Human beings believe themselves to be smart. They believe they were put on the planet to rule over it. To facilitate this ruling of the planet and all that resides within it, humans created many things. Among them, one that many believe to be a crowning accomplishment of the species, is language.
We have hundreds of languages. We have spent millennia perfecting the syntax, building vocabulary in order to make it easier to identify things or to specify things (Orange as opposed to Mandarin; lemon as opposed to lime: that lime green car is a lemon). We have developed dialects and special words and colloquialism and rhetoric and code and puns and sarcasm and sign language and it is now so ingrained that we see language in everything (unspoken language? body language? artistic expression? language of the eyes? the language of love?). So much so that anything we don't understand is deemed to be a language of some sort that needs to be deciphered. Whether it can be or not is immaterial.
Everyone communicates using some form of language: people speak and people listen (occasionally anyway). Communication is a sum total of speaking, listening and comprehension. Take away any one of these three and you have a failure of communication or a failure of language.
Our lives are spent wading through this torrent of language that keeps coming at us. We are neck deep in it. Some swim in it. Others sink in it. Everyone is in it. It seems to be the fabric that keeps the world as we know it, together.
Language has become code for life. We lead complicated lives. This code is meant to make things easier.
And yet.
In certain circumstances, language fails people.
These are smart people and they fail to understand simple language: the connection between speaking, listening and comprehension fails.This phenomenon is The Failure of Language (TFoL or Tee-Fall).
In these situations, people demonstrate three things (a) a clear ability to hear what is said, (b) a clear ability to understand each word that is being said and (c) a clear inability to comprehend what is being said.
Imagine this: You meet a bunch of people for dinner. Some you know, some you don't. Some know you and some don't.
It is mostly an uneventful meal: a bit of over ordering, small talk in loud volumes, retelling of old anecdotes (or new-telling if you don't know the group); anecdotes that can be fascinating or meandering or both, based on the skill of the raconteur. We have all been there and you know what I am talking about.
The evening reaches a part which is not the end, but as Churchill put it so well, it is the beginning of the end. It is now that the uneventful evening starts to become eventful.
People slowly start to contemplate what it is they want - another glass of wine or maybe a cup of coffee. They think. They talk. They discuss the alternatives:
"Wine anyone?"
"I want coffee"
"I'll have a glass if you'll have a glass"
"Shall we get another bottle instead..?"
"I think we can get another bottle"
Another glass or bottle of wine might get ordered, but that is all an elaborate dance around the elephant on the table.
It is fundamentally a question of dessert.
Everyone wants dessert. No one wants to order dessert.
Author's note: The reasons for this peculiar form of behaviour are only slowly becoming clear. Apparently there is a widespread belief among people nowadays in the Great Accounting System in the sky, but more on that later when research is at a stage where it can be shared.
For me, It is time for dessert, because I have a keen understanding of this very ancient Law of Meal Completion: For a meal to be deemed to have been completed, the last course of said meal needs to be a sweet one.
The corollary of said law states that unless a sweet course is eaten, the meal cannot be said to have been completed. It is akin to consummating a marriage.
From bitter experience, I have evolved a modus operandi.
First, I ask for the dessert menu. Loudly.
Upon receiving the dessert menu, I proclaim to no one in particular but everyone in general if they have a willingness to order dessert. Generally, I receive no reply or at best receive some half-hearted, barely audible "Not really" or "I shouldn't really" or better still "You go ahead".
I then proceed to ask, in a very audible voice, and after making certifiable eye contact with each individual on the table, "I am ordering dessert. Do you want to order a dessert FOR YOURSELF?"
People decline. I then announce to everyone in particular that I will not share my dessert. If you want to order a dessert, order your own. People ignore this. Or snigger at it. Or listen to it with a slightly startled expression. People who have been to dinner with me previously listen to it stoically.
This is typically the point where TFoL has already occurred.
The exact point of occurrence is hotly debated among researchers, but what is widely acknowledged is that by this point it has happened, but not evident.
I then proceed to order dessert. With an extra fork.
We have hundreds of languages. We have spent millennia perfecting the syntax, building vocabulary in order to make it easier to identify things or to specify things (Orange as opposed to Mandarin; lemon as opposed to lime: that lime green car is a lemon). We have developed dialects and special words and colloquialism and rhetoric and code and puns and sarcasm and sign language and it is now so ingrained that we see language in everything (unspoken language? body language? artistic expression? language of the eyes? the language of love?). So much so that anything we don't understand is deemed to be a language of some sort that needs to be deciphered. Whether it can be or not is immaterial.
Everyone communicates using some form of language: people speak and people listen (occasionally anyway). Communication is a sum total of speaking, listening and comprehension. Take away any one of these three and you have a failure of communication or a failure of language.
Our lives are spent wading through this torrent of language that keeps coming at us. We are neck deep in it. Some swim in it. Others sink in it. Everyone is in it. It seems to be the fabric that keeps the world as we know it, together.
Language has become code for life. We lead complicated lives. This code is meant to make things easier.
And yet.
In certain circumstances, language fails people.
These are smart people and they fail to understand simple language: the connection between speaking, listening and comprehension fails.This phenomenon is The Failure of Language (TFoL or Tee-Fall).
In these situations, people demonstrate three things (a) a clear ability to hear what is said, (b) a clear ability to understand each word that is being said and (c) a clear inability to comprehend what is being said.
Imagine this: You meet a bunch of people for dinner. Some you know, some you don't. Some know you and some don't.
It is mostly an uneventful meal: a bit of over ordering, small talk in loud volumes, retelling of old anecdotes (or new-telling if you don't know the group); anecdotes that can be fascinating or meandering or both, based on the skill of the raconteur. We have all been there and you know what I am talking about.
The evening reaches a part which is not the end, but as Churchill put it so well, it is the beginning of the end. It is now that the uneventful evening starts to become eventful.
People slowly start to contemplate what it is they want - another glass of wine or maybe a cup of coffee. They think. They talk. They discuss the alternatives:
"Wine anyone?"
"I want coffee"
"I'll have a glass if you'll have a glass"
"Shall we get another bottle instead..?"
"I think we can get another bottle"
Another glass or bottle of wine might get ordered, but that is all an elaborate dance around the elephant on the table.
It is fundamentally a question of dessert.
Everyone wants dessert. No one wants to order dessert.
Author's note: The reasons for this peculiar form of behaviour are only slowly becoming clear. Apparently there is a widespread belief among people nowadays in the Great Accounting System in the sky, but more on that later when research is at a stage where it can be shared.
For me, It is time for dessert, because I have a keen understanding of this very ancient Law of Meal Completion: For a meal to be deemed to have been completed, the last course of said meal needs to be a sweet one.
The corollary of said law states that unless a sweet course is eaten, the meal cannot be said to have been completed. It is akin to consummating a marriage.
From bitter experience, I have evolved a modus operandi.
First, I ask for the dessert menu. Loudly.
Upon receiving the dessert menu, I proclaim to no one in particular but everyone in general if they have a willingness to order dessert. Generally, I receive no reply or at best receive some half-hearted, barely audible "Not really" or "I shouldn't really" or better still "You go ahead".
I then proceed to ask, in a very audible voice, and after making certifiable eye contact with each individual on the table, "I am ordering dessert. Do you want to order a dessert FOR YOURSELF?"
People decline. I then announce to everyone in particular that I will not share my dessert. If you want to order a dessert, order your own. People ignore this. Or snigger at it. Or listen to it with a slightly startled expression. People who have been to dinner with me previously listen to it stoically.
This is typically the point where TFoL has already occurred.
The exact point of occurrence is hotly debated among researchers, but what is widely acknowledged is that by this point it has happened, but not evident.
I then proceed to order dessert. With an extra fork.
My dessert arrives.
This is the point where TFoL (The Failure of Language) is demonstrated.
Some person who was living under a rock for the previous ten minutes while the wine-coffee-dessert dance was going on grabs a spoon and asks me for a bite.
I am astonished.
"Did you not hear what I said earlier (practically stood on my chair and shouted like a town crier)?" I am perplexed. "I-do-not-share dess-erts." I repeat for his benefit. I say each syllable, just to be sure.
"I don't want to share. I just want a bite." He says moronically with a flourish as if making a winning point in a debate.
"Then order a bite. I really don't care what you order." The entire table shifts uncomfortably.
"I can't order a bite!"
"I really don't care what you can or cannot order."
"There is a reason this restaurant does not serve desserts in bites. Something called Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ). The minimum you need to order to eat is what I ordered and just received. My satisfaction demands that I eat all of it. Not a bite less, not two bites less. You want something, order it."
"C'mon! I just want a bite."
"And I don't want to give you one. It is not personal, I just don't want to give it to anyone."
"I don't understand what the big deal is!"
"Can't agree with you more." I reply. "Let me not stop you from ordering one just for yourself then."
There is silence for a few seconds while the idiot contemplates the injustice meted out to him by me. If his neurons had more of their kind to interact and explore reality, he would realise that it wasn't me who was to blame but fate for making him an heir of Mac Flecknoe.
He makes another valiant attempt.
"Can I just have one hazelnut?"
"I might consider it if the Chef admits to putting an extra one on this plate."
"What difference would one hazelnut make!" He still manages to sound incredulous.
"Why are you pining for it if it wouldn't make a difference? Stand up for what you believe in man!"
He has the look on his face he would reserve for the perpetrator of a hit and run on his favourite pet.
"But you asked for an extra fork...!" he wails.
"Yes, and I will stab you with it if you continue."
I eat the rest of the dessert in silence and in peace.
_______________________
As my fame has spread, invitations to meet groups of people for dinner at restaurants are now limited to close friends, my Wife tells me. Just when I thought I was getting closer to finishing my research on the topic. On the bright side, I don't need to order an extra fork with my dessert.
This is the point where TFoL (The Failure of Language) is demonstrated.
Some person who was living under a rock for the previous ten minutes while the wine-coffee-dessert dance was going on grabs a spoon and asks me for a bite.
I am astonished.
"Did you not hear what I said earlier (practically stood on my chair and shouted like a town crier)?" I am perplexed. "I-do-not-share dess-erts." I repeat for his benefit. I say each syllable, just to be sure.
"I don't want to share. I just want a bite." He says moronically with a flourish as if making a winning point in a debate.
"Then order a bite. I really don't care what you order." The entire table shifts uncomfortably.
"I can't order a bite!"
"I really don't care what you can or cannot order."
"There is a reason this restaurant does not serve desserts in bites. Something called Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ). The minimum you need to order to eat is what I ordered and just received. My satisfaction demands that I eat all of it. Not a bite less, not two bites less. You want something, order it."
"C'mon! I just want a bite."
"And I don't want to give you one. It is not personal, I just don't want to give it to anyone."
"I don't understand what the big deal is!"
"Can't agree with you more." I reply. "Let me not stop you from ordering one just for yourself then."
There is silence for a few seconds while the idiot contemplates the injustice meted out to him by me. If his neurons had more of their kind to interact and explore reality, he would realise that it wasn't me who was to blame but fate for making him an heir of Mac Flecknoe.
He makes another valiant attempt.
"Can I just have one hazelnut?"
"I might consider it if the Chef admits to putting an extra one on this plate."
"What difference would one hazelnut make!" He still manages to sound incredulous.
"Why are you pining for it if it wouldn't make a difference? Stand up for what you believe in man!"
He has the look on his face he would reserve for the perpetrator of a hit and run on his favourite pet.
"But you asked for an extra fork...!" he wails.
"Yes, and I will stab you with it if you continue."
I eat the rest of the dessert in silence and in peace.
_______________________
As my fame has spread, invitations to meet groups of people for dinner at restaurants are now limited to close friends, my Wife tells me. Just when I thought I was getting closer to finishing my research on the topic. On the bright side, I don't need to order an extra fork with my dessert.
