English is one hell of a strange language. So strange that, as far as I know, it is the only one that has a spelling competition because words are not always pronounced the way they are written. This is not the case in Tamil, for instance. When you know a language like Tamil or German, as soon as you hear it, you pretty much know how to spell it. No mystery there.
English is godawful. When we were young, I read a satirical take on this with the word "ghoti." Ghoti, a fictional word, is pronounced as "fish" because:
Gh takes the sound "f" as in the word tough
O becomes "i" like in "women"
"Ti" takes on the sound of "sh" like in "station"
Ghoti is, therefore, pronounced as fish!
This godawful language has become the global language! Whether it is India or Costa Rica, people bash their heads against the hardest surfaces that they can find because there is no logic behind most aspects of this language.
At the Orosi Lodge in Costa Rica, as I was collecting my key from the front desk one afternoon, Connie--one half of the couple who owned the place--said "I have a question for you. About English grammar." I noticed that she was working with a Tica.
"You know how we say big, bigger, biggest?" Connie asked. I nodded my head.
"But, it is beautiful and more beautiful. It is not beautifuller. I just know that is the case. But how do I teach her that it is different for different words?"
Ah, yes, the pain of learning English as a second language.
And then there are idioms that people incorrectly use. Sometimes, like how some of the students did, back when I used to be a professor before my former employer laid me off, people make atrocious mistakes. One of my favorites was in a student's appreciation for what I did. In that note, the student had written how much they take people like me "for granite."
Get it? "For granite" when the student meant "for granted."
The comic strip at the top of this post captures some of those that we encounter in our daily life. When President W said "nucular"--even I who learnt English as a foreign language know that it is nuclear--it seemed like all of a sudden a good chunk of the country started saying "nucular" as if the emperor cannot be wrong.
If only I couldn't care less!
In life though, I tend to care not about a whole lot. I wish I could care even less. Often I ask myself, "what is the outcome that I am aiming for?" If I don't have a clear answer to that, well, it is off my list. It is no different from the suggestion in this essay to ask oneself "why do I care?"
Caring less doesn’t mean negligence. To care less about inconsequential matters, you need to zero in on what is worth caring for. Consider taking stock of to-do list items and obligations and asking if these responsibilities make your day feel more spacious or more confined, Cohan suggests. Does it nourish your sense of creativity? Is it the best use of your time and talent? Does it make you feel exhausted? Do you want to spend your time and energy on this?
If one doesn't go through such an exercise, then they can easily find themselves in the busy trap. I bet you know plenty of people who behave that way, and sometimes they try to drag you into that same trap.
Now, if you couldn't care less, you would not have read this post, right?
No comments:
Post a Comment