Linguaphiles
We do not mean what we say
The word linguaphile refers to a person who loves language and words. Certain dictionary includes: “All linguaphiles love language, but individual linguaphiles can be interested in many different things, such as learning to speak several different languages or simply nerding out about words in general.”
This outstanding noun is composed by the Latin word “lingua” which means “tongue” and refers to speech and language in this context, plus the suffix “-phile” that means “lover of”.
All this informative context leads me to the point here. I have been a Linguaphile since I learned that people could say the same things and sound differently depending on their upbringing, but this condition only got worse as I discovered that when you use different words, they can have different meanings and that can shape your thoughts differently.
The life crisis known as “Tudo bem?”
Take this as an example: here in Brazil when we casually encounter people the expression we use to check if they are okay or simply to correspond to the expectations of our secretly uninterested society is “Tudo bem?” or “Tudo certo?” which means “Everything good/alright?”. Pretty normal, right? But the thing that’s been bothering me is the fact that our labeled answer is “Tudo!”, not good, well, alright or even okay, we ALWAYS answer “Everything!”.
Even in my bestest days not EVERYTHING was good. In fact, not only is it unrealistic to presume that every single detail of somebody’s active life and all that surrounds it is going to be bright and beautiful, it’s also very difficult for most people to know for certain if they feel good, let alone if EVERYTHING is good.
Thinking about this made me wonder what other things we say in such an automatic manner that their real meaning subtlety fades and lose importance in daily life.
No one is sorry
How many times a week you apologize saying “I’m sorry”? When we say that, do we honestly feel sorry?
The Oxford dictionary’s definition of “sorry” is:
1. feeling distress, especially through sympathy with someone else’s misfortune.
2. feeling regret or penitence.
Distress… penitence? Those are pretty strong descriptions. I didn’t feel sympathy with the misfortune of the random lady I accidentally and lightly bumped into while walking down the street, I did apologize strongly though.
What all of this means?
Is our insistence on repeating these thoughtless catchphrases a symptom of the callousness of our souls? Meh… maybe.
If words lose meaning our main tool in the constant process of recognition of our reality, feelings, and life is lost. For me, as a writer, this is a specially distressful reality. However, I don’t think that is what’s happening in most cases.
We are often led by the rushing air around us towards productivity and efficiency and that might make us forget to give meaning to the things we say. Still, there are moments when we stop and remember to reclaim what makes us human. For me, writing provides these moments. It is my tool to remember what makes me human.
Is the generalized standardization extremely problematic and does it commonly reflect an internalized perspective that needs to be rethinked? Absolutely. Am I going to stop saying “Tudo bem!”? Probably not.
Because communication is a funny thing, what you say is not necessarily what people hear, and often, it does not really correspond to what you think. And that’s okay.
