Words

I wrote about the ambiguity of words a few weeks ago, but I didn't touch on the fact that language as a whole has slowly taken on the same shift towards meaninglessness (particularly in academic and political circles). I came across a fantastic article by George Orwell where he

"The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse."

here is an example he used to illustrate this

"Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Here it is in modern English:

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account."

While I tend to use metaphor quite frequently, I have always felt a bit insecure about it. I feared it only exacerbated other's perception of me as some unrefined, small town, country hick. Concrete imagery almost feels tainted because it is associated with our world. Quaint is a good word. Abstractions are like wisps of cigarette smoke in a still room. They have an airy sophistication about them that lets them rise like helium above what others are saying. Unfortunately, as Orwell points out, they often lack any meaning. They are just pleasant sounding phrases tacked together like magnetic words on a refrigerator.

When you are composing in a hurry -- when you are dictating to a stenographer, for instance, or making a public speech -- it is natural to fall into a pretentious, Latinized style. Tags like a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind or a conclusion to which all of us would readily assent will save many a sentence from coming down with a bump. By using stale metaphors, similes, and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself. This is the significance of mixed metaphors. The sole aim of a metaphor is to call up a visual image. When these images clash -- as in The Fascist octopus has sung its swan song, the jackboot is thrown into the melting pot -- it can be taken as certain that the writer is not seeing a mental image of the objects he is naming; in other words he is not really thinking.

Several years ago I read a book called "On Bullshit." It's main premise was that bullshit was much worse than lying because at least a liar knows what the truth is. A bullshitter just says whatever he wishes without any regard for reality. I remember one story in that book he told about a mason who laid the mortar perfectly  on the underside of a cathedral. When someone asked him why, he said it was for the glory of god. In that moment I realized what craftsmanship was. Most things can be taped or glued or beaten into shape. Kludges  are usually effortless and I am an expert at them. Though the sight of careful handiwork of an attentive laborer always makes me stop and just admire what they are doing, even for simple things. When the poor man at the car wash gets on both knees to polish the wheels of my truck and remove the caked on brake dust to leave them sparkling. A cobbler who restores and renews old lifeless leather shoes. A carpenter who precisely saws each piece of pine and snugly screws each board. It comes from an appreciation for what they are doing and a desire to do it well. One can sling words like a Jackson Pollock painting or nail them together like some old shanty house but this will earn no admiration. Give me a neighborhood of McMansions or a finely crafted mountain cabin and I know where I will call home. Language is no different. I need to slow down. I need to be deliberate. I need to craft my words with the care of a gardener who gently places seedlings in freshly turned soil. I get too excited and my mind goes faster than my mouth and I struggle to keep up. Then I find myself talking as my mouth has just started to wander. I need to tame it. It must be domesticated.