I'm writing this entry on Monday, 28 Apr 08, for posting on Wednesday, 30 Apr 08. Keeping you apprised of this when and then is important because it's a key concept in this blog arc. Of course, some people are simply searching on "Lust" and wondering if they can book a flight to Trunslootion when they find these posts.
Sorry to disappoint. I'm exploring language, what we've lost and gained in our ability to communicate with others of our own species, in this arc.
Part 1 dealt with lost verb tenses, part 2 with declining nouns. Here we explore modern English's -- heck, modern society's -- inability to let people change over time.
It can be a challenge for people familiar with modern languages to understand the concept of nouns as dynamic communication elements rather than verbs. For example, is the past tense of "noun" none or noon? Much of the temporality of nouns (as opposed to the modern concept of the temporality of verbs) comes from an understanding aboriginal cultures have and is something modern cultures have both lost and forgotten; things -- especially people -- change over time. It was well understood that the "me" who did something yesterday is not the same "me" who does the same thing today. If I were the same person yesterday as today, I would repeat whatever I was doing with the same level of skill I demonstrated yesterday. One can hope that today I've learned from yesterday's experience, my skill level has grown, I've come to understand more about what I'm doing...in short, I'm not the same person.Not being the same person, "me" has changed, not what I'm doing. Thus I would write "I, Ur, Ud" instead of "I am, I was, I will be". Even then, modern languages tend to always place the "I" in the "now".
Think of how much our modern social structures would collapse if we recognized that people changed over time. For one thing, we wouldn't hold politicians accountable today for things they said or did when they were twelve years old...
(mare to fallow...you know what I mean, right? But are you sure you know what I meant? Or what I maent?)
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Links for this post:
Upcoming Trainings:- This is Your Brain on the Internet at Emetrics SF on 8 May 2008
- Know How Someone Is Thinking in 10 Seconds or Less Half-day training at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, 13 June 08
- San Francisco Emetrics Marketing Optimzation Summit, 4-7 May 08
- International Communication Association's Communicating for Social Impact, the 58th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association at Le Centre Sheraton Hotel, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, May 22-26, 2008
- SUNY Marketing Professionals Conference at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, 11-13 June 08
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