ON POLITICS, AND LANGUAGE: The English language in this country (USA) has seemed, to me at least, to have developed into a kind of "political badlands," where dust-storms of dissent and tornadoes of turmoil (Yes, I allove alliteration) can be and typically are stirred up by just a very few words. I am typically by nature a minimalist. I abbreviate wherever and whenever possible. I don't really talk all that much, and I don't usually do all that much around the house. You may wonder why I'm saying this. IT'S RAMBLINGS, MAN! Then again, you may not. Anyway, The Point is this: Why have we all become such literalists? I mean, pretty soon, we're all gonna have to carry around huge honkin' dictionaries just to be able to communicate with each other. I suppose this is emerging as an indication of the continuing localization of communities. I mean, a community used to be a neighborhood or small town. Now it consists of nothing more than a few individuals who happen to have very common interests. Hence the whole Ebonics debate. I happen to feel that A)We all need to know the language a touch better, and B)We all need to look beyond the language to the speaker for meaning. It has been said that speech was only invented to give us something to do while we were communicating. I pretty much agree. We need to stop listening to the words so much and start hearing the speaker. I said I don't say much. I don't want the few words I say to start a war. I don't like having to sit down for an hour and draw up a speech when I just want to ask my friends where they were gonna go, while still getting across the facts that I don't really care, I'm just inquiring, I don't necessarily (sp?) want to go with them, if they want to be alone, but I'd like to get out of the house for a bit if they'd enjoy my company, and ... Gimme a break.
Oh, yeah -- One more thing. There's two things I would really like to stop having to say, when expressing myself: "In my opinion," and "generally" or "usually." I hate it. If I am talking to someone about, say, stereotypes, I think it should be rather assumed that I will be speaking in generalizations, and speaking my opinion. Kind of a given, if you ask me...