Real language

One of my frustrations during my 40-plus years in journalism was interviewing people who never seemed to finish their sentences. They would start saying something interesting, and I would already be thinking about what a great quote this was going to be, but then they would stop in the middle and move on to the next sentence, without finishing that one either. I always had to choose from among the following: 1) finish their sentences for them, 2) paraphrase their statements or 3) quote them accurately as speaking in incomplete sentences. I almost never picked Option 3. I thought it would make my sources sound stupid, even though they didn't sound stupid when you listened to them speak. They just seemed to be people who could think much faster than they could talk.

Listen to people  in conversation sometime, and you might be surprised by how many sentences are left unfinished. Yet somehow we always know what these people are saying.

This came to mind as I was meditating on something John McWhorter writes in What Language Is. McWhorter, a linguist at Columbia University, says that one of the things language is is oral. Language is more what we say than what we write. "You do not speak in letters," McWhorter says. "You speak in sounds."

Writing is more a representation of language than language itself, he argues. After all, human languages existed for thousands of years before writing was invented, and most languages still lack a written form. Yet they are still very much languages.

Even so, those of us who are literate tend to believe that writing, especially what we find in great literature, is the real deal, while our common, everyday speech is, in most cases, just a failed attempt to live up to the standard.

In Indonesia, McWhorter writes, this is taken to an extreme. Standard Indonesian used in writing is considered the nation's official language. Yet almost nobody, including intellectuals, actually speaks it. They speak a colloquial Indonesian that is among the easiest languages in the world to learn. In Indonesia, the language most residents speak is not even considered a language at all. It's just the way people talk.

We have not gone nearly that far in the English-speaking world, yet there are wide differences between how most of us talk and how we write. Our writing is usually more formal, more grammatically correct, less loaded with slang and profanity. When writing, we usually finish our sentences. Yet, to Professor McWhorter, real English is less what we write than what we say. Speech is how most of us communicate most of the time.

I find this a sobering idea. Could it possibly be true that in my efforts to clean up my sources' quotes, to put them into proper English, I was actually taking them out of "real English" and translating them into something else?

It's like Grand Central Station

There are two Grand Central stations in New York City, not just one. One of them is a post office. The other is a subway station. At neither can you catch an Amtrak train bound for Albany.

If you are like me, you have been hearing (and probably repeating) variations on the line "It's like Grand Central Station around here" all your life. The phrase brings to mind a busy train station, one that is synonymous with hustle and bustle. But the Grand Central we're thinking of isn't really a station at all. Its official name is Grand Central Terminal.

Whenever I leaf through The Christian Science Monitor, I always start at the back. That's because Ruth Walker's Verbal Energy column sits at the top of the penultimate page. In the March 18 issue, which I didn't pick up until this week, she writes about Grand Central Terminal, which marked its centennial earlier this year.

So what's the difference between a station and a terminal? A station, Walker explains, is "a stopping point along the way," while a terminal is the endpoint. The train lines all end at Grand Central, so that makes it a terminal, not a station.

We speak of terminal cancer and other terminal illnesses because there is no cure and no hope. It's the end of the line. We don't speak of less serious illnesses as stations, but I suppose we could. They may hold us back for a time, but then we get moving again.

Walker says station, meaning "regular stopping place," was first applied to coaches in 1797. Later its use spread to trains and buses. The English word terminus was coined in the 16th century, Walker writes, but later terminal became more common.

Reading the first chapter of Rhys Bowen's novel Murphy's Law this morning, I found this line: "If my ma had still been alive, she'd have said I asked for it, too -- always did have big ideas beyond my station and a mouth that was going to get me into trouble." We don't often hear references to one's "station in life" these days, thank goodness, but as used by Bowen's narrator and probably by most people who used the phrase in earlier times, it suggests not so much a stopping point along the way as a terminus.

Gossip as medical research

In my post on April 17 (Medicine on the frontier), I wondered how, in more primitive times, people learned that certain plants or certain compounds had medicinal qualities. "How did they discover the healing properties of things like cocoa butter, alum and slippery elm?" I asked. "How did someone learn to turn plants into medicines?" Not until after I finished my May 3 post (Gossip can save your life) did the answer come to me.

On May 3 I wrote about Jared Diamond's speculation in The World Until Yesterday that people in traditional hunter-gatherer cultures tend to be more talkative than those in modern societies because gossip is their only way of passing on vital information, information that might save their lives. This is how people learned to avoid dangers. Anything could be important, and so everything was talked about in great detail.

Later it came to me this would apply to medicines as well. If one person experimented with some concoction that seemed to relieve a stomachache or heal a sore, that information would be passed on. Others would try the same thing, perhaps with variations. Nothing could be written down if they had no written language, so the results of these experiments would have to be passed along through gossip and remembered by someone. Older people with long memories could have been valuable members of any tribe.

Then a couple of days ago I came across this line while reading State of Wonder by Ann Patchett: "They think this place is some sort of magical medicine chest, but for the most part the treatments here consist of poorly recorded gossip handed down throughout the ages from people who knew very little to people who know even less." The speaker in Patchett's novel  is Dr. Swenson, who has devoted her life to medical research in Amazonia.

With enough time, enough people and enough gossip, it was possible to make some notable medical discoveries. Many of the remedies found and passed on in this way are still in use today.

Even now many of us use gossip to pass along medical information, although in an age when reliable medical information is readily available through official sources, such gossip is probably not as helpful as it once was.

A fine new mystery

Alex Grecian's The Black Country, just out this month, is a terrific follow-up to The Yard, even if the premise at the beginning of the novel seems a bit weak. Inspector Walter Day, Sergeant Nevil Hammersmith and Dr. Bernard Kingsley supposedly comprise the Scotland Yard's Murder Squad, yet they are sent to the Black Country in the English Midlands to find three people -- a husband, wife and son -- who have been missing for a few days. This does turn into a murder case, but at the time the investigators are dispatched there is no hint of a murder, just some missing people. Would Scotland Yard really send its most elite team of detectives to a rural area to conduct a search? Couldn't lesser men handle such a chore?

It soon develops that these are the right men, after all. There is much going on here in addition to the missing family. Campbell, a large and mysterious stranger in town, appears to have something to hide. A sinister American with a rifle stalks the woods, trying to kill someone. The superstitious innkeeper tries to keep Day and Hammersmith from their search. Most of the townspeople are seriously ill. And this is a coal-mining own located directly above the mines that provide its livelihood. As a consequence, the whole village is sinking into the ground a few inches at a time.

The trio of detectives complement one another nicely. Day, whose wife is expecting their first child, shows compassion, extreme bravery and a mind that never stops working. Hammersmith is a big lug who is ill throughout most of the story, yet keeps chugging along, insisting he is fine. Kingsley is a master of early  forensic medicine, finding clues where most detectives in the 19th century would never think to look for them.

Grecian's story is complex enough to be interesting, without becoming convoluted. It moves at a fast pace and, with its brief chapters, seems much shorter than its 386 pages. Anyone who loves Victorian mysteries with lots of atmosphere will enjoy The Black Country.

Gathering places

What do you call that room in your home where you entertain visitors and where the family gathers after dinner? If you are an American, you probably call it the living room, although in many homes it may be called the family room or the TV room. Some homes have both a family (or TV) room that gets a lot of use and a living room that is kept in pristine condition for when guests stop by.

In different places and at different times, this room has gone by a number of different names. The English had a drawing room, which was actually the withdrawing room. After dinner, men would normally light up their cigars, while the ladies would withdraw to the drawing room to visit. After they finished smoking, the men would join them.

The French called their version of the drawing room the salon, which the English turning into saloon. Today both words are familiar in the United States, although neither is associated with the home. A salon is a place where women go for beauty treatments or to have their nails done. A saloon is a gathering place for drinking and gambling, usually associated with the Old West.

Then there is the parlor, which came from the French word parler, meaning "to speak." Bill Bryson says in At Home that parlor dates back to 1225, when it was originally a place where monks would go to talk. Later it became a room in the home where people would conduct conversations. The word seems old-fashioned today when mentioned in the context of the home, but we still speak of beauty parlors, tattoo parlors and massage parlors, all places where conversation is secondary.

Other terms such as sitting room and lounge have also been used for that part of the home where people go for an enjoyable evening together.

Books for show

I noticed a shelf of new books hadn't been in the kitchen when I was there before. I saw they was The Complete Works of Charles Dickens. 'Have you read all those?' I said. He said he hadn't bought them to read: he had seen them advertised in a newspaper, and thought would look nice on his wall. -- The Book of Ebenezer LePage by G.B. Edwards

I try to avoid judging people by the covers of their books, but it can be a hard temptation to resist. Whenever I am in another person's home, I always seem to gravitate to any bookshelves that may be in sight. Books often say something about their owners.

Parents may have children's books and not much else. Some people have only a few of their college textbooks,  suggesting that they haven't opened a book since. Others have a lot of Chicken Soup for the Soul books or books focused on a particular subject of interest, such as World War II or wildflowers. Many people have nothing but bestsellers on their shelves, suggesting that they read only what everybody else is reading. Older people often have bestsellers from 20, 30 or even 50 years ago.

A number of years ago I served on a committee charged with finding a new pastor for our church, and I found myself in the home of one of our candidates. The books in his living room, which for all I knew at the time could have belonged to his wife, were impressive, suggesting a person with broad tastes in reading. We weren't disappointed when we chose him as our pastor.

Least impressive are those books which seem to exist only for display. Like the collection of Charles Dickens books owned by the character in the G.B. Edwards novel, they are there to impress visitors. They are there as a decorating device, like wallpaper or a vase of flowers.

The May issue of National Geographic Traveler contains a photograph of the book-lined café in the Drake Hotel in Toronto. Except for a few stray books that some guest might actually want to read, such as World's Best Science Fiction, most of books on the shelves seem to be multi-volume sets selected only because they look nice and take up a lot of room. It's hard to imagine any visitor to the café actually taking down one of these reference books to read. To be read is obviously not why they are there.

The books in the living rooms of some homes are much like this. They are clearly there for show. It seems unlikely that anyone has ever read them or ever will.

In his book Biblioholism, Tom Raabe satirizes those who buy books only to impress others, to give visitors the impression they have actually read them. Rather than buying sets of books or classics in expensive editions, he suggests taking the trouble to acquire books that will make the right impression. He advises the following:

"A  volume or two by authors who have only one name (Thucycdides, Epictetus, Juvenal, etc.)

"Books with impressive titles that give onlookers the feeling that if they don't recognize the title, they at least should "Leviathan, Critique of Pure Reason, The Varieties of Religious Experience, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, etc.).

"A book or two that mark you as your own thinker, cut apart from the herd (something by a little-known Bulgarian novelist, or the musings of some obscure Portuguese poet -- in Portuguese).

"A couple of books that most people have heard of, but don't have the guts to tackle (Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, etc.).

"A few Viking Contemporaries or other design paperbacks to announce one's place on the cutting edge of fiction."

I hate to admit it, but if I saw this selection of books displayed in your living room, I would be impressed. Of course, I would be more impressed if I saw you actually reading a book, any book.

Gossip can save your life

"The hope for informed gossip is that there are distinctive patterns in the errors people make." -- Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

Writing in The World Until Yesterday, Jared Diamond observes that people who live in traditional societies tend to be nonstop talkers. We've all known people who can't seem to stop talking whenever there is anyone else within earshot. People in hunter-gatherer societies all seem to be that way. Diamond says they talk endlessly about everything and anything. He recalls listening to men having a long conversation about nothing but sweet potatoes. When these people happen to wake up in the middle of the night, they immediately begin talking and don't stop until they fall back to sleep. Every little detail of their lives is discussed and dissected. Diamond wondered why this is so.

He concluded this nonstop conversation must be for a reason. And that reason, he thinks, is self-protection. People in traditional societies live dangerous lives. Their life expectancy is only about 50, and many of them will die from diseases, accidents or homicides. Their chatter may serve to keep them alive longer. The conversation of women when they are out gathering food, for example, alerts wild animals to their presence and may prevent someone from being bitten by a creature caught by surprise.

Then there is the reason suggested by Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow. Gossip may reveal "patterns in the errors people make." When one's life depends upon sweet potatoes, it becomes necessary to know everything there is to know about them. If a member of the group becomes ill, it may be helpful to know what that person was doing before the illness or what treatment may have helped with the recovery. Any detail, no matter how seemingly insignificant, could be important. It could indicate a pattern of errors to avoid.

Diamond says the practice of women everywhere to talk about the men in their lives helps to protect them from making wrong choices with potentially dangerous men. Hearing about the mistakes other women have made helps them make better choices.

Even office gossip, Kahneman suggests, can promote self-protection. How many workers may have been spared a poor career move or an ill-advised office romance just by listening to the chatter around a water cooler?

At the very least, listening to gossip lets us know what kinds of things others like to gossip about, and this can serve as a cautionary tale for avoiding those kinds of behaviors ourselves.