My Mind is Mush
I think that I am beginning to forget how to speak English. This is terrifying, because it means that I am no longer proficient in any language. Context: I am back in the US for the winter holidays, <aside>it seems astronomically unlikely that I will succesfully acquire a visa to enter Italy: I went to the consulate today; they asked me, “did you look at the website?”; I said, “yes, but I didn’t fully understand it. I came to ask you some questions about the forms that I require”; they shrugged. I cannot even confirm whether or not I have the right collection of documents to apply: I can only make a guess based on the information on the website and send the stack in. If it is wrong, I have to start over. I think that I have some sort of special needs or disability that make me unable to understand the requirements. Even if I do succeed in my quest for a visa, it will take three to five weeks to hear about it once I submit the application. I do not know whether there is any point at all. And I still haven’t been to Rome.</aside> and I am struggling to communicate.
How can I say this in a way that makes it obvious that the fault is entirely mine? I do not know. One of the main beauties and powers of English is its vocabulary. Because its morphology is small, words can be imported freely and have been throughout its history. Synonyms abound: why do we have both the word “incredible” and “unbelievable” in the language? What’s the difference between “continuous” and “uninterupted”? Why are there so many adjectives and adverbs? The people around here don’t speak that way. They follow the most likely collocations through the language and awkwardly piece them together into a coherent sentence. I do the same—maybe we all only follow a probability model—because if I don’t, I have to think very hard to pick out the right way to express the idea; if I pause, I am interrupted; interrupted, silenced. Perhaps I don’t have anything to say to anyone besides you, dear reader (what reader?). Maybe I’m being excessively…dramatic? fragile? sensitive? weak? uncertain? hesitant? Perhaps I demurr more than I ought to.
What is the good language? In the Anglo-sphere, schools do not teach grammar because, “all that matters is whether you are understood”. I am not advocating for a prescriptive reversal. The dialects which are “prescribed” are no more correct or real than any other; their prescribedness is caused by the political position of their speakers. So what is speaking well, then? It is using the features of the language to their full potential; to do that, we must understand them. But then again, writing is different from speaking.
