{"id":176,"date":"2011-03-06T13:30:37","date_gmt":"2011-03-06T13:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/?p=176"},"modified":"2021-06-08T13:30:51","modified_gmt":"2021-06-08T13:30:51","slug":"the-language-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2011\/03\/06\/the-language-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"The Language of Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I\u2019m seeing a man. I met him quite by accident, but am so pleased that our paths crossed. He excites me, he makes me laugh, he is wonderful company. He has made me realise I am missing that little something in life. This is all due to his exquisite use of the English language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having enjoyable conversations with someone who has such a wide vocabulary has made me realise just how much we have dumbed down our language. Texts, emails and Twitters have led to us short-handing so much. There may be benefits in this, in that people get straight to the point, but are we losing the depth to our conversations?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember a trainer colleague from many years ago. We both trained trainers. When a delegate said something that he thought needed challenging or exploring and they seemed a little reticent to do so, he would say, \u201cOf all the thousands of words in the English language that you could have used, you chose at that moment in time to use the word \u2026\u2026 (whatever the word was). Why was that?\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I always felt a little uncomfortable with this approach so didn\u2019t use it myself. Whilst it certainly put the person on the spot and sought to encourage the person to think about the origin of the particular word, I don\u2019t think it generally did that. The individuals appeared to become self-conscious and a little defensive, and so were not of an appropriate mental approach to objectively assess their previous contribution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having said that, the premise of the intervention was sound enough. We do all choose every word we say \u2013 no-one makes us say them \u2013 but sometimes we regret saying what we said so try and take it back by saying it\u2019s not exactly what we meant to say. Well, actually, we did. We said it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was brought home to me when I was on a course many years ago, long before I knew the above trainer. It may have been a Training Evaluator\u2019s Course, I\u2019m not sure. We had the opportunity for some half hour discussions with various people \u2013 and I can\u2019t remember why. I think the person was from Lancaster University, and he was some sort of expert in language. Whilst I cannot remember much about the \u2018why we were there\u2019, I can remember the way the discussion went.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The discussion was an opportunity for me to better understand how and why we choose the words we do. He set off answering my opening question and he just lost me \u2013 I had no idea what he was talking about. I probably looked fairly bemused, and I felt sceptical about the rest of the time we had together. I then gamefully asked him a further question. And another. After about 15 minutes, I started to pick up some threads and was able to ask some linked or follow up questions. I found the last part of the discussion very interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also had to time the half an hour \u2013 so that others could then have the same opportunity. As we got to the end of our session, I said, \u201cWell that\u2019s it, we\u2019d better call it a draw\u201d. \u201cWhy did you say, \u2018call it a draw\u2019\u201d, he asked. Just a turn of phrase I retorted. He disagreed and explained that if I thought about why I had chosen that phrase, I would have a practical understanding of what our half hour had been about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later I thought about it \u2013 and I realised that for the first 15 minutes he had been \u2018ahead\u2019 as I was trying to catch up to understand what he was saying. And in the final 15 minutes I had caught up and was then able to lead the conversation effectively. Hence my choice of phrase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This example always comes to mind when I explore with someone why they used a word or phrase, or when I am searching for a reason why I said something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we increase our use of texting and reduce the number of words we actively use, I wonder if we will miss the joy of listening to fine language? Or, if it continues to exist, perhaps appreciate it more? My new relationship with the man of words has made me realise how wonderful our language is when used well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m seeing a man. I met him quite by accident, but am so pleased that our paths crossed. He excites me, he makes me laugh, he is wonderful company. He has made me realise I am missing that little something in life. This is all due to his exquisite use of the English language. Having […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,30],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178,"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions\/178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}