All human verbal language is mental programming. When you type, write, or speak, you are causing your audience to make a copy of the message in their own minds. Some minds are more open than others to linguistic programming; others have more Byzantine spam blockers, anti-virus scanners, and password-protected firewalls. But those very security measures too are mere languages, just slightly more sophisticated. If you speak those languages and understand their contours, you can navigate or bypass them, write new programs, and rewrite existing programs.
Many of the programs we write in each other’s minds are useful and help us in our lives. Some programs are detrimental to the overall performance of the mind, or coax us to do things we otherwise might not. Others are benign or neutral. We are programming each other at all times. We all influence the direction of each other’s very will, the objects of our desire, and even the power switch on our volition. When we use language to transfer concepts, those concepts can turn to action, and thus we help to determine the fate of the human world and, by extension, the rest of the natural world.
And just what is a concept? How big is it? What color is it? The answer is concepts have no size, no color, in fact no physical attributes whatsoever. Even the printed word is merely a placeholder for concepts, which still we cannot see with our eyes or touch with our hands. From this nothingness, from this conceptual world that exists only in our minds and moves in our languages, we produce a somethingness in the physical world, the measurable world where agony and triumph and the dirt of daily doings occur. Thus language is not just programming, but alchemy. It is the dead mud from which the living, breathing, skin-slick swamp frog spontaneously generates. Language is medieval science proven correct.
Language is an inexhaustible resource. That is, you have access to an infinite amount of language and thus can influence the world infinitely by controlling the minds of others through language. One thing you can do with language is awaken the mind to itself, to show itself where it twists and turns, where its weaknesses lie, how it can be turned against itself. You can arm your audience with the self-knowledge necessary to protect itself, grow gracefully, and take such shape as can advance the spirit and the body towards a better living reality.
Is this frightening, the idea that we can control each other through language, or that we are being controlled through it all the time? Is it disconcerting to admit that language has such power and that we utilize it whether we want to or not? Not after you’ve admitted it to be true. If like X-Men‘s Wolverine you were born with a titanium skeleton and retractable knives in your hands, would you want to know it? Of course you would. And wouldn’t you want to use it to do good? Most of us would say yes.
So let’s set aside for the moment the idea of pure free will. We are all programmed zombies to some extent. Let’s try to be aware of it, and let’s try to learn as much as possible about language. Let’s see how free we can make our wills, by understanding and even celebrating the ways in which our will is not free at all, but subject to the predilections of others’ use of language. Read much. Write some. Think. Cultivate inner silence, so that we can hear the true nature of the words when they do arrive.
Language is power over others and self. I wish you good luck in your quest to master it.
-----
All post content on Man of Many Words is created by Will Conley. Please feel free to share this post or any of my other posts with the whole world. Just make sure they know where it came from.
Showing posts with label Language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Language. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Y'all need to learn what this word means.
"Civilization." You think you know what it means.
Civilization. Your eyes skate right through it. No problem.
Civilization. You got this. It means "everything."
Well, maybe not everything. Just people. Humans. Civilization means humans.
Maybe just "humanity." You know, everybody, ever.
Wrong, sucka. Wrong.
Fact is, civilization is a very specific term. It is in no way interchangable with humans or humanity. You can't use civilization to mean history, sociology, ethics, manners, aesthetics, or whatever shit I'm talking about at the moment. It is mostly interchangeable with the word agriculture, but let's not get ahead of me.
Are you ready to get responsible with your use of the word civilization? I hope so, because we can't really talk about jack squat without first coming to some general agreement on at least a loose definition of the word. And that is exactly how I will define it—loosely. There's no sense in getting lost in the details. You just need to understand a little about what the word means in the context of shit that I say. Because I like to talk about civilization.
The Beginning of Civilization
Civilization began with agriculture. Uh-oh. Agriculture. Another word you think you understand. Fine. I'll back it up to agriculture.
The Beginning of Agriculture
Agriculture is the intentional human cultivation of land. Say you're running around in tribes of people, hunting and gathering, getting by, living and getting sick and using plants as medicine and fucking and raising families and playing games and talking your language and painting your pictures and honking on your didgeridoo. Life is fucked up, but it's also beautiful, and that's life.
But then one day, you sit around in the same place for a little longer, because, check this out, I can grow some rice from this other rice if I just stop moving all over Bumfuck, Egypt for long enough to let it happen. Hell, I can grow a whole metric shitte tonne of rice if I clear out a bigger garden plot. And hell, why don't we just stop moving altogether, as long as I can keep these fucking tigers from eating my sitting-duck family. Poky sticks or something. Whatever, we got this. By the year 6,000 BCE (give or take a few millennia), gardening is big business. The larger the garden plot is, the more efficient the harvest is. You now can produce huge surpluses.
And that was the beginning of agriculture. Agriculture allowed thousands upon thousands of people to gather in one place and mooch off the producers in exchange for letting the producers use their labor. And everyone could just stay there. Like, forever.
The Beginning of Civilization, er, Again
Obviously, when you're all stuck together in one place, you have all kinds of free time due to the advent of efficient food production. You're not hunting and gathering anymore. You are producing food via the miracle of agriculture. This is magical. This is a brand-new thing, when you consider humanity is somewhere between 100,000 years and a few million years old, depending on where you wanna draw the taxonomy lines. I really don't care where you draw the line, or whether you think a Neanderthal is a person, or whatever. Doesn't matter. No matter how you slice it, agriculture is brand-spanking-fucking new in the context of humanity as a whole.
So you have all this free time all of a sudden. Well, let's figure some shit out to fill it up with! Standardized written symbols, portable across hundreds of miles. The manipulation of those words. Money. Vast social heirarchies. Stone monuments to the boredom of fast-talkers and their offspring. Beautiful glass cathedrals carving the sky into awesome geometries. Motorized transportation. Telecommunications. Twitter. The Super Bowl. Cheese in a spray can. Complex industries requiring the lockstep cooperation of millions of communities all contributing their tiny, specialized widget to the iPhone. Gotye's "Someone That I Used to Know" music video.
That's civilization. You see? It's new. And it's a passing fad. Someone should create a graphic just to demonstrate what proportion of the history of humanity civilization takes up, and post it in the comments. Just to make it crystal clear for everyone.
It Matters.
The distinction between civilization and humanity isn't just some frivolous technicality. It's important. It's as important as knowing the United States wasn't always here, or that the semen stain on Monica's dress wasn't always there. It has a story, with a beginning, middle, and end. Civilization has an origin in Time, roughly pinpointable through archaeology, geology, and other historical sciences.
This Is the End, My Friend. The Sad, Sad End (Not Really.)
I'm just reporting the facts, not saying whether civilization is a good or a bad thing. I just want you to understand what I mean when I say things like "Civilization is doomed." I'm not being negative. I'm being positive. I have such great faith in humanity that I can look at civilization's dependence on oil and, without batting an eyelash, say, "That thar's obviously a house of cards, pardner."
That's another thing I say. "That thar's a house of cards, pardner." Another: "When the oil runs out, it's Mad Max time." And: "It's gonna be fine, dudes and dudettes. This shit takes hundreds of years to go down."
Civilization. I'll see you on the other side.
-----
Author's note: this article was "dashed off." (That's writerspeak for "I have an alibi for my sucky writing.") I dashed it off after a brilliant, educated, passionate, moral, ethical, funny, charitable friend of mine digitally slapped me for saying civilization is doomed. She was one of many such people who seem to think I am being negative when I talk smack about civilization. I figured if she's misinterpreting me, everyone must be misinterpreting me. Thus the necessity for this article. I hope you found it tolerable. If you loved it, hated it, or are passionately apathetic about it, tweet at me. - Will Conley
Well, maybe not everything. Just people. Humans. Civilization means humans.
Maybe just "humanity." You know, everybody, ever.
Wrong, sucka. Wrong.
Fact is, civilization is a very specific term. It is in no way interchangable with humans or humanity. You can't use civilization to mean history, sociology, ethics, manners, aesthetics, or whatever shit I'm talking about at the moment. It is mostly interchangeable with the word agriculture, but let's not get ahead of me.
Are you ready to get responsible with your use of the word civilization? I hope so, because we can't really talk about jack squat without first coming to some general agreement on at least a loose definition of the word. And that is exactly how I will define it—loosely. There's no sense in getting lost in the details. You just need to understand a little about what the word means in the context of shit that I say. Because I like to talk about civilization.
The Beginning of Civilization
Civilization began with agriculture. Uh-oh. Agriculture. Another word you think you understand. Fine. I'll back it up to agriculture.
The Beginning of Agriculture
Agriculture is the intentional human cultivation of land. Say you're running around in tribes of people, hunting and gathering, getting by, living and getting sick and using plants as medicine and fucking and raising families and playing games and talking your language and painting your pictures and honking on your didgeridoo. Life is fucked up, but it's also beautiful, and that's life.
But then one day, you sit around in the same place for a little longer, because, check this out, I can grow some rice from this other rice if I just stop moving all over Bumfuck, Egypt for long enough to let it happen. Hell, I can grow a whole metric shitte tonne of rice if I clear out a bigger garden plot. And hell, why don't we just stop moving altogether, as long as I can keep these fucking tigers from eating my sitting-duck family. Poky sticks or something. Whatever, we got this. By the year 6,000 BCE (give or take a few millennia), gardening is big business. The larger the garden plot is, the more efficient the harvest is. You now can produce huge surpluses.
And that was the beginning of agriculture. Agriculture allowed thousands upon thousands of people to gather in one place and mooch off the producers in exchange for letting the producers use their labor. And everyone could just stay there. Like, forever.
The Beginning of Civilization, er, Again
Obviously, when you're all stuck together in one place, you have all kinds of free time due to the advent of efficient food production. You're not hunting and gathering anymore. You are producing food via the miracle of agriculture. This is magical. This is a brand-new thing, when you consider humanity is somewhere between 100,000 years and a few million years old, depending on where you wanna draw the taxonomy lines. I really don't care where you draw the line, or whether you think a Neanderthal is a person, or whatever. Doesn't matter. No matter how you slice it, agriculture is brand-spanking-fucking new in the context of humanity as a whole.
So you have all this free time all of a sudden. Well, let's figure some shit out to fill it up with! Standardized written symbols, portable across hundreds of miles. The manipulation of those words. Money. Vast social heirarchies. Stone monuments to the boredom of fast-talkers and their offspring. Beautiful glass cathedrals carving the sky into awesome geometries. Motorized transportation. Telecommunications. Twitter. The Super Bowl. Cheese in a spray can. Complex industries requiring the lockstep cooperation of millions of communities all contributing their tiny, specialized widget to the iPhone. Gotye's "Someone That I Used to Know" music video.
That's civilization. You see? It's new. And it's a passing fad. Someone should create a graphic just to demonstrate what proportion of the history of humanity civilization takes up, and post it in the comments. Just to make it crystal clear for everyone.
It Matters.
The distinction between civilization and humanity isn't just some frivolous technicality. It's important. It's as important as knowing the United States wasn't always here, or that the semen stain on Monica's dress wasn't always there. It has a story, with a beginning, middle, and end. Civilization has an origin in Time, roughly pinpointable through archaeology, geology, and other historical sciences.
This Is the End, My Friend. The Sad, Sad End (Not Really.)
I'm just reporting the facts, not saying whether civilization is a good or a bad thing. I just want you to understand what I mean when I say things like "Civilization is doomed." I'm not being negative. I'm being positive. I have such great faith in humanity that I can look at civilization's dependence on oil and, without batting an eyelash, say, "That thar's obviously a house of cards, pardner."
That's another thing I say. "That thar's a house of cards, pardner." Another: "When the oil runs out, it's Mad Max time." And: "It's gonna be fine, dudes and dudettes. This shit takes hundreds of years to go down."
Civilization. I'll see you on the other side.
-----
Author's note: this article was "dashed off." (That's writerspeak for "I have an alibi for my sucky writing.") I dashed it off after a brilliant, educated, passionate, moral, ethical, funny, charitable friend of mine digitally slapped me for saying civilization is doomed. She was one of many such people who seem to think I am being negative when I talk smack about civilization. I figured if she's misinterpreting me, everyone must be misinterpreting me. Thus the necessity for this article. I hope you found it tolerable. If you loved it, hated it, or are passionately apathetic about it, tweet at me. - Will Conley
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Sunday, May 20, 2012
This is TheWrongDictionary.com
I write fake definitions and post them on TheWrongDictionary.com. If you’re into satire, humor, mischief, and the occasional blast of profanity, please visit. If you’re a Tumblr user, you can follow the site so you don’t miss any of my definitions.
The Wrong Dictionary is inspired by The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, Dictionary of Received Ideas by Gustave Flaubert, and the Internets.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
The Decline and Fall of the Word "Douchebag"
 |
| Faceboook Lexicon showing the decline of the word "douchebag" in status updates. |
I rest my case. "Douchebag" is dying. There there, my douche. There there. I said it was dying, not dead. We're all dying. Feel better now?
Long, long ago (Spring 2009) in a social network far, far away (Twitter, click here) I overheard (saw) David Armano (@armano) say (tweet) ENOUGH WITH THE PARENTHETICAL ASIDES ALREADY (okay, okay) the word "douchebag". Naturally, I engaged him in some stimulating scholarly dialogue about the popular status of the word "douchebag". Douchebag, douchebag, douchebag. It really is a satisfying, mildly offensive word, isn't it? Like a nice, milky, hefeweisen drunk by the fake fire, "douchebag" goes down easy.
Heh heh, I said "goes down".
So David crosses his legs and he says to me:
"Why William! My good man. I daresay. Fucking 'douchebag' is all the rage! Is it not what all the children - Jeeves! Get me my bowler! Good man! - is "douchebag" not simply the most amenable utterance among the youth of our day?"
I lowered my monocle and replied:
"My dear friend. David. Davidoff. Can I call you Davidoff? Davidoff. Davidhoffen. Meister. I shall call you Davidhoffenmeister. Davidhoffenmeister? Davidhoffenmeister. I daresay 'Douchebag' has been in decline for nigh on some goodly time, now, I would imagine. Why, upon my word, at my last high society function in a shithole basement apartment in Alphabet City, I heard the word 'douchebag' on eleven, perhaps twelve different occasions, not counting the use of the 'douchebag automatic.'"
Davidhoffenmeister cleared his throat:
"'Douchebag automatic', William? Whatever do you mean?"
I was like:
"Douchebag automatic. 'Tis when your 'mate' says 'douchebag' three dozen times in the telling of a single droll anecdote."
And Davidhoffenmeisterweisenheimer was all:
"Oh. Well then. Why do you say, my goodly gentleman from Andover or some shit, that 'douchebag' is in decline?"
And I said, like bam:
"Just as an aging star glows brightest in its death throes, or as the Roman Empire rushed headlong into a spectacular fiscal expenditure spree on muskets and F-14 stealth jetpacks during its final moments before the Hitler came in and nuked those douchebags to Timbuktu, 'douchebag' is heard everywhere now only in paean to its own demise."
I showed him a graph. Much like the one you see in this post. Its contents speak for themselves. But I will speak over its contents anyway. It says Facebook users don't use "douchebag" as often as they used to. It peaked in 2007 and has been in decline ever since. While network television continues its increase of the word "douchebag", the Facebook elite (all eleventeen million of them) are no longer as tickled by the word.
Davidhoffenmeisterweisenheimenkopf laughed a jolly laugh, took a sip of brandy, said "Fuck that noise, Jeeves, gimme quaaludes", and said:
"Jolly good show, William! Jolly good, jolly good. I see you have bested me yet again!"
After which, Davidhoffenmeisterweisenheimenkopffleupagus and I headed out for a sporting round of Scottish baseball (such a wee little ball!) and some crumpets and empire building.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Operation: Twixicon Alpha: The Twictionary Papers
Here it is: The full list of twords invented by those who attended the first spontaneous Twictionary build in the history of Twitter. First, a few facts:
So now, the list. It is alternately hilarious, brilliant, deep, beautiful, cute, odd, contentious, insulting, pointless, useful, and of course twitastic. Enjoy:
- For the introduction to how this came about, see the Top 13 Submissions from the World's First Twictionary Build.
- For bragging rights, all twords in the list by @(TwitterUsers) are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions for each tword beyond the scope of this license are available by contacting the @(TwitterUser) who created it.
- A few of these have already been invented prior to Twixicon Alpha, but I am quite confident this is the first time anyone has copyright the terms. So am I getting all legalistic on your collective ass? No. The whole point of this is to make connections and establish creative relationships that people actually care about. If you want to make money off any of the following twords, you have to follow, message, and ask permission from the Twitter user who coined it. And don't be boring. Think of the children.
- Did you know there are Twitterers out there exclusively devoted to collecting new twords and saving them for posterity? Two I have found are @twitdictionary and @twittonary. Hit them up if you are into this kind of thing. Hit me up too: @willconley777.
- We will likely create other games based on Twitter in the near future. When and where we don't know. These things just happen, you know? Stay tuned!
So now, the list. It is alternately hilarious, brilliant, deep, beautiful, cute, odd, contentious, insulting, pointless, useful, and of course twitastic. Enjoy:
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The Top 13 Submissions from the World's First Twictionary Build
Last night a few of us spontaneously got together on Twitter and started spouting off new Twitter terms. Someone retweeted and suddenly our cozy little game of words turned into one helluva twitstorm. I struggled to log it all by retweet, and I think I caught every last submission.
Most of them were brilliant. Some were hilarious. Some were touching. Some Twitterers were especially prolific, while other simply strolled in all cool and dropped a gem into our laps before strolling back out.
I am just about out of my gourd at the amount of linguistic talent we've got out here in Twitterland. Some of you people make me sick with pride.
The following are my 13 favorite Twitter words out of the 100-or-so we invented. (Why 13? I don't know, pumpkin, go ask your mother.) Each tword is accompanied by its definition and the Twitterer who submitted it. I selected these 13 for their wit, depth, complexity, humor, brassiness, appropriateness, obscurity, acoustic texture, cuteness or because I was the one who thought of it. Heh, heh. It's MY blog. MY blog. Mine. Nice blog... Oh and I also modified some of the submissions for the sake of fascist conformism.
The full list will follow with a juicy report today or tomorrow. You hear? Juicy. Don't even question it. Stay tuned, and remember: social media is all about taking the time and the consideration to think about the flesh-and-blood being on the other side of the string. SO DITCH YOUR AUTO-RESPONDERS ALREADY, for crying out loud murghle muff mf...break something...mrff mrf
13. TwitloadWhat someone with thousands of tweets must sift through
@slots777
12. Tweener
Non-committal to any one side in a Twitter dialog
@smashad
11. Twinge
What I get every time I scoop @guykawasaki on a news item
@smashad
10. Twingle
What a particularly touching or suggestive tweet'll make you
@getspine
9. Twance
An inability to take one’s eyes off Twitter
@AlanEggleston & @ElmerFudd
8. Twitic
Armchair or deskchair critic of all things Twitter and Web 2.0
@samismail
7. Twaitress
Female waiting on the Fail Whale
@dougmillison
6. Twax
To write more than 140 characters
@dougmillison
5. Tward
Pronounced "toward"; the “@” symbol when used on Twitter
@perri_watson & @willconley777
4. Twixicon
Twitter lexicon
@Daniel4is
3. Twildren
The children of people who met on Twitter
@cara19 and @willconley777
2. Tweetcred
What many here don't have and might never
@slots777
1. Twham!
A tweet from Emeril Legasse
@AlanEggleston
Most of them were brilliant. Some were hilarious. Some were touching. Some Twitterers were especially prolific, while other simply strolled in all cool and dropped a gem into our laps before strolling back out.
I am just about out of my gourd at the amount of linguistic talent we've got out here in Twitterland. Some of you people make me sick with pride.
The following are my 13 favorite Twitter words out of the 100-or-so we invented. (Why 13? I don't know, pumpkin, go ask your mother.) Each tword is accompanied by its definition and the Twitterer who submitted it. I selected these 13 for their wit, depth, complexity, humor, brassiness, appropriateness, obscurity, acoustic texture, cuteness or because I was the one who thought of it. Heh, heh. It's MY blog. MY blog. Mine. Nice blog... Oh and I also modified some of the submissions for the sake of fascist conformism.
The full list will follow with a juicy report today or tomorrow. You hear? Juicy. Don't even question it. Stay tuned, and remember: social media is all about taking the time and the consideration to think about the flesh-and-blood being on the other side of the string. SO DITCH YOUR AUTO-RESPONDERS ALREADY, for crying out loud murghle muff mf...break something...mrff mrf
13. TwitloadWhat someone with thousands of tweets must sift through
@slots777
12. Tweener
Non-committal to any one side in a Twitter dialog
@smashad
11. Twinge
What I get every time I scoop @guykawasaki on a news item
@smashad
10. Twingle
What a particularly touching or suggestive tweet'll make you
@getspine
9. Twance
An inability to take one’s eyes off Twitter
@AlanEggleston & @ElmerFudd
8. Twitic
Armchair or deskchair critic of all things Twitter and Web 2.0
@samismail
7. Twaitress
Female waiting on the Fail Whale
@dougmillison
6. Twax
To write more than 140 characters
@dougmillison
5. Tward
Pronounced "toward"; the “@” symbol when used on Twitter
@perri_watson & @willconley777
4. Twixicon
Twitter lexicon
@Daniel4is
3. Twildren
The children of people who met on Twitter
@cara19 and @willconley777
2. Tweetcred
What many here don't have and might never
@slots777
1. Twham!
A tweet from Emeril Legasse
@AlanEggleston
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