Word-users ask strange questions
The strange question I often get asked is “Why is the word not what my smart phone says?”
In a world of complicated — an English-pronounced Latin word — simple is like one hand clapping, hard to be heard, or if you prefer, like a bird without feathers, hard to take to the sky.
Word and words are good cases in point.
Simple is a word that couldn’t be anything else if it tried. Naturally, so is complicated.
The difference between the two is that simple is work while complicated happens.
There are many ways to simple.
You can read simple quotes worth reading twice.
And there’s “Last Train to Simple (the crazy method to love life)”.
“Why are words not what my smart phone says?”
Long story short, there are two answers, simple and complicated.
The simple answer: Because your smartphone depends on the internet.
For the complicated: Ask the internet.
Actually, you don’t have to. I’ve done the hard work for you.
- Wikipedia “the internet’s most-read reference work”
“Internet: is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the interlinked hypertext documents and applications of the world wide web (www), electronic mail, telephony, and file sharing (followed by another 11,000 words)”. - Dictionary “the internet’s leading online dictionary”
“Internet: Usually (except when used before a noun), a vast computer network linking smaller computer networks worldwide. The internet includes commercial, educational, governmental, and other networks, all of which use the same set of communications protocols. - BrainyQuote “providing inspirational quotes since 2001 to our worldwide community”
“Internet”: If so inclined, check it out for yourself at https://www.brainyquote.com/search_results?x=27&y=12&q=Internet
The internet
“Gobbles up, stores, and disseminates more words faster than anything invented for that purpose before.” – Beat Schindler
“Why are words not what my smart phone says?” Part 2
Because all the internet knows about words is what it’s been told by the internet’s inventors who learned about words at school.
What’s wrong with that is that school doesn’t teach words and doesn’t tell the story of words. “School doesn’t teach” means school doesn’t teach words — what words are, what words do, and what words have — but that’s about school, a different story entirely…
- “Strange times are these in when old and young are taught falsehoods in school.” – Plato
- “The school system is the homogenizing hopper into which we toss our integral tots for processing.” – Marshall McLuhan
- “If you end up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some talking head on television to do your shit, then you deserve it.” – Frank Zappa
- “When I look back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.” – Paul Simon
…that will be covered in separate post down the line.
Back to smart.
“Why are words not what my smart phone says?” Part 3
Since the invention of the internet, things have changed.
Water has gone under the bridge and other stuff too.
The mothers and fathers of the internet are dead or old now.
They’ve been replaced by 6-year-olds, or by adults impersonating 6-year-olds, that are now telling the internet what they’ve learned at schools and universities about words.
If you want to know what that is, you’ll find it at the end of this post.
“Why are words not what my smart phone says?” Part 4
Because words — what words are, what words do, and what words have — are explained in The Origin of Humanity.
Of course, you’ll find The Origin of Humanity on the internet, here, at Amazon, and wherever worthy books are sold, but that’s not enough.
To understand words, and the origin of humanity, you must read it.
The Origin of Humanity is radically different from what your smartphone says. It might shock or offend for other reasons as well.
If the above reminds you of René Magritte’s painting “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”, there is nothing I can do about it except confirm that’s how the cards are dealt.
That’s what smart is all about.
In broad brush strokes
- “Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself.” – Patrick Rothfuss
- “What a word means, a sentence cannot say.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein
- The appearance of words has revolutionized evolution.
- Words are a prison, but even a prison is a home if you have the key.
- The word-user was the word’s idea for getting more words.
- Words are a gift we’re meant to keep.
- Words are what the word-users respond to.
- Words are how you aim at what you’re looking for.
- Everything you know is a word.
- Words do not only change everything you have a word for, they create it.
- Words don’t describe the world, they describe how we see it.
- Words have not only changed what we see, but how we see.
- Words are the limits of your world. Once you see that, you’re limitless.
- Words aren’t taught at school.
- The story of words isn’t told. (Except here)
- Word-masters have know in the beginning is the word since the beginning of words.
- Words tend to get mistaken for evidence and often get treated that way.
- The word-users love to use their words.
- If you have a word for it, it’s a word.
- Words can be denied only by confirming them.
- If you ignore what words can do to you, then you can have no empathy for what words can do to others.
- Words do not matter (they possess zero electric charge).
- Words have no meaning.
Takeaway
There is more to it, but knowing words — what words are, do, and have — takes time.
Then it takes additional time to know you — what you are, what you do, and what you have.
All I can say is let yourself be surprised.
Better yet, surprise yourself.
“Surprise is the essence of humor, and nothing is more surprising than truth.” – Bill Watterson
The surprise will be worth it in the end because these two — word and you — are all it takes for the limits of your world to metamorphose into limitless opportunities forever and a day.
Call to action
Join my waitlist to ensure you’ll be the first to be notified when my “Limitless Opportunities” course starts later this year, by the time the harvest moon rises again, give or take a few.
PS. What the internet knows about word and words
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
“A word is a speech sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation in writing, that symbolizes and communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme or a combination of morphemes.”
Wikipedia (the world’s most read reference work)
“A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguists on its definition and numerous attempts to find specific criteria of the concept remain controversial. Different standards have been proposed, depending on the theoretical background and descriptive context; these do not converge on a single definition. Some specific definitions of the term “word” are employed to convey its different meanings at different levels of description, for example based on phonological, grammatical or orthographic basis. Others suggest that the concept is simply a convention used in everyday situations. The concept of “word” is distinguished from that of a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of language that has a meaning, even if it cannot stand on its own. Words are made out of at least one morpheme. Morphemes can also be joined to create other words in a process of morphological derivation. In English and many other languages, the morphemes that make up a word generally include at least one root (such as “rock”, “god”, “type”, “writ”, “can”, “not”) and possibly some affixes (“-s”, “un-“, “-ly”, “-ness”). Words with more than one root (“[type][writ]er”, “[cow][boy]s”, “[tele][graph]ically”) are called compound words. In turn, words are combined to form other elements of language, such as phrases (“a red rock”, “put up with”), clauses (“I threw a rock”), and sentences (“I threw a rock, but missed”). In many languages, the notion of what constitutes a “word” may be learned as part of learning the writing system. This is the case for the English language, and for most languages that are written with alphabets derived from the ancient Latin or Greek alphabets. In English orthography, the letter sequences “rock”, “god”, “write”, “with”, “the”, and “not” are considered to be single-morpheme words, whereas “rocks”, “ungodliness”, “typewriter”, and “cannot” are words composed of two or more morphemes (“rock”+”s”, “un”+”god”+”li”+”ness”, “type”+”writ”+”er”, and “can”+”not”).
ComputerHope
“Word may refer to any of the following: 1. When referring to a word processor, Word is short for Microsoft Word. 2. In general, a word is a single element of verbal communication with a unique meaning or use. For example, this sentence contains seven words. The English language contains several hundred thousand different words and Computer Hope lists over 15,000 computer-related words in its computer dictionary. Word classes or parts of speech are categories of English words that help you construct good sentences. These categories are noun, verb, adjective, adverb, determiner, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. In computing, a word is a single unit of measurement that is assumed to be a 16-bits in length value. However, it can be any set value, common word size values included: 16, 18, 24, 32, 36, 40, 48, and 64.”
Merriam-Webster
Click on Word Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster to see if you can believe Merriam-Webster’s take on words.
Merriam-Webster also wants you to believe that “a real word is when the word word has a wide range of meanings and uses in English. Yet one of the most often looked for pieces of information regarding word is not something that would be found in its definition. Instead, it is some variant of the question, What makes a word a real word? One of the most prolific areas of change and variation in English is vocabulary; new words are constantly being coined to name or describe new inventions or innovations, or to better identify aspects of our rapidly changing world. Constraints of time, money, and staff would make it impossible for any dictionary, no matter how large, to capture a fully comprehensive account of all the words in the language. And even if such a leviathan reference was somehow fashioned, the dictionary would be obsolete the instant it was published as speakers and writers continued generating new terms to meet their constantly changing needs. Most general English dictionaries are designed to include only those words that meet certain criteria of usage across wide areas and over extended periods of time (for more details about how words are chosen for dictionary entry, read “How does a word get into a Merriam-Webster dictionary?” in our FAQ). As a result, they may omit words that are still in the process of becoming established, those that are too highly specialized, or those that are so informal that they are rarely documented in professionally edited writing. But the words left out are as real as those that gain entry; the former simply haven’t met the criteria for dictionary entry–at least not yet (newer ones may ultimately gain admission to the dictionary’s pages if they gain sufficient use). However, in preparing your own writings, it is worth remembering that the dictionary encompasses the most widely used terms in English. Words that are left out may have usage limited to specific, isolated, or informal contexts, so they should be used carefully.
Oxford Learners
“Word is a single unit of language that means something and can be spoken or written.”
