I have held onto a memory for the last eleven years, involving this very thought. Denise, a former lead psychologist for a Church of Scientology, once told me that you can tell your husband to 'fuck off' in two very different ways, with two very different results depending on the tone of the words spoken. If spoken angrily it may result quite (sometimes) fatal. However, if there is a tinge of sarcasm, or endearment rather, it will be brushed off without such terrible consequences. She expressed that the tone is crucial in communication and that if you feel you 'need' to 'say' something just focus on the tone.
This memory always makes me laugh- and I wish I could do justice to her two very different examples of telling someone "fuck you!" However, I may have found something to give just a little idea: Below is a video on multiple ways to say "Excuse me". (Don't mind the cheesy music... well it's overall kind of cheeZy- but it's good anyway :D)
Jeanne Fahnestock provides great examples in Accommodating Science of multiple ways to write the same information for different audiences.
"This sex difference in the LH response to a neuroendocrine challens is a critical feature in any evaluation of hormone responsiveness and sexual orientation: to our knowledge, this is the first simultaneous direct comparison of heterosexual and homosexual men with heterosexual women."
"Some homosexual men have been shown for the first time to differ from heterosexual men in the way they respond to hormones."
After reading the first quote, I -- in no way-- deciphered that which is stated in the second quote. While writing my first science news brief (in class) I chose a 24 page research paper posted by the scientists. I spent hours trying to understand their jargon. With a fear of relaying wrong information, by misunderstanding their words.
This makes me wonder, is there such thing as no personal writing? Before I have suspected, that even the scientists bring a subjective viewpoint regardless of exhausted effort to not. However, there is definitely a Large grey area that may actually hold a spot for a 'nearly close to no subjectivity- especially in writing-. So the scientist may be observing subjectively- but they are writing in a way that involves straight facts through a language that most people don't understand.
If we all speak the same language- than why do we not understand each other all the time. There is an obvious 'layman's' way (in which the writer hopes to portray for the common reader). Yet, there is an objective jargon that most people other than the scientist don't understand. I guess, what I'm trying to say is that the 'personal writing' or 'human element' that we talk so often about is that language which is universal and understood. And that there IS a language out there regardless of it being 'English' that we don't understand- the objective- unless we have studied it.
SIDE NOTE: "Anyone who has ever tried to present a rather abstract scientific subject in a popular manner knows the great difficulties of such an attempt. Either he succeeds in being intelligible by concealing the core of the problem and by offering to the reader only superficial aspects or vague allusions, thus deceiving the reader by arousing in him the deceptive illusion of comprehension; or else he gives an expert account of the problem, but in such a fashion that the untrained reader is unable to follow the exposition and becomes discouraged from reading any further. If these two categories are omitted from today's popular scientific literature, surprisingly little remains." Albert Einstein
All I can Say, regardless of the growth that has happened in this field since Einstein said this: I feel a bit better, knowing the difficulties I am experiencing is recognized by Einstein himself! Although I don't know if I feel that there is now HOPE or that I am even more HOPELESS.... probably the latter. (Just not as discouraged :)
No comments:
Post a Comment