Posts Tagged ‘ language ’

gurk | i’m so scared i could spit!

November 3, 2010
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gurk | i’m so scared i could spit!

The more we progress technologically, the further we seem to get from the tangible world. Take for example the word “camel.” The word is a bunch of letters combined that have absolutely nothing to do with the sand-dwelling, hump-possessing mammal that has a penchant for spitting. I can only imagine that the word itself comes from the Hebrew word for the same animal,”גמל” (gammel). That word is also the name of the first letter of the word, “ג” and the letter from which we eventually get the letter “g.” Hebrew is an interesting language because it’s a sort of gateway language. It came about during the move from a pictographic form of writing to an abstract one. The letter ג was supposed to resemble a camel. It could then also stand in for the animal and at the same time represent sounds that were similar to the beginning sound of that common animal that is found in the Judean desert. Technology creates new things and new things require us to engage in new relationships, oftentimes in new ways. The Hebrew alphabet allowed for a bridging between a world that was becoming more and more spread out and that was learning

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pick a word, any damn word you like

August 3, 2010
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Eye-chart

Ecstasy. Power. Codified. Holisitc. Deliverance. History. Anger. Threshold. Hegemony. Energy. Paradox. WORDS, Words, words. When I think about codes in the performance of everyday life, words always seem to come to mind. Semantics, in almost every culture, signify who we are, what we are doing, and how we react to our world and relationships. Words carry a heavy weight, and our particular choice of language is deeply linked to the identity we forge for ourselves everyday. My fascination with the performative power of words began when I dated a linguist. He was/is very intelligent, but like many in his field, had no faith that humans could change their semantic destiny. In his eyes we were just lame ducks, and no matter what we did, a larger and more epic movement would have to alter the way we speak. Our everyday use of language was more or less incidental. He did not believe that choosing to say “you all” versus “you guys” to encourage gender neutral language was necessary, or even helpful. In his eyes (and in the eyes of many with certain levels of intellectual/gender privilege) how hegemony attacks us through language is not important, but to be expected as

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