A high school athletes interview was shown on the morning news today, and I was appalled. Unless this young man gets some heavy tutoring in the English language and communication, I predict difficulties for him for the rest of his life. He was trying to convey his dislike of someone getting the best of him on the field. What did he say? I dont like to not get beat, which of course conveys the opposite. Ive said this time and again: Words have specific meanings. Some words may mean the same thing, but what you actually want is something different from what you said. Once Number One Son had the backhoe on his job, and hubby needed it. What #1S said to a helper was, Take the backhoe home. He meant take it to the backhoes home. The helper took it to #1Ss home, and there it sat all day, while hubby was fussing and fuming because #1S hadnt sent it home. Well, he had . . . just not to the correct home. Another time I watched a teenager girl have a complete, hysterical come-apart in the hair salon. Id been there when she came in. I heard the instructions she gave to the hair stylist: she wanted her hair cut, and she wanted it over her ears. What she accurately meant was that she wanted her hair to COVER her ears. The hair stylist took her meaning as ABOVE her ears. Over actually means both of those things, but wasnt accurate in either sense. English is such a wild mixture of different languages that kids need to be aware there are alternate meanings to the same word, as well as various shadings of meaning. Otherwise, theyre going to go through life being misunderstood, and angry because they dont know why people cant get exactly what theyre saying. Hubby and I have been married almost forty years. His relationship with words is very neighborly, as in, if hes in the neighborhood of both pronunciation and meaning, hes good. Over the years Ive learned to ask very specific questions and keep narrowing down the focus until Ive arrived at what hes actually wanting/saying. But Im a writer, and Im aware of those different meanings. I predict a lot of kids are going to hit a lot of verbal potholes :-/. -- Linda H.
Posted on: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 14:55:14 +0000
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