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Odd combination day. I ended up sleeping there again and waking to Nia's call in time to take a shower and walk over there, quietly nicking Stephan's power cord out from under his snoring nose for my computer and leaving him a note on his (YAY) whiteboard about it. Turns out I already had my own power cord in my computerbag, but hey.
So Nia's fully caught up, Housewise. Wow, what a concept. We even walked over to Stephan's right at the time when all three of them happened to be out running, and watched a few Fry & Lauries till they came back gasping and Stephan went and got Chinese, of which I ate an undue proportion. And then Stephan came back with me and Nia to her house, and I managed to annoy even him with the depth of my obsession, and we finished.
I walked back to see if anybody was home when Nia and I were done, but all three were out and the door was locked, so I started home. The strap on my computerbag is far too thin for how heavy it is; it bites into my shoulder, and I have to walk crookedly. I'm surprised Bryan even recognized me as I hunched past him near Shepherd on the way; I certainly couldn't tell who he was from that far away, my eyesight's that bad. Well, it was dark, too, in that kind of magically surreal sketchy lit-by-streetlamps way. I told him, once I figured out who he was, and he asked me where I was going, that I'd go home and charge my phone, since Nia's house seems to be the phone-battery-power-sink-nexus of the Rice area. Every time I go over there, no one can contact me. He offered to come get me later.
Right. Well, my phone is charging. And last night we transcribed the Fry&Laurie Linguist sketch.
-So, let’s talk instead about flexibility of language. Linguistic elasticity, if you like. Yes, I think I said earlier that our language, English—
-As spoken by us—
-As we speak it, yes, certainly. Defines it. Um, we are defined by our language, if you will.
-Hello. We’re talking about language.
-Um, perhaps I can illustrate my point. Let me at least try. Um, here’s a question. Um, tsk, tsk. (pause)
-Oh, what is it?
-Ah! Well, my question is this: is our language, English, capable… Is English capable of sustaining demagoguery?
-Demagoguery?
-Demagoguery.
-And by demagoguery you mean—
-By demagoguery I mean demagoguery.
-I thought so.
-I mean, um, highly charged oratory, persuasive, whipping-up rhetoric. Listen to me, listen to me. If Hitler had been British, would we, under similar circumstances, have been moved, charged up, fired up by his inflammatory speeches, or would we simply have laughed? Is English too ironic to sustain Hitlerian styles? Would his language simply have rung false in our ears?
-We’re talking about things ringing false in our ears.
-Um, may I compartmentalize? I hate to, but may I? May I? Is our language a function of our British cynicism, tolerance, resistance to false emotion, humor and so on, or do those qualities come extrinsically, extrinsically, from the language itself? It’s a chicken and egg problem.
-We’re talking about chickens, we’re talking about eggs.
-Um, let me start a leveret here. There’s language, and there’s speech. Um, there’s… there’s chess, and there’s a game of chess. Mark the difference for me, mark it please.
-We’ve moved on to chess.
-Imagine a piano keyboard, um, 88 keys, only 88, and yet, and yet, hundreds of new melodies, new harmonies, are being composed upon hundreds of different keyboards everyday in Dorset alone. Now, our language, tiger, our language, hundreds of thousands of available words, frillions of legitimate new ideas, mm, so that I can say the following sentence and be utterly sure that nobody has ever said it before in the history of human communication: “Hold the newsreader’s nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers.” Perfectly ordinary words, but never before put in that precise order. A unique child, delivered of a unique mother.
-…
-And yet, OH, and yet, we all of us spend all our days saying to each other the same things, time after weary time, “I love you,” “don’t go in there,” “get out,” “you have no right to say that,” “stop it,” “why should I, “that hurt,” “help,” “Marjorie is dead.” Hm? That surely is a thought to take out for a cream tea on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
-So, to you, language is more than just a means of communication?
-Oh, of course it is, of course it is, of course it is, of course it is. Um, language is my mother, my father, my husband, my brother, my sister, my whore, my mistress, my checkout girl; language is a complimentary moist lemon-scented cleansing square or handy freshen-up wipette. Um, language is the breath of God. (pause) Language is the dew on a fresh apple, it’s the soft rain of dust that falls into a shaft of morning light as you pluck from an old bookshelf, uh, uh, a half-forgotten book of, uh, erotic memoirs. Um… Language is the creak on a stair, it’s a spluttering match held to a frosted pane, it’s half-remembered childhood birthday party. It’s the warm, wet, trusting tough of a leaking nappie. Uh, the hulk of a charred panzer, the underside of a granite boulder, the first downy growth on the upper lip of a Mediterranean girl. Uh, it’s cobwebs, long since overrun by an old Wellington boot.
-Night-night.
So Nia's fully caught up, Housewise. Wow, what a concept. We even walked over to Stephan's right at the time when all three of them happened to be out running, and watched a few Fry & Lauries till they came back gasping and Stephan went and got Chinese, of which I ate an undue proportion. And then Stephan came back with me and Nia to her house, and I managed to annoy even him with the depth of my obsession, and we finished.
I walked back to see if anybody was home when Nia and I were done, but all three were out and the door was locked, so I started home. The strap on my computerbag is far too thin for how heavy it is; it bites into my shoulder, and I have to walk crookedly. I'm surprised Bryan even recognized me as I hunched past him near Shepherd on the way; I certainly couldn't tell who he was from that far away, my eyesight's that bad. Well, it was dark, too, in that kind of magically surreal sketchy lit-by-streetlamps way. I told him, once I figured out who he was, and he asked me where I was going, that I'd go home and charge my phone, since Nia's house seems to be the phone-battery-power-sink-nexus of the Rice area. Every time I go over there, no one can contact me. He offered to come get me later.
Right. Well, my phone is charging. And last night we transcribed the Fry&Laurie Linguist sketch.
-So, let’s talk instead about flexibility of language. Linguistic elasticity, if you like. Yes, I think I said earlier that our language, English—
-As spoken by us—
-As we speak it, yes, certainly. Defines it. Um, we are defined by our language, if you will.
-Hello. We’re talking about language.
-Um, perhaps I can illustrate my point. Let me at least try. Um, here’s a question. Um, tsk, tsk. (pause)
-Oh, what is it?
-Ah! Well, my question is this: is our language, English, capable… Is English capable of sustaining demagoguery?
-Demagoguery?
-Demagoguery.
-And by demagoguery you mean—
-By demagoguery I mean demagoguery.
-I thought so.
-I mean, um, highly charged oratory, persuasive, whipping-up rhetoric. Listen to me, listen to me. If Hitler had been British, would we, under similar circumstances, have been moved, charged up, fired up by his inflammatory speeches, or would we simply have laughed? Is English too ironic to sustain Hitlerian styles? Would his language simply have rung false in our ears?
-We’re talking about things ringing false in our ears.
-Um, may I compartmentalize? I hate to, but may I? May I? Is our language a function of our British cynicism, tolerance, resistance to false emotion, humor and so on, or do those qualities come extrinsically, extrinsically, from the language itself? It’s a chicken and egg problem.
-We’re talking about chickens, we’re talking about eggs.
-Um, let me start a leveret here. There’s language, and there’s speech. Um, there’s… there’s chess, and there’s a game of chess. Mark the difference for me, mark it please.
-We’ve moved on to chess.
-Imagine a piano keyboard, um, 88 keys, only 88, and yet, and yet, hundreds of new melodies, new harmonies, are being composed upon hundreds of different keyboards everyday in Dorset alone. Now, our language, tiger, our language, hundreds of thousands of available words, frillions of legitimate new ideas, mm, so that I can say the following sentence and be utterly sure that nobody has ever said it before in the history of human communication: “Hold the newsreader’s nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers.” Perfectly ordinary words, but never before put in that precise order. A unique child, delivered of a unique mother.
-…
-And yet, OH, and yet, we all of us spend all our days saying to each other the same things, time after weary time, “I love you,” “don’t go in there,” “get out,” “you have no right to say that,” “stop it,” “why should I, “that hurt,” “help,” “Marjorie is dead.” Hm? That surely is a thought to take out for a cream tea on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
-So, to you, language is more than just a means of communication?
-Oh, of course it is, of course it is, of course it is, of course it is. Um, language is my mother, my father, my husband, my brother, my sister, my whore, my mistress, my checkout girl; language is a complimentary moist lemon-scented cleansing square or handy freshen-up wipette. Um, language is the breath of God. (pause) Language is the dew on a fresh apple, it’s the soft rain of dust that falls into a shaft of morning light as you pluck from an old bookshelf, uh, uh, a half-forgotten book of, uh, erotic memoirs. Um… Language is the creak on a stair, it’s a spluttering match held to a frosted pane, it’s half-remembered childhood birthday party. It’s the warm, wet, trusting tough of a leaking nappie. Uh, the hulk of a charred panzer, the underside of a granite boulder, the first downy growth on the upper lip of a Mediterranean girl. Uh, it’s cobwebs, long since overrun by an old Wellington boot.
-Night-night.