Transforming Language

The origins of the English language predate this sentence that you are reading right now because its syntactical structure is governed by certain grammatical rules that were not conjured up by its writer out of thin air but were inherited by him from the community of English-speakers and English-writers. In this sense, therefore, language always goes ahead of the attempt to articulate anything through its canons which remain more or less stable within one historical epoch and which exhibit certain family resemblances to one another across these epochs (and this allows us to speak of Old English, Middle English, and Contemporary English as three distinct versions of the 'same language'). On the other hand, however, language is never quite a strait-jacket within which one is constricted for one uses language not only to 'reflect' reality but also to 'create' it through various linguistic implements such as metaphor, similie, paradox, model, simulation, and parable. It is possible for individuals to draw upon more or less the same repertoire of words and concepts prevalent in a certain language, but to fashion them in strikingly original ways to coin new terms that become widely accepted by its speakers and writers.

In this manner, a living language has no stable resting-points, it is forever in a state of flux as various speakers and writers continue to drink from its flowing stream and then add something of their own into it.

Proving A Proverb

In A Manner Of Speaking


'Hello? Anybody out there?'

'Yes, I guess so.'

'So what are you doing? Talk to me now.'

'Like what?'

'Ummmm, like anything. Like one of your poems?'

'Nah, not them. They aren't as cool as they used to be once.'

'Oh well, I guess I know the feeling. Everyone writes the same stuff these days. Like processing in one giant recycycycycycyclying machine. Put in the words at one end and they come out neatly packaged at the other.'

'Yes, yes, I guess know the feeling too. It's like all these folks around me. They think I am like retarded. You know what I mean? I just try to be like myself, and do my own thing, and hey, come on, I can't help it if that like puts you off! I can't go running and talking to like any weirdo who comes my way? No way!'

'Yes, like these guys who play footie every weekend. They suck!'

'Oh-oh-oh, Footie? Did you just like call me by my real name and say that I suck?'

'Ah well, it's the thing that they call out here. Footie? Like for football? You know what I mean?'

'Okay, okay, you are forgiven this time for something you did not say. But no, to return to the topic. Poetry, you know. It sucks more than football. Like this first year guy I met in Widemore Hall last week. Oh my God, all that horrible stuff he ranted down my poor ears. You call that poetry? Huh? I mean, what the hell! Oh, come on, I am leaving this country by the next plane and hibernating in like Afghanistan until the coming of like Armageddon.'

'Ya, I kinda get what you mean. Do you like want to hear one of my poems?'

'Yes, please.'

'Ok, here goes one. It is called Frozen Anarchy :

Like the war skies over Vietnam

Splattered with the blood of the Ancients

Locked in a mortal combat with the Titans

That blood is now sort of congealed

In the fathomless depths of your heart

That now echoes like so perfectly

In the crevasses of the blue sky.'

(Long pause.)

'Hello? Are you there?'

(Longer pause.)

'Okay, sorry. Bye.'

'No, no, no, no. I am here. It's just that it is too ...'

'Too what?'

'Too awesome. I am still waiting for it to sink in completely. Oh my God, oh my God. I can't believe you wrote that! Have you ever tried publishing your stuff? I could feel the anger in the lines, and a bit of a nostalgia too, for something I couldn't locate. Do you want to hear one of mine now?'

'Yes?'

'Okay, this one is for my grandmother when she was still alive : The Dawn Flower

This is the saddest song of all times

Like every word of it that you now read

Is like reverberating with the sadness

Of the mountains like in cold Tibet

And yet when you kind of feel

You have like absorbed their echoes

You realise what a deep gorge

Separates you from their

Impenetrable Otherness.'

(Pause.)

'Hello? You there? I hope I did not like freak you out or something?'

(No response.)

'Helloooooo? This is getting scary now.'

'Yes, yes, I am here. No worries.'

'I guess it was real aweful, huh?'

'No, I was just trying to figure out something.'

'Like what?'

'Like how long I am supposed to like pause before I reply after like hearing a poem? Does that like make sense?'

'Hey, that's not like even funny.'

'No, no, it's not meant to be. It reminds me of Tibet. Really.'

'Oh, WOW, you actually beeeeen there? Like for real? Serious? You kidding me, huh?'

'No, no. Like we guys from school trekked all the way up from Thimpu.'

'Thimpu? Oops, sorry. I am geographically challenged. Where is Thimpu?'

'Now that you ask me, I guess I am not really sure. It's up there somewhere in the Himalayas. You know?'

'Oh, you mean those mountains near Toronto? The Appalachians? Yes, I sorta get it. Not much fun there though, is it? You got to learn French and all that? Euuurgghhh! That language sucks!'

'Erm, ummm. Well, not Canada, no, not really.'

'Hold on, do you get this weird feeling?'

'Like what?'

'Like someone is eavesdropping on us? Like making up our conversation for us?'

'You mean like instead of us speaking, we are being spoken?'

'Yes, that sort of us sums up the feeling. I tell you what. You ever done philosophy and stuff like that?'

'Nah, that's for intellectuals. Like you know the kind? Sitting pretty around the campus with their horrible cigarettes and like waiting to trap you in their mazes of labyrinthine words the moment you are not paying attention to them.'

'Yes, I felt so too. I did this stuff for one year, and then, I mean hey, come on, I am supposed to read all these dead European males pondering over the futility of their existence? Hah! No way!'

'Yes, that's why I left school and went to Tibet. It's awesome, this Lama I met there?'

'Oh-oh-oh, you talked to a llama? I thought llamas live in Peru?'

'No, not that sort. Not the animal, this is the Buddhist Lama. Old and wizened and with a silver beard. He talked cool. Like emptying the mind of all preconceived notions and abstractions. You really become free when you break down all the conceptual walls that block your entry into reality.'

'Hey, that sounds cool. I once read this guy who said, 'Understanding is the rediscovery of the Thou in the I, and the discovery of the I that is unrecoverable by the Thou'. I read that and said 'WOW!'. That was like cool stuff. Like it reminded me of my parents. They suck, you know what I mean? Everything that is 'orrible about my existence is because of them.'

'Ermm. I like went to my shrink last year and she like asked me when I had talked to my parents the last time. I said, 'Oh, hold on. What makes you think like I have parents?'. And you know like what she replied?'

'Like what? 'Don't paternalise me?' Hahahahaha. Sorry. Wrong call. Haven't had my coffee this morning, and I am not at my best, you know the feeling?''

'She said, 'Yes, I know the feeling. That's like why I became a shrink too. Welcome to the club!'.'

'You know what? I still can't get over this eerie feeling. Like someone is writing our speeches, and we are simply speaking them out.'

'What do you mean? Like someone else is speaking for you?'

'Yes, like people have been reciting this pre-written speech like billions of times over before us, and we are like simply repeating it. Like I don't like it. It sounds 'orrible but that's like really how it sounds. What does your Lama say about this kind of stuff?'

'Well, you know, I am not like in touch with him anymore.'

'Why not?'

'Well, he just joined Harvard's philosophy department. Now that sucks!'

'Oh, WOW, what the hell is a Lama doing at Harvard?'

'Apparently teaching the Christians and the Muslims that there is no hell.'

'You seriously believe that? That there is no hell?'

'I tell you what. When I was like ten years old, I was dragged to this cranky cousin's wedding. And I tell you what, like when I had painfully endured those two days of her wedding, suffocated with all these bizarre uncles and aunts around me, I repeated to myself, 'If there is a hell on earth, this is it, this is it, this is it.' And like these days when these Christians and Muslims come up to me and say, 'Unless you turn to God, you shall rot in hell', I just laugh aloud and tell them, 'Thank you very much. You have like no idea of what hell is.''

'Ermm. That sounds like rather heavy. You got a lot on your mind, huh?'

'Well, actually, I am like mindless. Like what this Lama told me before he got retarded too. That we are all mind-less beings. The mind like doesn't exist. It's just my choice : I do just what I feel like.'

'You know what, I got some like cool friends up there like in South Dakota. They sort of do like your kind of stuff.'

'Like what?'

'Like they have this group called The Order of the Free Spirits. They live together sharing all their property, paying no taxes to the Feds, growing their own food, and spinning their own clothes.'

'Ermm. Sorry. I gotta go, just got a call on my PDA. I like need to rush.'

'Where to?'

'Like this new spa they have built down the road. It's like my appointment for the weekend detox.'

'Oh, well, thanks for sharing your poetry with me, and have a good day.'

'Like you too.'

'Hey, hold on. Did you just say you like me?'

'Like what?'

'Like like, you know? I thought that's what you like just said?'

'No? That would have been like very unlike of me, if I did.'

'Oh, well, like see you around. Take care now.'