/Jean Luc-Picard’s time think of us? Unable to settle our differences without resorting to violence? More interested in material gain than spiritual enlightenment? Unable to look after our planet or protect its riches, or feed the millions who still starve every day…and so it goes. Perhaps they’ll find fewer saving graces than we can identify in our ancestors’ generations; or maybe they’ll throw us some slack and understand that the world is a very – very – complex place….

15. Have you ever thought about going back to school?

    There’s such a large number and range of free and open classes available online that there’s no need to formally go back to school if you’re self-motivated enough to learn on your own. Although, having your discipline externally imposed (i.e. grades) can be a help. I just finished Stanford’s CS231n class, taking ten months for what should have been a ten week class. Had I been taking it for credit I would have failed. Or I might have been motivated to work harder, I guess.

    1. For anyone interested in learning Latin, there’s the Latin Study mailing list, which can be helpful for self-study folks.

16. Wow. Deep and interesting stuff on this post. Glad you also like Arrival. An amazing film. Now go watch Hidden Figures!

17. “because I think that one of the biggest reasons we are staring into the Abyss right now is that we’ve started talking at each other, instead of talking to each other.”

    Holy cow Wil, I think you might be on to something here. I actually had a different response in mind but when I read this, this was far more deep and interesting than what i was going to mention.

18. Now that we have to worry about actual Nazis again, I respectfully propose we stop calling people “grammar Nazis.” Thank you.

19. Piffle, Language is more than Art, Language is (even more so than Friendship) Magic, ie words that can change the universe

20. Every time I hear The sound of Silence i feel like it was prophetic towards this digital age. “People talking without speaking
    People hearing without listening” Thank you for taking the time to listen to your readers. 😀

21. “The way it was written and spoken was rooted in aesthetics.” Arrival is a wonderful, deeply moving piece of art that resonates with me because I am an interpreter and I love languages – the way they are built, the way some of them mirror each other, the way they sound, the way a correct sentence “feels” right, the way they use words to paint images and evoke emotions in our minds and the minds of other people. Loved the passion with which Louise fought to understand the heptapods, and the beautiful heptapod writing, to be able to communicate with them, truly understand them, and help them understand her in turn, so they could move beyond concrete things and even things that could be illustrated using a whiteboard, to immaterial ideas.

    Learning a foreign language automatically means immersing yourself in a culture not your own, seeing the world through different eyes, finding new interpretations of old concepts, exploring a new mindset with each new language.

    Compare “Ist dieser Stuhl frei?” = Can I sit here? to “Is this seat taken?” = Is someone else already sitting here? Two very different ways of expressing the same basic thing – one of them that, now, seems very selfish to me (although, of course, I use it regularly), while the other is focused on the hypothetical other person that might already have claimed that seat.

    There is hardly anything more satisfying than getting truly comfortable in a language not your own, to the point where you start dreaming and thinking in it. It feels like slipping into a well-worn, comfortable glove that fits you perfectly. It’s like coming home to a comfortable room, your favorite book, hot chocolate.

    You certainly seem curious and inquisitive enough. Follow the thread and see where it takes you.

22. The Word For World Is Forest by Ursula K Le Guin

    Language and art as one. Not a missing or spare word

23. My 11 year old son and I have just started discovering the English language and grammar.

    There are many options to learn on the internet. We have been focusing on Khan Academy. It started out as a place to get a better understanding of math and, through partnerships, has really grown to encompass many subjects – and it is free to all.

    The grammar teacher on KA recommended the book Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn. It is a fictional account of the consequences and importance of the 26 letters of the alphabet as each becomes outlawed by the local government. The sad part is that it all seems plausible in the world we now live in and I wouldn’t be surprised if it became a reality. Quick read.

    Thanks for the push to participate on your site.

24. Heavy

25. Whenever I think that just about every conceivable subject matter has been covered in your blogs, something new and interesting presents itself. And in this case it was offered by Stephanie and your reactions. This is fascinating. Language, in any form, is extremely powerful. I know that many accuse the internet musings to be the ruin of conversation and communication, but I disagree. Sure, there are dolts ever present to write the ridiculous and the mundane, the cowards who insult and defame, hiding behind anonymity, and the uneducated who spew opinions and misinformation. But occasionally there are jewels of information, inspired and breathtaking perspectives, and shared experiences with individuals who would never otherwise meet, except online. Many complain that the written words can be misinterpreted because the phrasing and intonation are absent. I never have any problem interpreting “tone” in any of your creative writing or blogs. I have found that carefully chosen words and creative punctuation and spaces can provide the correct message intended. Generalizations, of any kind, negate the validity of an argument. It is seldom so black and white. Nice one today, Wil.

26. I took a year of Latin in high school and it totally changed the way I see languages. It showed me how to find word roots and common meaning between different, but related, languages. Though, I tend to veer towards etymology specifically as a hobby. Seeing the way a word changes while moving through time and languages is fascinating.

    Note, I include picture and acting arts as part of linguistics studies. If you don’t share a common spoken language, you can use pictures (after all, what else are words made of?) or acting to tell a story. And that’s what language is. Telling a story.

27. I teach reading, mostly to students who need to learn it a different way than their peers. We spend a lot of time going over the mechanics of linking grapheme to phoneme and learning rules and exceptions to the rules.

    But what I emphasize at the beginning of every lesson is that what we’re doing is a means to an end. What struck me in the post above was when she wrote, “If you spend enough time with languages then you start to see that writing is only a series of symbols which function as a kind of telepathy allowing you to read the thoughts of other people, whether it’s been hours or millennia since those thoughts were given form.”

    This is the reason I give my students for persevering. Writing is someone’s thoughts preserved like an insect in amber. It’s word jam which has been kept in book-jars just waiting for us to enjoy. When we read, we can commune with the dead! I am a grown woman and it is still amazing to me that I can share thoughts of someone who lived hundreds of years ago. Reading lets us be time travelers. It even allows us to slip into the skins of others and gain empathy and insight.

    I will admit that I enjoy all of the rules and strictures of language. If I didn’t I would be in the wrong profession because it’s what I work with every day. It would be like a baker who hates touching dough. But in the end I love the structure because of the communication it allows across time, space, and human condition.

    And I’ll add that it’s the sign of a good teacher to keep your thoughts to yourself and ask an open question which encourages dialog in the class. So, nice job.

28. How beautiful to know that about the history of Portuguese!

    Art as a language, language as an art – many arts, since writing lends itself to visual art even in the absence of literal meaning, or the visual art of language may interact with the literal meaning of the words. The same is true of the sound of spoken words as music. Then there is the personal, internal artscape of synesthesia, enjoying the colours of the sounds, the tones of the written characters, the flavours of the syllables.

29. This is indeed a fascinating and thoughtful discussion. But is it OK if I’m the guy sniggering in the corner because it reminds me of the “Romans go home” scene from Monty Python’s “Life of Brian”?

30. In many ways, I wish Latin had been offered at my high school. I took Spanish, which is nice for California, but I remember very little of it. I think learning Latin would have leveled up my English skills, and it would mean that the first time I encountered a language with a case system, it wasn’t made harder by the fact said language was in a totally different alphabet. (That said, I can sound out Cyrillic for fun and…well, I haven’t figured out how to profit on it.)

    This is a fascinating discussion, Wil, and I thank you for giving us some room to pursue it. I’m hoping to get back to writing this year, at least in my blog if nothing else.

31. I’ve been thinking more in terms of uncertainty lately and maybe a little bit about loneliness (sometimes in a terrible, but sometimes also in a not terrible way). I think one of the problems with the world is people’s inability to deal with uncertainty, the need to be certain. How is this related? One of the beautiful things about language is the fact that we interpret it in different ways based on our own experience. It seems like people have also forgotten about this. They fail to put themselves in the shoes of others, fail to accept uncertaintly, fail to see the alternative interpretation. We’re alone a lot of the time, even when we’re together, but we’re not really dealing with the loneliness productively, because we’re all so connected that we’re never alone.

    These are really just random thoughts. Sorry.

32. Although we all exist in the same world, our experiences of that world differ wildly because we each see, hear, smell, taste, feel the physical input through our own bodies’ restricted capabilities and then process the acquired information through a unique filter of chemicals and synapses. Although this is commonly known, it is uncommon for us to remember to take it into account when evaluating the actions of those around us. There is a natural assumption that our own experience is universal, which is why we are so easily confounded by experiences that conflict. All communication, all of it, is done through these unique experience filters where we take what we desire to share and do our best to convey it in a way that will be easily understood by another. The more differing factors that exist between the conveyor and the receiver of a message, the more chances for the message to be misinterpreted and misunderstood. We can work around this by seeking to minimize the number of differing factors, taking an educated and/or empathic step towards the receiver before forming and sending our message. The receiver, then, can help by taking a step towards us before trying to decipher what we have given them. But some people, through lack of education or awareness or skill, inadvertently step further away.

33. Very fun post, Wil! I took Latin in high school and it has been a long time since I thought about it this much. You are always surprising me with your posts!

34. Leave it to Wil Wheaton to make a fucking comments section interesting. Well done Wil and well done Stephanie. 🙂

35. It seems to me that Eco may have quite intentionally “verbed” up the Latin noun for “fog/obscurity” in much the same joking (and perhaps even idiomatic) fashion that we often do with nouns in English. As in, “Boy, you really wolfed that down, huh?” (horrible example), or the way “troll” has quickly become an understood verb, now, too. It’s a linguistic joke that is perhaps even intended for those who have a greater understanding of Latin to get a chuckle. That’s my interpretation, anyway. I found it rather amusing.

36. Re the split infinitives – I LOLed because a running joke in my house growing up, whenever the opening credits of TOS were on, was “to split infinitives where no one has split them before.” 🙂

37. I read a lot of blogs. I read them in Feedly, though, so I mostly don’t see the comment sections on the posts I’m reading (and I’m generally terrible about clicking through to join in the commenting fun). But I’m very glad you shared this particular conversation, because it’s amazingly enlightening on a subject I’m passionate about (language). I’m clueless when it comes to Latin, but after fifteen years of letting my Spanish rust in a dark and cobwebby corner of my brain, I’ve discovered that I remember more than I thought I did, and I’m really looking forward to starting school again this fall to really brush up my skills (and hopefully pick up a few new ones along the way).

    I find that most blogs have wonderful comment sections, where care is taken to cultivate kindness and courtesy among commenters. It’s one of the things I love about blogging, even if I’m terrible about commenting on posts I love.

38. More language as art in recent history: Elvish, Klingon, Aurebesh.

39. My mom was a librarian and a poet who corrected graffiti, theater programs and any research paper my 3 sisters and I left out. Sometimes we’d welcome Mom’s red pen, other times not so much. But actually reading, understanding and replying with respect and a brain – we all can work on that skill set. I am a Costume Designer at a local high school – the most difficult task is getting the kids to use real words. Not text short hand, words, descriptive, varied, lovely words. Thank you do that and making me think more about how I use words and where I need to get more in my daily useage.

40. Going back to the origin of this conversation, I was thoroughly impressed by Stephanie’s Latin primer and Wil’s response to it. The whole thing could have very easily devolved into any number of conversations we all encounter every day where the whole point of the conversation is to be right. Stephanie clearly loves the Latin language and that emotion came through in her written words and I would like to think that is some of what helped shape Wil’s response. He was responding to that passion. I also happen to think he was showing empathy in seeking to understand where Stephanie was coming from. Anyway, enough of my half-baked observations. I was mostly wondering when and where discourse and the exchange of ideas gave way to the rampant pedantry we see in so much of today’s communication

41. I like the idea of thinking of language as a creative endeavor. Did you know that when you think in a different language you actually think differently? How cool is that!? What an interesting way to get a different perspective when you are stuck on a creative roadblock.

42. Here’s an example to give you an idea of how classical Latin changed in the Middle Ages. I belonged to a household in the SCA that wanted as a motto “Honor, Valor, Splendor”, only in Latin. So they began trying out variations of “Honorem, Pretium, Gloria”, only with more complicated declensions. I kept pointing out that in Medieval Latin — you know, from the period that the SCA is trying to recreate — the translation for “Honor, Valor, Splendor” is…”Honor, Valor, Splendor”. We eventually went with the Medieval Latin.

43. I am bilingual in German and Spanish… learned English… old hellenic Greece and Latin… and now learning some Esperanto XD… learning stuff like this helps me actually to create unusual connections and pushes me to find deeper meaning and satisfaction. It helps my creativity… best regards from Galicia ;P

44. Thanks again Wil. Since my husband passed I’ve been focused on and directed toward my creative side. He was a big talker, and being very intelligent could converse on a multitude of subjects. I really miss having discussions about things, hearing his thoughts, and having him listen to my thoughts. I’m sure I’ll balance out at some point, but unless or until I can gain more people in my life like my dear husband, I will stay more focused on my creative side.
    “I feel like there is so much beauty and wisdom in a lot of Christian mythology and scripture, once the religion is removed” People ask me if I’m religious, and I say, “No, I just love God.” To me, religion is rigid, inflexible, having a steel-trap mind, not listening, and overly focused on rules. My faith is having and maintaining a personal relationship with God. Reading, studying, and thinking about His Word He left for us, and trying as best I can to be an example of His love and grace to all those I meet. I fail daily, but I keep trying.
    Thanks for sharing that exchange. I read some of it when I commented but I often don’t have time to read all the comments that get posted on your blog. I appreciate people like you and Stephanie who can discuss something like adults. You both share from your knowledge and experience, and we all gain and learn from it.
    I am still really enjoying your daily blog posts, and have been inspired to post weekly on my own blog. I am shooting for January at this point, but I hope to be able to continue it. I find it is feeding and growing my creative side, and I thank you for the inspiration.

45. As a 23 year veteran teacher, I love that you had this discussion. I teach English, but obviously, history and every other subject come into play when we are discussing things. One of the things I have talked a lot about is the fact that so many people don’t know how to answer the phone or have a conversation. I love that you discussed this and that she was so willing to share her knowledge too. You and The Bloggess make me super happy.

    I had to take a grad level poetry class to keep my master’s stuff updated and one of the things that I talked with some people about is my desire to learn Latin. No one else was remotely interested, but they wanted to know my reasoning. There are a lot of reasons, I suppose, and I just like to learn. Teaching would be zero fun if I was not learning all of the time.

    Can’t wait to read this short story/novella/whatever it turns out to be, in a complete form!! Thank you for doing this and for all you do, in general. I am sure you don’t realize how many of “us” there are who relate to you and your words and your platform.

46. So split infinitives… Not actually a rule in English (really. Most of the “rules”) are preferences based on some pretty arbitrary stuff like, well they can’t do it in Latin

    (Professional writer here, former college instructor, so I have the CV to back up my crazy talk).

    Anyway, I’ll never forget that my college grammar professor in my senor year got into an argument with a group of students who insisted that good writing never requires a split infinitive. He gave us a pop quiz right there:

    Rewrite the following to avoid a split infinitive:

    Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

    No one argued that there was a better or more elegant way to write “to boldly go”

47. I pretty much stopped going to the comment sections of articles I like, because this last election cycle has taught me that people are terrible and only want to hear their own thoughts regurgitated back at them, and comment sections are generally prime echo chambers. Thanks for reminding me that it’s supposed to be a community of ideas.

48. The Linguist inside me loves this! I love learning new things… ::thinking about how this would fit in to a tree structure::

49. “Nebulat ergo cogito.” I’m not familiar with the passage from Eco, which might lend helpful context, but it seems to me that that means “It’s foggy, therefore I’m thinking.”

50. Every once in a great while there in the threads that link our pyche back through time ia a vibration. Thank you for posting!

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