The magic of spelling

It's interesting to see how much the written word has become ingrained as part of our spoken language - we talk about people dropping their gs from words like going and something (even though technically speaking, people who pronounce those words 'properly' aren't even making a g sound) and we look to the written word to see if words count as "real words" despite using them in everyday speech. Just play a game of Scrabble and try to put down emo or temp (as in a temporary office employee) - The look of indignation on the other player's faces will show you how strongly people feel about the written word. 

It's hard to believe that in Ye Olde times (that's the official term for that era, by the way) it was the majority of the population that couldn't read or write, and so the few who could actually read and write were seen to have magical powers. The word grammar actually has the same word origin as glamour for this reason; glamour meant "magical spell" before moving to meaning it has today. From a Ye Olde regular person's perspective, it's understandable- People who could read were able to speak words that may not have been uttered for years, and had access to a heap of information that regular people couldn't. For most people, this would have meant that they potential had access to spells and witchery.

However, up until fairly recently, those who could read at that time may not have been able to spell - well, not by our standards anyway. It was common to see a word being spelt a number of ways - even in the same passage written by the same person. Before we could all just Ctrl+J in Microsoft Word to justify text, people would just change an i to a y or add another s or two at the end of words. 

I guess Scrabble would have been so much easier in Ye Olde times.

no thanks

Yeah, I know - there's been a lack of updates. I've been a little preoccupied with working and preparing to move to Japan, so blogging about linguistics has been pretty low on the list at the moment, but hopefully I find the time to update this a little more frequently once I move and get settled.

One thing I'm really paranoid about is unintentionally offending someone - you always hear things about Japanese people being super polite and formal. And, being Australian (who are apparently super-informal), there's bound to be some issues. It did make me wonder though, are Japanese people really polite? And are Australians really that informal?

This would be where I normally incorporate the definition of politeness, but I'll spare you the linguistics lesson. The point is, different cultures show politeness in a number of ways. For Australians, being formal is seen as being a bit standoffish and aloof, so to be polite, we try to treat people as we would our close friends - and so we get away with asking strangers about the weekend (even though we don't care) calling Uni lecturers and Doctors by their first name rather than their title. Japan on the other hand, is about maintaining traditions and a social hierarchy, so politeness can involve showing that you are aware that people are higher on the social ladder than you by being formal, and using their titles rather than their first names.

So long(ish) story short(er), Australians aren't that impolite, and Japanese people aren't that polite, it's just that different cultures have different ways of showing  it. It's all relative I guess - I spoke to  someone originally from India who was surprised how formal everyone was when she first arrived in Australia, since everyone, including people she considered friends,  said 'thanks' for anything. Coming from India, 'thanks' was never said to friends - it wasn't considered necessary for someone that the person knew well, and friends saying it was like a slap in the face - in India, it would've shown formality and a lack of friendship. From an outsider's perspective, she would've been considered rude for never saying 'thank you' for anything as well.

I guess I can only keep an open mind and hope other people do as well when I inevitably offend someone unintentionally. But if they don't, I guess it gives me something else to blog about I guess.