Numbers… The Alphabet… These are things that keep us organized. These are the things that keep us in order. Order means many different things to us as humans. Like alphabetical order, the way we are introduced in a roster, or when we are called across the stage to get our diploma. Numerical order as well, the way the numbers are placed on pages in a book, or in hotels on plaques for room numbers (it bugs me like crazy when they don’t go in order on one side of the hallway). The first place you really learn about the alphabet and numbers are at school, and maybe even your parents as well. I’ve never put thought into this, but we’ve dealt with numbers and the alphabet our whole lives if you think about it. You have to deal with numbers with age and the date when you must date something, like a check. You have to deal with the alphabet when you write your name, and when you write a simple word.
When I went to look up Numerical and Alphabetical up in the Bedford, it’s not there. I suppose it wouldn’t be, but as I was flipping through, I noticed that just like any dictionary, the Bedford is in alphabetical order. When went into the look up the word Order, is wasn’t in there, so I looked up similar words to order. I came across one, structure. According to the Bedford, “Often equated with form, the arrangement in a work, that is, the ordering of its component parts or the design devised by the author to convey content and meaning.” (Bedford, 426) There are many things that are connected to the word structure. The Bedford mentions that structure can be used in a Poem, in the arrangement of images or ideas, in a play, it can also be shown in novels. For me, structure reminds me of organization, order of things. When I think of arrangement, I think of a center piece for Christmas time on a table. “Oh, that’s a nice arrangement there.” Structure, for me, reminds me of when someone comments on my papers in the past from High School. “You have a great structure, and you’ve built off of it.”
One thing that I found interesting when I was reading through the structure definition,
“Some critics such as those associated with the Chicago school, have distinguished between structure and form, arguing that form is the emotional force or shaping principle that gives rise to the mechanics of structure…Other critics, particularly the New Critics, have distinguished between structure and texture…structure to refer to the general intellectual content of a poem, that is, whatever can be paraphrased, and texture to refer to the surface details of a work, such as imagery, meter, and rhyme.” (Bedford, 426-427)
This is interesting to me because there are people who see a different meaning to the word Structure. It’s going back to my other blog posts where I’ve mentioned point of view. It all depends on how you view things. Structure reminds me of a foundation. A foundation that you start off with and work your way up the ladder of writing a paper, a poem, a book, or even a blog post. You start off with an idea (your foundation), and then you do some research, either by looking things up, or flipping through a couple of books. Your research will be the branches, and the walls to build off of that foundation.
Structure for me as well can be seen as an organization word. You need a good structure to organize anything, especially heavy things. I feel like too, that you need to have structure in life. For me, structure is what you want to do in your life. “Well do you have any structure?” Being structured in life, you have your whole life planned out, you know exactly what you want to do, and if that doesn’t work you, you have the whole alphabet, in order, worked up with plans. You go day by day, going by what your planner, or your phone calendar tells you; you’re structured.