A few stolen minutes out of your day to talk words and communication, because our daily lives are surrounded by the evolution and influence of words. Forget the grammar police. There is so much more to this conversation.
Episode #31 – Poets, Manifestos, Trying Harder & the Latest in Words You Should Know
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Approximate transcript:
Welcome to Episode 31.
The Latest in Word, Language & Writing News
Let’s talk the latest in word, language, and writing news.
Here’s your update.
If you’ve ever been frustrated and wanted to just bang your hands on your keyboard, you might have some sympathy for the writer for Walmart who appeared to do just that in a recent press release shared on their possible new relationship with TikTok. In the midst of professional announcements, there was a 44 character pile of gibberish. Did a cat walk across a keyboard, with the final flourish of a paw on the send button? Was there stress involved? We may never know. The mistake was caught quickly, of course, but we saw you Walmart. Let’s all keep working on our editing together, okay?
Of course, what is gibberish to some may not be gibberish to all.
There was also recently an unfortunate and offensive hijacking of selections of Gurmukhi, the name for the written script of Punjabi, a language spoken by roughly 130 million people around the world as well as written Amharic, one of the two main languages of Ethiopia, spoken by around 22 million people. Now, admittedly, I’m trying to do justice to the pronunciation of these languages, so if anyone could clarify this for me, please don’t hesitate to reach out. This all most recently came about because of a viral response to President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis. A copy and paste of a selection of text from these languages, with alphabets many in the United States might not be familiar with, were being used synonymously with an idea of magic, hexing, and cursing. Now, admittedly, Twitter commentary, as with anything online, can get absolutely out of hand, but hijacking a language you don’t understand and creating it as a stand-in for something demonic, barbaric, or even just “strange” isn’t helping the divisions so extreme in this world.
When we talk about empowering yourself with language use, let’s not use an entire other language as a foil in your communications. Be better than that people.
But I suppose I shouldn’t just refer to people when I say writers. We’ve talked about Artificial Intelligence in the writing world before. Did you catch how an AI bot was let loose on Reddit recently? It posted. It responded to others. People were in conversation with a bot and had no idea. It didn’t always end well. Creepy? Cool? Disturbing? Definitely something to keep an eye on.
And just now I’m realizing that this episode’s language news updates are kind of downers–typos, offensiveness, AI causing some trouble–so let’s end with two stories that can turn this around.
It might not be a “word” per se, that you should know, but both cats and dogs have been in communication headlines in the past week for what they know. A woman in Tacoma, Washington has taught her dog, a Sheepadoodle, how to communicate by pressing buttons that say words aloud, and scientists have now confirmed the intimacy of a slow blink from a cat and/or how a cat understands a slow blink from a person as affection. You know you’re intrigued.
Details, as always in my show notes.
English Language History & Trivia
Now I’m coming off of an inspiring weekend spent with a lot of writers, wordsmiths, and creatives, so personally my soul feels truly fed for the first time in a long while.
Surrounding yourselves with artists and creatives is one way to feel like you can shout poetry or a manifesto from a rooftop and be heard, and that’s a good feeling—not one that surrounds us every day to be sure. But this got me thinking about the language of what we write.
Let’s start with “poet,” which might strike up so many ideas, but when we get down to the root of it, the literal etymological root, “poet” comes from the Greek word “to make.” It’s also connected to an older Sanskrit word meaning “to gather.” Whether you consider poetry something beautiful, something powerful, something profound, or something unrelatable, this word origin story has to stick with you just a bit.
Poets have been highly esteemed in cultures across the world for centuries, for they were the makers, they were the gatherers. There’s power there worth remembering.
“Manifesto,” on the other hand, has a bit of spectacular flair to it, in my opinion, and maybe that’s just the Italian style of the word giving it some added passion. We all have a sense of this word today, of course, meaning a statement declaring one’s ideas, views, motivations to the public. However, tip-toeing back in time, past Jerry Maguire’s “The Things We Think and Do Not Say,” (yep, I said it), past Mary Wollstonecraft’s 1791 manifesto, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” past Thomas Payne’s “Common Sense,” not quite as far back as the Ten Commandments in the Bible, but somewhere not too far after that space, we have the word “manifesto” beginning to take shape.
It all began with a hand taking hold, in Latin the combination of manus (of the hand) and festus, which meant “struck.” Manus festus, first taking on the meaning of being apprehended—someone being caught was literally struck by the hand—but over time, it evolved into a figurative idea, a statement that can be striking, that makes things clear and obvious.
I’ve heard comparison between “manifestos” and to click-bait top ten lists—both designed to grab your attention and to get straight to the easily digestible point. And suddenly you’re reading “The Declaration of the Rights Of Man” in a whole new light, aren’t you? Thanks for that connection from The Atlantic.
Now, Essays do not always reach the caliber of a “manifesto,” but their root is found in the French word “to try.” That’s one I always love reminding writers, especially students and anyone in academia.
For we who play with words—and yes, that is all of us, whether we realize it or not—we must try; we must make; we must gather; we must try to make striking ideas clear and obvious, without striking one on the head with our hands, of course.
Chances are that a dog, of course, cannot compose a poem or manifesto or essay via buttons, yet don’t you love that just for a second there that the idea was in your head?
Language Challenge
All right, time for our language challenge. Since we’re talking about the language of writing today, let’s imagine those words printed on a page. Imagine flipping through those pages so quickly you almost create a breeze of old-book smell. Now imagine searching through those pages frantically, desperately trying to find something within them. There are two different words that could describe this different actions. You could riffle through the pages or rifle through the pages. Oh, the detail of that second “f.”
“Riffling” or “rifling” through pages? Do you know the difference?
The answer, as always is in my show notes.
Personal Update:
For my personal update today, I should say I do a lot of speaking at writers’ conferences, with writing groups, with aspiring writers, and with communicators across a wide variety of professional settings, and for me, my fall is always packed with events, one after the other after the other. For example, last weekend, I spoke at the James River Writers Conference in Richmond, Virginia. Next weekend, I’ll be speaking at the Broadleaf Writers Association Conference in Atlanta Georgia. And of course, when I’m naming cities right now, all of this is virtual. I’m across the U.S., but sitting at my own desk at home.
And it’s funny because it’s putting a different spin on connecting with other writers right now. I love connecting with wordsmiths, communicators, creatives, whatever you want to call yourself. In some ways, we’re able to connect more than ever, right? You’re listening to me from your car, as you’re going for a walk, as you’re folding laundry, or whatever you’re up to right now. It’s going to be fascinating how the years to come are transformed by everything that’s happened in 2020, and yes, that includes our communications.
I still have quite a number of writing and storytelling events before the close of 2020—hello virtual book launch!—but more on that coming soon.
Write on, writers. Keep changing in the world in ways big and small with those words of yours. It truly is amazing what any single one of us can do.
Join 1,000+ subscribers and sign up for my English language tips and trivia email newsletter for more articles and podcasts like this.
If you like what you’ve been hearing, don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast (via Apple Podcasts, Android, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or RSS) so you’ll never miss out on another word you should know. Many thanks to those of you who have taken the time to rate my show wherever you listen.
Words. Language. Communications. We’ve got this.