About Words and Common Ground
Post 703:
There’s a movie that initially failed to find its way through the blockade of everything else that comes across my desk on a daily basis. It’s called The Professor and the Madman, and though it failed to find favor with critics, perhaps for good reason, I thought the subject matter alone warranted a look. It’s a movie based on a book about fashioning a book from all the books in order to consolidate every English word ever. Yes, a film about making a dictionary. Rousing stuff? Well, I love words, so I basically had no choice in the matter.
It stars some people from Braveheart and some other people from Game of Thrones, plus some other people. Really, a great cast. And while it might not be gripping from end to end, there are solid performances and an underlying theme of forgiveness and the pain of redemption that I found fascinating.
Truthfully, this isn’t for everyone, and that’s okay. We’re all compelled by different stories. Whatever the narrative, though, it needs a struggle or goal, and it’s hard to imagine a more insoluble problem than creating a dictionary that contains every word ever spoken in a language, tracing each definition back through time, seeing where they came from, the changes and permutations, the different effects of disparate dialects… it’s a task so ridiculously herculean, I couldn’t help being drawn in.
The dedication to produce such a work is obviously daunting in a way that is almost impossible to circumscribe, and I had to ask myself, why do it at all? Well, if you’ve ever used a dictionary in your life, I guess that’s the reason. Here’s an example: These dudes take a word like “art” and set themselves to finding where it came from. Not only that, they have to figure out its uses throughout the centuries, leading all the way up to the present. They aren’t content to skip over a century or two, so they basically have to read everything. Ever. One or two folks ain’t gonna get the job done, so they enlist the public to help.
Enter one of the central characters, locked up in an asylum for killing a man while in the throes of acute paranoia. I’m not sure how close to the actual story this is, but there must be at least some truth in it. Anyway, asylum guy isn’t faking it; he’s got real mental problems. Bottled away in his head alongside the delusions and the fear, there’s also a voluminous knowledge of language. He helps spur the project along. In fact, it gives him something to cling to while he struggles to find sanity. We’re talking about someone who definitely opted for books and poetry over Netflix, and though they didn’t have Netflix in the 19th century, you get the point.
Perhaps it’s overly romanticized, but I love the love shown for words. It’s pointed out that codifying a language isn’t simply about shoving a bunch of definitions onto a page. In tracing back the origins of English, they feel they are on a quest to describe the evolution of meaning itself.
Words are powerful things. The movie shows us that they have the power to mend seemingly irreparable fences and to bring people together that otherwise would have nothing to do with each other. Language is common ground, a room where we can meet and understand the other guy, despite nation or creed. It’s magic stuff, as far as I’m concerned. And though sometimes I long for days when we could just point and grunt, one has to admit that life is made infinitely richer with the ability to express ourselves and have someone else take our meaning.
This isn’t a recommendation, but if you are interested in the history of how we describe the world, you might consider giving it a go. That’s my last word on the matter.
Cheers and see you after.
