-
Take a Look
Need Some Stuff?
From politics to insurance, many problems lie in our use of language
I was reading some stuff online from a British website and what I read caused one of those little “sparks” in the old brain that make you jump from one subject/association to another with no apparent connection. (Is it just me, or does that happen to you, too? No??)
The phrase I was looking at was “car coverage” related to buying insurance — the British sites that came up in Google kept referring to this automobile coverage not as car COVERAGE, but simply as car cover — which to me has nothing to do with insurance, but with something to shelter or protect your car or at least the car’s finish from weather, vandalism, etc.
Suddenly, “SNAP”! My brain was no longer thinking about insurance, but politics. “Wow,” I thought, “here’s an entire country that misuses the word ‘cover’ to mean ‘coverage’ — hey, I’ll be a lot of the misunderstandings and messes we’re in politically in this country and worldwide, are related to simple verbal misunderstandings.” (No, I really didn’t think all that and think it that clearly at the time, but the beauty of writing is that you have the luxury of thinking and rewriting, unlike talking or preaching.)
So maybe if we all were very careful about words and how we use them, or maybe if we realize different people and cultures understand words differently than we do, the world would be a more harmonious, even safer place to live in. (And, yes, I realize the word “misuses” in the paragraph above is not really accurate — they simply use the word differently; “misuse” was my little bit of sarcasm, intended to be humorous.)
Or, maybe we are such victims of our own cultures that we simply CAN’T use words more carefully, more concisely, and make the world a better place that way. Nah, we can do it. We simply are too self-involved or outright lazy to try much, I think.
[tags]word usage, word meanings, language and life, just a guy who reads the papers[/tags]
Comments
Got something to say?
Subscribe Through Feedburner
-
