Have you ever wanted to use a word, but…
even if your life depended upon it you can’t remember how to spell it,
or you can recall how to spell it but it just looks wrong spelled the right way…
it looks wrong no matter how you try and spell it, and soon enough your mind is unsure if the word even exists or if you made it up,
and things spiral from there…
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excerpt from Slate – Wordnesia: When you forget how to spell the very simplest of werds by Matthew J.X. Malady
it’s a very entertaining and informative read.
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which can happen often with English as there are two versions of English to contend with…
which totally effed me up in high school when I moved from a British school to an international one.
My new English teacher was American, and while she was a good teacher she proved to be the source of much confusion for me because I confused her by spelling some words the British way (the way I’d been taught to spell words before her) and other words the American way (the way I was taught to spell them by her). Add to that the fact that some of the text and books we studied were in British and some in American. So my young sponge of a brain was absorbing both at the same time. She eventually couldn’t stand it anymore and demanded that I pick either the British or American spelling for all my words and stick with my choice, if I continued to do both she would make the choice for me and it would seriously affect my grades.
Thanks to the not so good grades I got that year from that teacher I was demoted the following year to a less advanced English class – there were several levels of English classes within each grade due to most pupils being from different countries – and the teacher of that less advanced class was British and she had no problem with my mixed spellings as long as it was correct one way or another as her focus was on what her pupils did with those words expressively.
Both teachers taught me a lesson about people,
and showed me that there are at least two types of teachers, and while both types may be good at teaching, one style may not suit your style of learning.
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this excerpt is from Beating Dyslexia – Forgetting Simple Words Why are Easy Words Difficult to Remember?
and while it may be excellent for others who have dyslexia, it doesn’t suit this dyslexic person at all (dyslexia is not a one size fits all diagnosis – there are many different types within the label), in fact I wish I hadn’t read this as it’s just added a layer of complication to words with which I didn’t have a problem (and thank you for pointing out the obvious and giving us permission not to do this with every word).
Dyslexia is a differently wired brain not a disease to be cured.
If you or someone you know has dyslexia try reading – The Gift of Dyslexia (I’ve linked to the Amazon entry for this as the goodreads entry annoyed me due to the first comment under it being from someone who used the word ‘pseudo-science’ as a criticism and then launched into a personal attack on the author… I should have linked to the goodreads as now you’re going to want to read that comment) – it helped me view my differently wired brain as a different kind of ‘normal’ and showed me that while the other kind of ‘normal’ brains see dyslexia as something to be beaten out of us, it actually has certain ‘superpowers‘.
Beating Dyslexia has a post about the book – The Gift of Dyslexia, Fact or Fairy Tale? – in which they warn people not to view dyslexia as a ‘gift’ or think you’re ‘gifted’ because you have dyslexia – those with dyslexia don’t think that way, but thank you for yet again pointing out the obvious and giving us permission to think differently.
My apologies to Beating Dyslexia for my attitude.
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If you also happen to know the language of origin of some words which have been absorbed into English, things can get even more problematic.
I had this problem when I decided to use the word – manoeuvres – in my title.
I had all sorts of problems with it… yet I was determined to use it (because I seem to have a perverse need to make life more difficult than it needs to be for myself… even though just last night I was grumbling about those guides which tell you all the alternative words you should use instead of ‘very’ when writing because the use of ‘very’ is apparently a sign of a lazy and possibly shit writer. But it says what you mean, so isn’t that the word you should use? It’s simple and… isn’t keeping it simple a good thing?)
WordPress’ spellcheck put a bunch of red dots under it, so I knew something was wrong with it… but what?
1 – Was it the usual fast typing issue whereby when I mean to type ‘from’ I end up with ‘form’ (but that wouldn’t get flagged by spellcheck), or when I type ‘typign’ <— that’s what happens.
2 – or was it just that WordPress’ spellcheck is my American English teacher and I’m using the Brit spelling for a word and American spellcheck doesn’t… computer says NO!
3 – or did I get it all wrong so how do I find out what is right? I know I’ll Google or Bing (pretty pictures on the homepage which will distract you from… who needs results when you have this view!) or whatever it… and end up with… exactly what I was using.
Man Oeuvre – Man work – the works of man… how man works to… evade stuff.
This wasn’t what this post was going to be about. What was it going to be about? Your guess is probably better than mine!
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I like covers of songs, some of them sometimes have more soul than the original… and this just expresses so much about life.
An Upturned Soul 
The hardest word for me to recall the spelling of is that drscription of a person who only thinks of themselves. Starts with Nar….
Lol. Seriously it is super hard to spell!
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Ha! Yes, it is, my mistake with it usually when typing is to put an extra ‘S’ in, so it ends up looking like it has been spoken by a cartoon snake 🙂
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I liked this one because when I was 11 my parents temporarily emigrated to the USA which meant that I attended an American School and like you I struggled with the spelling of certain words so being defiant I insisted in my eleven year old brain that they should change to the colonial way of spelling but they never would so even now I struggle with certain words because eventually they brainwashed me add that to the French influence and phew …getting a handwritten note from me will leave the reader with many doubts about my ability to communicate properly.
So great post still loads behind tho ….I have a question pour vous….. does a woman when speaking to a man change words around in her mind so that the man would understand her better I wondered if this is the case does it happen so quickly that the woman does not realise she switched from woman to woman and vice versa mode….sos the question is not so clear but you,ll get it
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Thank you 🙂
That’s an intriguing question.
One of the things I like about online communication is you don’t always know whether someone is male or female (even if they tell you they’re male, they might not be) and therefore your mind has to bypass its own biases, stereotypes, assumptions, etc, and be more instinctive and intuitive. It makes you face your own perceptions and judgments, and it also makes you face the fact that you’re a person first and foremost and so are others.
More often than not I just talk with people as another people which suits me better because sometimes I forget I’m a woman because it isn’t relevant most of the time, thus I often forget to make note of whether someone else is male or female until they make it relevant. Tbh, I often have no idea whether someone I’m talking to online is male or female, and I forget even when they’ve told me.
So… not sure if I have understood but just keep going right 😉
Are you asking if women do womensplaining the way men do mansplaining? If that’s the question then the answer is yes according to this article – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/caroline-turner/mansplaining-and-womanspl_b_9995262.html
Or do you mean do women alter their communication style according to whether they’re talking to a man or a woman?
There’s a funny skit from a comedy show, I think it’s from Smack the Pony, which shows a woman talking with another woman about cars (or something traditionally considered a male subject) really knowledgeably but then a man enters the conversation and that same women suddenly becomes all stupid, silly and giggly and pretends she doesn’t know anything about cars.
I do tend to alter my style of communication depending on who I’m communicating with, but I think everyone does that to some degree, and it isn’t so much about male or female, it’s more about individual communication styles.
I don’t swear around people I don’t know, so I censor swear words in a sentence before speaking it. I had a funny interaction with the guys who came to fix my drains recently. The ‘F’ word almost slipped out but I caught it in time, but one of the guys called me out on it and we laughed about it, needless to say after that the conversation was filled with swearing as we all indulged in a bit of what we can’t usually say around people we don’t know.
If I’m talking to someone much older than I am, I will show more deference (even if they’re rude as hell).
If I’m talking to someone much younger, like a child, I’ll be more irreverent but not towards them (I always recall how I liked being talked to when I was a child, which = not as though I’m a stupid insignificant child).
If I’m talking with a man I edit what I say to keep it short, simple, cut to the chase and be more direct, which suits my personal style of communication better, so I relax more when with a man when talking as I know I can be blunt and blurt what I’m thinking out without softening the edges.
In person I don’t talk the way I do in my posts, my posts reflect my thinking style rather than talking style – they’re the conversations going on in my head, although if I’m really comfortable with someone I talk the way I think because I don’t edit my thoughts before sharing them – and yes, it often leaves people with headaches, minds reeling from talk yoga sessions, and wondering if they’ve just been sucked into an alternate dimension.
If I’m talking with a woman I’ll add more to what I wanted to say, small talk, buffers (I tend to relate more to the way men feel about conversing and communicating with women). I often find communicating with women exhausting and complicated, a minefield of don’ts which I’ve done.
I try to follow similar guidelines to the ones offered by articles like this – https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fixing-families/201211/how-talk-man-how-talk-woman – as experience seems to back this kind of thing up, and these tactics can be helpful.
Although overall I would say that whether someone is male or female, or what age they are, or what social status they have (which some people expect you to take into consideration when communicating with them), what ego issues they or you have, etc, is a secondary matter, the primary focus is on the subject being discussed. If it’s important then all other considerations need to be put to one side. In an emergency the emergency is all that matters because it is a problem for everyone regardless of who they are and needs to be sorted out immediately. If it isn’t important then other considerations can come into play.
What is more likely to make me alter my words is something beyond the am I communicating with man or woman question. One of my ‘priorities’ is – what is this conversation about? What is it really about?
which leads me to – what is your question really about?
Is this about communicating with your girlfriend and wondering about whether she’s editing herself when communicating with you? If it is, the quick answer is – Yes, everyone does that even when they really want to share all of themselves uncensored with someone else.
It’s her birthday sometime soon or has it already passed?
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As usual I,m miles behind my correspondence although I have to say I have read your reply over and over and thought about it for days and yes you gave me an insight into not only your thoughts but a peek into a woman’s view on my question. I said ages ago if I was your neighbour and you told me something I would think about that for a long time.Some of the things that you were so great to reply too have stuck in my mind. Anyway I have another question that I will come to in a bit- first, I used to love that show smack the pony and remember that skit you mentioned second, my Gf bday 03/01/ has obviously passed now, I can get through to her sometimes but she is now on a kamakazi course with cotton wool stuck in her ears- nothing short of a miracle from St Jude will save her.
Anyway question time…again speaking with a man….have you wondered during or after a conversation with a man what he thinks/thought of you? or maybe your never bothered.
thanks,
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Thank you 🙂
re: your girlfriend and her present course
Capricorns are tough. Think of the symbol for the sign – the goat part of the goat-fish. Goats have been known to eat tin cans and all sorts of rubbish. Why do they eat those things. How do they digest something which could possibly rip your insides up, poison you, or some other awful option. How do they manage to turn them into nourishment. Capricorns are similar to goats. And just like goats you’ll find them on some deadly precipice, weirdly sure-footed when they should be plummeting to their death, chomping on some food which only grows there, miraculously fine when in theory they should be anything but fine.
Self-destructive people are tough, and stubborn about their self-destructiveness especially once they’ve survived their first taste of self-destruction. If every time you try to kill yourself directly or indirectly you’re still alive it can create a certain type of magical thinking which is rather intriguing and fascinating for the person who is thinking that way.
She’s on a journey, an adventure, and it’s the kind which has to be done alone. Her not listening to you or anyone else may be exactly what she needs at this point in her progress along her path. But just because she doesn’t seem to hear doesn’t mean she hasn’t heard.
Your interactions with her are precious to her even if she never lets on that they are. She may be waiting to see how long you continue before you give up on her – that’s the sort of test both Capricorns and self-destructive people put others through (often because they’re used to others giving up when things get tough – they’re looking for someone as tough as they are because then they’ll be able to relax and let their guard down).
re: When speaking with a man from a female standpoint do I ever wonder during or after the conversation what the man is thinking about me?
1 – I think most people wonder what the other person is thinking about them, before, during and after a conversation. It’s a regular component of social interaction and self-awareness. Sometimes it is a main component in an interaction. It varies based on the specific situation, how well you know the other person and their thoughts, and whether this is something important to you or not, whether it is relevant to the scenario, and many other factors.
Mostly in conversations I do not think about myself, therefore I do not think about whether the other person is thinking about me – it’s fairly safe to assume more often than not that if they are thinking about me it’s most likely in the context of them wondering what I’m thinking about them, what impression they’ve made or are making upon me. If they say something which informs me that they are thinking about me (beyond wondering what I’m thinking about them) and it is relevant to the conversation that I become aware of their thoughts about me, then I will address that matter accordingly and investigate it. If nothing occurs to make me wonder what they’re thinking about me then I won’t bother with it as it doesn’t matter. It may matter later on, in which case later on I will wonder about it.
In most cases people make it obvious in one form or another what they’re thinking about you. And people usually don’t think about you as often as you think they do. We sometimes think others think about us more than they actually do because we think about ourselves a lot and thus think others think about us as much as we think about ourselves, but they’re doing what we’re doing which is thinking mostly about themselves, and when they think about us it is usually as a prop in their thoughts about themselves.
2 – Most females get taught at an early age that it is vital for their survival to be aware of what males are thinking about them. Parents tend to teach their daughters that males are predators and that females are often the prey of those male predators. Society, media, and the news tends to back up what parents teach their female children about males. Personal experience of females with males may also back that up.
Males are usually straightforward about their thoughts. They either tell you straight up what they’re thinking, or they make it rather obvious in their speech, tone, attitude, body language, etc. While males are as complex as females, the complexity expresses itself differently. In conversation males tend to be simpler, cutting to the chase – they do not have the same requirement for subterfuge that females do because their societal programming is different.
Age/generation/culture/status is often relevant on both sides of the conversational equation as these factors influence the confluence between people participating in a conversation.
3 – I usually don’t think about myself being female and another person being male unless something makes me think about it. My focus is on one person talking with another. My focus is usually on the situation and conversation – if I’m talking with someone I want to talk about what we’re talking about. I usually avoid talking to people unless I really have to – which means whatever made me talk to someone is where I’m going to focus my attention (it’s a little bit different online, but not as different as I sometimes think it is 😉 ).
4 – if what you’re asking me is do I wonder whether a man finds me physically or otherwise attractive, then no, I don’t tend to think about that unless they make it an issue which they want me to think about.
5 – it very much depends on the individual conversation and on the individuals involved in that individual conversation and all the influences and factors coalescing in that moment.
For instance this reply reflects this moment in time. I might have answered this differently last year, and I might answer it differently next month 🙂
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Thanks so much for your reply and insights quite remarkable!!
First on the Gf comments really liked the analogy I,ll never forget that part about goats -both amusing and poignant.Also the test part you should never have said that because I love being tested and maybe this is a test after all but things are really bad for her she has recently lost on a daily basis all her friends or friends that she thought were friends. I don,t know if she prefers to be on that high plateau alone and content munching away at whatever she finds ignoring my sometimes quiet sometimes noisy communications trying to point her away from danger and showing her a safer place. So thats that,
Second Thanks for your thoughts on speaking with men I printed that off and read it down my local cafe I find your thoughts on things like this so fascinating. I love learning something new! anymore yes, something popped into my head whilst I was reading and again its from a woman’s perspective have you ever experienced emotional blackmail or blackmailed someone inadvertently?
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Thank you 🙂
I watched an amusing and surprisingly clever animated film recently – Inside Out – all about growing up and what goes on inside of us as that happens. There was a part in it about the worlds we create inside of us which sustain us, our sense of self, and our sense of place. At one point, due to a life changing experience, these worlds began to crumble within the main character and the beings inside tried to stop that from happening. What you said about your Gf and losing her friends reminded me of that part of that film.
re: Have I ever experienced emotional blackmail
Yes, it was a constant and consistent factor in my childhood, teenage and young adult environment. It was one of the main tools of interaction which my parents used. It often took the form of:
If you love me then you’ll do this for me, be this for me, say these things which I want to hear, or don’t do this, don’t be this, don’t say what I don’t want to hear… if you don’t do it then it means you don’t love me which means you’re a terrible person.
or
I’ll only love you if…
If you really cared about me you’d…
If only you were as wonderful as this other person then I’d love you and reward you as much as I do them…
It’s all your fault that I feel bad, make me feel better, it’s your fault I’m unhappy, make me happy, it’s all your fault, make amends to me for your faults… but I will never let you, and you will never be allowed to forget what you’ve done to me…
Before you were born my life was rainbows and unicorns, but then you were born and evil entered this magical world turning all the colours to grey…
and so on.
It is a burdensome and extremely tedious manipulation technique. It comes with the added accessories of guilt, shame, blame, anxiety and a plethora of other feel bads. You are made responsible for the emotional blackmailer’s well-being and they rarely if ever get well in their being no matter how many times you pay them off, fulfill the ransom demand, etc. The more you give in to their demands, the more they demand from you. They become dependent upon you for their emotional (and ego) status and your life becomes all about maintaining their status.
While it can feel as though the emotional blackmailer has a lot of power and control, especially over you – they are ultimately powerless people who are terrified of others and of the world around them and who think power and control through emotional blackmail will make them less powerless – while it can give that impression and create that illusion, it actually does the opposite.
Emotional blackmail is a main component of narcissistic personality disorder.
re: Have I ever blackmailed someone inadvertently
I’m guessing you mean have I ever emotionally blackmailed someone rather than been a baddie from a Sherlock Holmes story. Sure I have, I’m human, and it wasn’t always ‘inadvertently’.
Emotional blackmail is a common human mechanism – the media, the government and corporations use it on us all the time to get us to buy things and buy into things. Charities lay it on thick during a fund drive.
As a child I mimicked the relationship methods and communication styles which I was shown by my parents, these were considered the norm by my child mind (the questioning of our childhood norm comes later – my self-destructive tendencies come partly from fighting against the ‘norm’ with which I was indoctrinated), and my parents weren’t the only ones in my environment who used this technique – it’s an intrinsic element of the Italian famiglia, and pretty much all families where controlling its members is important. Even as a child I preferred a more straightforward approach but I kept being punished for that. Grown ups like complications, so a child must learn to be complicated to deal with grown ups (especially if that child doesn’t get to socialise with peers as often as it socialises with adults). I became rather good at being manipulative – something which made both my parents proud of me (for different reasons) and it was very difficult to get them to be proud of me. Had I stuck to the path of manipulation I might have become an accomplished narcissist, but I got derailed along the way and am thankful for that even if it made things harder in many ways.
Emotional blackmail is a fairly common interaction device, and can be seen in the simplest of conversations – can you help me with this task, I’ll owe you one if you do, I’ll think highly of you if you do, I’ll like/love you more if you do. It’s often harmless, used as an incentive, and the pay-off can be beneficial for all concerned.
While I have used it, I tend to shy away from it as often as possible because it’s a complex contract between you and another person and I prefer not to enter into those kinds of contracts. I also try not to do to others what I don’t like others to do to me.
When someone tries to use emotional blackmail on me I tend to react as though I’ve just come into contact with poison ivy – it’s not a nice feeling and it’s going to lead to a world of pain.
I hope you’ll share your reasons for asking these questions, and wanting my answers to them, and maybe also share your answers to these questions 🙂
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thanks again for a brilliant reply, your comments on blackmail I found so interesting I mean that especially that you have at times had to or tried to use it for some gain.The reason or reasons I asked you about this was because in some of your posts/blogs I detected that you had been exposed to some forms of manipulation and wanted to know if this was true and how you dealt with it. When I speak with women ( not all that often) it seems to pop into the conversation that they have been affected by it in some form, I never never know if they want me to feel sorry for them so I do anyway. I ask you questions for many reasons, one is that I you know I have admiration for you ( delete that sentence if you want to I know how you feel about those declarations) but you always give me a sensible complicated answer that I could not get from any woman and that to me is the important part. The women that I know or have known mostly never answer my questions properly – all I want to do is know. As another for instant I just finished a book called the inner ways in which beauty shapes womens lives in choosing this book I wanted to know how women use their looks and why they apply make up- daft thing to want to know possibly! so that led me to ask you whose opinion I respect ( delete again) about emotional blackmail..and the previous question that I asked you about what you are thinking when in a conversation with a man tied in with both subjects.
In my quest to want to know things about women where else can I get these answers that make sense? by the way I,m not a serial woman chatter upper again women just seem to appear in my life more than men oh and I have that Capricorn bit in me which gives me permission to ask you about things, well it does in my book! So I hope you don,t mind.
Now Gf she,s back in prison having violated her parole I,m glad in a way but sad in others here we go again!
Bon week-end
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Thank you for sharing your reasons, it helps to frame the picture and give context 🙂
I’m not really sure that I’m a good template for women in general, there are many things about women which I do not understand no matter how much I investigate it, some things I understand intellectually but not experientially, so my take on being female may steer you in an odd direction. In my formative years the people around me didn’t bother with teaching me about what it meant to be female. I was left to my own devices and didn’t really think about the male/female issue until later on.
Mind you I’m not sure if any woman is a typical woman. They may appear that way outwardly but are they really that way underneath the appearance. I think a lot of women feel pressured to adopt the ways of their female peers but they don’t necessarily agree with them. The discussions which women have about what it means to be a woman can become very heated.
What is nature, natural, what is nurture, what is cultural, what is social pressure and programming?
Why do women wear make up? Why do men shave their faces and keep their hair short? Not all women wear make up, and these days there’s the sans fards movement which celebrates a naked female face. And for men having a beard has become quite a trend, and long hair has become a fashionable option. There was a time when men and women of a certain class wore make up… just the other day I was thinking about how we used to dress a couple of centuries ago and I wondered why we changed. I mean we could still live in modern times and wear the clothes our ancestors used to wear (even if it may not be totally practical). Some countries/cultures do still wear similar clothes to the ones their ancestors wore – why did it change so drastically in other parts of the world.
Looks in nature are used to establish seniority, dominance, to deter a predator, and to attract a mate. Humans may use looks for similar reasons that the animal kingdom does, for status, survival, and attraction, but we’ve also added things which are particular to the human psyche. We use our looks to improve our sense of self, our confidence, our self esteem, to stand out or blend in, to belong, to make a statement about our personality. Humans are visual creatures and use looks to determine who is friend or foe, competition or ally, useful or useless to their own advancement… very much depends on the individual and their personal and personality goals and version of reality. Looks are sometimes used to deceive and to uncover a deception. Societal and cultural standards may influence a person’s use of their looks, their take on the looks of others, and such. For instance smiling has only become in recent times an essential component of looks, and the rise of the smile seems to coincide with the rise in use of photography. If you look at early photos people didn’t smile as much as they do now in photos (that could be because early photos took forever to take). These days you will get judged by the ‘beauty’ and charm of your smile and getting veneers, straightening teeth, fixing a smile to make it ‘picture perfect’ has become a norm. If you have ‘bad teeth’ people will take points off your rating as a person (unless, like me, you give people extra points for rebelling against social trends and keeping it real. I’m a fan of Johnny Depp because I love the fact that he’s kept his teeth real, Same with Kirsten Dunst).
The conversational styles of men and women do seem to differ in objective, motivation and purpose – but is this a natural pattern or one which has simply been absorbed by osmosis, by exposure to beliefs about the purpose of women and that of men handed down from generation to generation with changes made here and there over time (changes which are new rules replacing old ones that have become outdated).
There are countless articles, books and studies discussing the differences (and rarely discussing the similarities). Ones like this – http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/04/01/6-ways-men-and-women-communicate-differently/ – which attempt to give a quick guide to what’s going on in a conversation with a man or a woman.
If you ask a woman a question – she will answer it, but the answer may take a detour through stories of her life, across deserts of bad experiences, through jungles of confusion, sailing on oceans of emotion, interpretive dance may be a feature, and a yes or a no will be hidden within a waterfall of words. To hear a clear answer you must alter your listening style – the listening style is a major factor in the conversational style.
Men tend to answer questions directly, women tend to do so indirectly – hence your view that you’re not getting a ‘proper answer’. The women giving you the not proper answer think they are giving you a proper answer – therein lies the rub! Your preferred listening style prefers a direct answer and thus is not equipped to deal with an indirect answer and gets confused. With women you have to find the direct answer hidden within the indirectness – the indirectness is partly caused by a fear women have of being direct and dealing with a direct reaction to their directness.
If a man a woman does not find attractive asks her to go on a date, rather than straight up say ‘No’ to his face which might upset the ego of the man and cause him to become aggressive towards her (which women have been taught to fear), she tries to appease the ego of the man by indirectly say ‘No’ – this can make for the ‘mixed signals’ which men often state that women give them. She smiled at me and was nice to me which must mean that she likes me but she refused to go out with me. Is she rejecting me or playing hard to get?
Communication is always complicated. When in doubt about what someone means, it’s usually best to own up to not having understood what they said and asking them to explain it more simply for you. People are usually happy to oblige. But I read somewhere that men do not like to admit when they haven’t understood something as they like to impress others with their knowledge and admitting that you haven’t understood someone’s explanation is viewed as an admittance of lack of intelligence (it’s actually, imo, a sign of intelligence to admit when you don’t know something… but *shrugs).
There are certain puzzles which seem to get more puzzling the more we try to figure them out 😉
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Once again thank-you a big thank-you. You have once again given me an insight into things that I wanted to know about. The paragraphs about direct/indirect answers I found so enlightening. You once said somewhere ways back in one of your blogs or answers to a question that the older you get the more unlikely it is to change your mind or views. I would like to say that maybe I am an exception but your posts do alter things in my mind always for the better. As always I have to read what you have said over and over for things to assimilate it takes ages because your writing style is very different from others ( in a good way) I,m not scared to say that I don,t understand something some things that you write I don,t get first time but the undercurrent in my thinking is that you always have something worthwhile reading. merci,
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I was really struggling with my street name 1 day. I’ve only been here 10 years! I was worried that early dementia was creeping in , or should that be dimensia! Problem words such as awkward and squwark. What sort of words are they! And yes confusing American spellings with proper English!. I never had any problems with spelling at 7 years old.
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Ha! I’ve done that! If it is a sign of dementia then that’s been playing Grandmother’s footsteps with me since I was a child. It’s similar to forgetting your own name when someone asks you what it is. A few weeks ago I had to fill out a form for my new doctor and the hardest part is the basic bit, name, address, gender, and phone number… am I supposed to recall those things!?! 😉
There was an interesting video about how our new technology is rewiring our brains – we don’t need to remember things because we have the internet and all our info is stored on a device which remembers things for us.
A film I saw recently had a clip where someone asked a basic question and then forbade anyone from using their mobile phones to look up the answer… silence and headaches ensued.
Words are weird and so are humans 😀
video mentioned above:
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Yeah, I’m telling myself that as I’m getting older and some parts of the brain aren’t doing quite so well, that other parts have been quietly evolving further and I’m just going to switch channels. It’s supposed to be awesome after all..”wink”
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I love that idea of switching channels to the parts which have been quietly evolving! 😀
I’ve been reading a bit about the concept of brain plasticity – there seems to be some argument in the scientific community about whether it’s a thing or not. Basically a bunch of brains are arguing about what brains are made of, so I doubt they’ll ever reach a consensus 😉
I have noticed that the way my mind works has changed with age, I’ve yet to determine whether it works better or worse than it used to as it’s always been a mess, it’s definitely more Zen about whatever it is doing.
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It’s definitely been proven with stroke victims with large areas of their brains damaged, have been able to rewire and use previously underused areas of the brain.
I have seen a fascinating show on t.v where some young stroke victims radically changed their personalities after a large stroke.
Study of the brain’s capabilities is still in its infancy. Cheers!
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Hahaha. 🙂 Great piece. I was raised in a bilingual household and learned to speak two languages badly – that is until my mother insisted that I learn English. I still mix things up, though. And even after many years ( my French is now drooping and I stumble and stagger, sometimes terribly) I can confuse spellings and even pronounciations. As an adult, I added German to the mix, just so that I wouldn’t get bored. 😉
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Thank you 🙂
Ha! While it can create added problems in communications, knowing more languages offers the opportunity to be more expressive.
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