TALKING POINT
Playing with phrases
One of my many language related pranks, perpetrated on unsuspecting friends, was a big success. This was during college days, so there was always a group of people I got to meet on a daily basis -- all the classmates and friends. Now one day I walked in -- it was early in the week, a Monday or a Tuesday -- and whenever I was taking leave of someone after meeting them, I’d conclude with not the usual phrases such as ‘see you around’ or ‘catch you later’ but ‘see you on Wednesday next week’. This invariably led to the question: Was I going away somewhere for a few days? Would I not be coming to college for some time? I’d then patiently explain to my friend that I was not going anywhere, and that I had not said ‘I won’t see you tomorrow’ or even hinted that I’d be away. ‘I’m sure I’ll see you tomorrow during class,’ I’d say, ‘it’s just that we also have college on Wednesday next week, and since we both will be coming, I was just saying I’d see you on that day too.’
Most people found this ‘next Wednesday’ promise very baffling. And many simply did not understand that the whole thing was meant to be a prank. I thought about why it was so hard, and realised that one major method of making sense of what people say to you is to ignore the literal meaning and focus on speaker intention. In my little prank, for example, what I said and what I meant were supposed to be the same, but people invariably thought the two would be different, and tried to interpret what I said and ‘make sense’ of it.
When my sister was very young, if you gave her some biscuits to eat, as soon as she finished them, she’d come and tell you that she’d finished the biscuits. That was supposed to be your hint that she wanted some more! Again - the literal meaning is a plain statement, while the actual meaning is entirely different.
If we are naturally inclined to ‘make sense’ of what people say to us, English language makes it even more interesting, by giving us extra room for interpretation through the use of understatements in a variety of ways.
For example, if a friend suggests a movie to watch, and I respond with ‘I’m not sure if the movie is any good -- the reviews for it are all bad’, I’m not expressing uncertainty as much as an opinion. I am in fact; pretty sure the movie is not worth watching. Similarly, if someone says (in the course of an argument) ‘I don’t care for your attitude,’ what they are actually saying is ‘I don’t like your attitude’. We’ll look at some understatement methods in the next article.
NILESH JAHAGIRDAR
tips@skillspark.com
www.skillspark.com
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