The Manslater

English is such a delightfully complicated language.  There are the seven principle parts of speech--nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.  There are verb tenses, pronoun cases, verbals.  Synonyms, antonyms, homonyms.  Similes, metaphors, hyperbole, euphemisms, malapropisms, idioms...and we haven't even gotten into literary terminology yet.  This list goes on.  And, fortunately for me, I understand it all because I taught it all.  But there are others, fluent in the language, who don't always pick up on the little nuances of English and have to learn it the hard way.

I have discovered that there are groups of these people:
 
*Children obviously don't always get it because they lack vocabulary and experience.  That changes with age.

*Hearing impaired/deaf people don't always get it because American Sign Language only has so many signs, and each sign represents a concept.  For example, there is one sign for "father".  That indicates a relationship...nothing more.  "Dad", "Daddy", "Papa", "Pop", etc., do not translate without spelling out the word, and these words indicate a closer relationship than mere "father".  I once attended a comedy club with a group of friends that included a deaf woman who brought her own interpreter.  The raunchy comedian was using double-entendre by referring to a tennis player's "balls".  How does one interpret that in sign language?  If the interpreter signed for the real meaning of "balls", she would think of tennis balls, and there would be no joke.  If he signed for "testicles"--which was what the comedian was referring to--the joke wouldn't have been funny.  Before the comedian was done, I watched the interpreter just put his hands in his lap and give up.

*Autistic people don't always get it.  Like the deaf, they take things quite literally, so using idiomatic expressions with them is an exercise in futility.  Those who deal with them every day understand this.  The rest of us catch on, in time.  I had a special ed. class in my Media Center one time.  I was trying to give instructions to a very bright autistic student, but I wasn't getting through.  I looked at his teacher and said, "Can you help me out here?  I'm hitting a brick wall."  The student's quick response was, "No you're not.  You're just standing there."  How right he was!

*People with dementia, who USED to get it, begin to struggle with it.  My sister and I used to be able to slaughter English for fun by saying things like, "He's got the heeby-jeebies".  We can't do that anymore because her husband, with dementia, gets frustrated because he no longer understands that kind of thing.

*Foreigners--people who speak English as a second language--sometimes don't get it because their own languages don't have the little tweaks in vocabulary that change the meanings of things, or because they lack experience.

My son-in-law, The Russian, is one of the latter.  For sure, Denis is fluent in English and does very well in the U.S.  Still, he has some foibles.  We laughed when he referred to his toes as "fingers".  We laughed when he yelled out, "Look! A bear!" when a raccoon crossed the road in front of the car.  We got tickled trying to teach him to say "hippopotamus".  (No matter how hard he tried, it kept coming out as "hippo-puh-thomas".)  Still, he doesn't mind being corrected--in fact, claims that he wants to be--so I'm in my element when attempting to explain the little connotations and denotations of the English language.  But there is nothing to explain the perverse ways Americans communicate with each other.  Denis suffers from this.

For example, a wife may say to a husband, "Is that what you are wearing to the party?"  A man (like Denis) takes the question literally and at face value.  The answer might be "Yes."  Then the wife goes off on him, indicating (in so many words) that she does not approve of his wardrobe choice and would not be caught dead in public with him wearing what he has on.  Denis claims that it would be so much simpler if the wife said, "Please change into something more acceptable before we leave for the party". 

And apparently Denis isn't the only man who feels this way.  Sometime ago, Saturday Night Live aired a spoof ad selling a hand-held device called a Manslater, which translated a woman's words into what she REALLY means when she speaks.  Denis swears if such a thing really existed, he would buy it!  (But he also sometimes jokingly takes his Manslater out of his pocket to translate what my daughter is saying.)  It has made me aware of the intentions behind what we say.  I'm better than most, but I'm guilty, also!!  When I call Megan on it, then I do it, she calls me on it, too!

When I was a married lady, my husband and I would be on a trip somewhere.  I would ask, "Are you hungry?"  He would respond, "No"...and we'd keep driving.  When I asked the question, my message really was, "I'm hungry.  Let's stop somewhere."  So simple.  Why couldn't I have just said that to begin with??

We Americans have a lot to learn about communication.  Keep It Simple, Stupid.  (KISS)  Not everyone gets what we mean when we try to say what we feel.  If you don't have a Manslater, good luck with getting your needs met without a fight!