Digitally disembodied
You are reading this on the Internet, so you have probably developed some level of digitally-enabled “ambient awareness” – a constantly-updated sense of what’s happening near and far. The Internet can extend our senses around the world, even if it’s just getting the latest snaps from family and friends.
In an excellent article in the New York Times, Clive Thompson talked about the cumulative effect of social media updates: “the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives.”
That’s the upside. The downside is that constantly looking at screens can cut you off from your other senses.
Faith, language, and science. Each has its own incantations — words that carry the weight of mystery, pointing beyond themselves to something immense. “Viking, North Utsire…” or “Isua Greenstone Belt” — they open a window to worlds far from sight but close to wonder.
Learning a language is not just about rules and labels. It’s about paying attention, learning to spot patterns and feeling how words behave. Grammar becomes interesting and relevant when it no longer seems like a set of abstract terms, but a way of noticing.
How do we use phrases without being aware of the literal meaning of the elements that comprise them?
Native fluency, basic rules of grammar and deep grammatical knowledge are quite different things.
The question "What to teach them?" has evolved into "What will we learn together?" And that, I've learned, makes all the difference.
We choose our language like we choose our clothes — not just for their basic function, but for how we want to feel in them.
Language will find its own way - or rather, people will find their own ways to use the amazing sounds that we humans create.
I used to be a language Nazi: bristling at incorrect usage and correcting people willy-nilly - even family members - until …
English spelling is at best a rough guide to pronunciation rather than an authoritative hard and fast reference.
