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Some things are best left unsaid.

To be more precise, all things are best left unsaid – because they cannot be said. Or, at least, cannot be said with any accuracy.

It quite possible that already you have no idea what I’m on about, and are still scratching your head over the paradox in the title of this post.

Bear with me; while this is about to get a little more conceptual it will, eventually, end up in the real world and daily life. Indeed, it is about the very stuff of daily life: words.

That’s how we manage to connect with our fellow human beings. Common sense, right? As plain as the nose on your face. (Why is he going on about this? And why doesn’t he get to the point?).

Well, in truth, I’m putting off using the next word, which was supposed to be  the next word at the beginning of the previous paragraph, but I got cold feet. It’s too intimidating.  And I don’t want you to think I’m pretentious. Because the next word was to have been…

Wittgenstein.

See? That’s completely shifted the tone, hasn’t it? It’s gone all philosophical now. I don’t want you to think that I’m underestimating people, but 50% of those who made it this far have now clicked to another website.

Or maybe they haven’t, because I challenged them not to by saying that they would in that previous sentence. (But now I’ve pointed that out, they’ve rumbled me, seen that they’re being manipulated, and have moved on. Or not).

All this will make sense. I promise.

In 1921, Ludwig Wittgenstein published his magnum opus, Tractacus Logico-Philosophicus and then spent the next 30 years trying to explain  it’s seven core propositions, such as: The general form of a truth-function is [p, ξ, N(ξ)]

That’s why University professors have tenure. Explaining that previous sentence is a lifetime’s work. Think of it as a philosophical annuity stream.

He died (in 1951) before his next book was published (“Philosophical Investigations”1953). In that book, he came out with an extraordinary premise, which philosophers have been arguing about ever since. The reason why Tractacus – indeed, all modern philosophy – was so hard  to understand was due to a fundamental flaw in the tools of the job; namely, language.

Language, he postulates, is context dependent. The words we use accumulate meaning, forming concepts which he likens to ropes, woven together from multiple strands. Some of those stands may be of different colour, texture, content than the majority, but they can still be gathered under a single linguisitic umbrella.

Take these concepts out of context, and they become meaningless.

Philosophers are supposed to solve problems like ‘truth’. But is this legal truth, ethical truth, mathematical truth or religious truth? Philosophy then finds itself reduced to a series of word games that play with terms like ‘meaning’, while, in turn, rendering them meaningless.

“Ah-ha!” says Wittgenstein. “This is the wrong type of game. It’s not word games we should be focusing on, but a higher order of game. Language games.”

These are games in which individual meanings of words, phrases or propositions are a set of informal rules – a consensus – adopted in and by certain players who enter the game. That may be an elite group or it may be everyone.

To give a simple example: ‘memory’. Take a moment to think of that concept and what it means for you.

Now consider what you have just been thinking about in the context of the following related concepts: psychology; computer; funeral. Different language games, different set of associations, different meaning.

The difficulty comes when the game changes, and you don’t know that it’s been changed.

Try these terms: ‘compliance”, “discipline”, “tradition”, “childhood”. Pretty straightforward to define. Except, in educational circles they carry very specific, technical meaning. So you can listen to a conversation on the Today programme that you think you understand, but actually you are completely detached because you don’t know the rules of the game being played.

More to the point, neither does the interviewer.

Fred Inglis, Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies at Sheffield University, highlights this in his new book ‘Key Concepts in Education“. For example, “Skill” may sound like a good, positive term:  for a while the DoE was the Department of Education and Skills, before being split into the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Department for Innovation, University and Skills.

(Already, you can see the language game being shifted just by changing the scope of the departments).

But, Inglis argues, in this particular language game ‘Skills’ focuses on the acquisition of techniques, rather than the development of craft or the outcome of achievement. It omits the length of time it takes to learn, apply and master those techniques. So two people can have a debate about Skills – ‘up-skilling’, ‘re-skilling’ – and actually be talking about very different problems and solutions.

Why does this matter? I think it matters for two reasons:

First – as I have mentioned on previous Blogs -  we are becoming increasingly lazy in our use of language, surrendering much of public discourse to commercial agendas (different language games), and devaluing the currency of communication;

Secondly, because the greater our awareness of language games, the more sensitive we will be about the agenda of a conversation, and the fact that there is an agenda at all. In all conversations, no matter how innocuous.

And the greater the awareness, the greater the understanding of the dissonance between what ‘they’ mean and what we hear.

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Direct Line sent me a gift yesterday. Or rather, it didn’t.

The size of a chequebook, it’s full of pictures of things I can insure (a ‘fridge, a car, a pet) with my name on each: ‘Paul’ integrated into the photos as if it were actually on the item. It’s a very clever piece of digital printing.

And on the first page, they thank me for choosing them again, and as a token of appreciation here’s this ‘handy booklet in which you’ll find our gift to you’:

“Discounts across their range of products”.

That’s not a gift; that’s an offer. Putting aside the legal difference , what really irritates about this hand-tooled, finely-wrought piece of marketing nonsense is the blatant abuse of meaning.

When I give a gift (see; use of the word give is a clue), it doesn’t come with conditions. I don’t expect the recipient to have to give me something back so that they can realise the value.

“Happy Christmas, son. Here are some batteries. Given me £150 and I’ll let you have the remote control car to go with them.”

That’s a deal, an exchange, a contract, a bargain, a sale. It’s not a gift.

Interesting to note that there is some precise language on that first page: ‘we’re giving you this handy booklet in which you’ll find our gift to you’ (my italics). So, the company is clear that the  booklet isn’t the gift. There is nothing tangible here. Indeed, the only way of realizing the ‘gift’ is to make another purchase.

Which means that not only is this a jaw-tensing abuse of  language, it’s also a lie. They are not making me a gift at all. They’re making a promise of a gift if I make another transaction.

With wobbling bottom lip he recounts: “My present was under the tree. I was so excited, I tore off the paper, and found that the box was empty, save for an IOU.”

Thank you, Direct Line.

CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION

While we’re here, at the first virtual meeting of “Pedants’ Anonymous”, have you noticed how the word celebrate has changed its meaning?

You probably grew up thinking that celebrate meant to mark an achievement or a milestone of some sort; a marriage, a coming-of-age, exam results, a sporting success.

Not any longer. Now we’re being offered the chance to celebrate the release of a DVD.

Celebrate now means plug.

But again, take a moment to unpack the sentence in which it appears on your local radio station: “We’re giving you the chance to celebrate the release of ‘Now That’s What I Call High School Musical 58′ with our fun competition / ‘phone-in / organ donation scheme / whatever.”

Oh THANKS. You’re giving me the opportunity to mark the fact that I can now buy something from you. Truly, I am blessed.

Look – I know that I sound like a grumpy old man on this. That’s because I am. And I am, because it matters.

Language defines us. Along with opposable thumb, it puts space between us and pondlife. As a friend recently posted on his Facebook wall: “We do not describe the world we see; we see the world we describe”.

Language is the toolkit with which we make the world. The greater our vocabulary, the greater the granularity with which we can see and understand. The meaning of words matters because they give common currency with which to share understanding.

And if we let words like gift and celebrate get hijacked and subliminally redefined without even noting that it’s happening, we’ll be much the poorer for it.

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