On Feb 24, 2011, at 1:00 AM, Boris Liberman wrote: >> The secret of making your meaning clear is to write clearly and simply. > > That's fundamentally correct statement. It is just as fundamentally void of > any practical meaning. If A and B want to communicate, they have to be > willing to establish a mutually clear means to do so. If A and B have > different mother tongues or belong to different cultures, common language may > not be enough.
Regardless of the situation, common language is *all there is.* Last summer I spent several weeks doing -- well, I'm not sure what we were doing; not exactly tai chi; maybe some form of kung fu -- with the visiting father/father-in-law of Chinese neighbors. One morning I noticed him out in our parking lot going through an amazing "balletic" routine using a staff. I went out to ask him what he was doing. He didn't speak a word of English, I didn't speak a word of Chinese. He took me to his daughter's house, where we were able to communicate through her. Through her I indicated an interest in learning from him, and we agreed to meet at 8:00 AM every morning that we were both at home. For the rest of the summer, probably a couple of months, we met. He led. I followed -- as best I could. Not infrequently he would indicate disapproval and then demonstrate the correct way. Occasionally he would indicate approval. About the time he had to return home I got to a place where I felt I was really ready to learn. Each of us learned a few words of the other's language, and I mean a few. But he taught, I learned. We got to know each other. I sensed that we were alike in certain respects -- e.g., both being fitness freaks -- possibly in many. Those few words were trivial. We did not need them. They did not help. But we communicated. We communicated however we could, using whatever was common to us. There is no other way. If it's not common, fah ged about it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Eric Weir Decatur, GA USA [email protected] -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
