McCoy 203 Fall 2019 – Page 8

September 23, 2019September 23, 2019 by Hannah Smith - No Comments

Categorization in Society

Recently, we discussed the categorization of books into genres and characters into boxes. In particular, we discussed the categorization of Vlepo in Percival Evertt’s novel Frenzy. In my group, Sara, in discussing who Vlepo was, stumbled through pronouns until finally landing on “it.” This got me thinking about how, in society, we tend to try to force people into boxes. According to BC Campus, in doing so, it makes our lives easier. They stated that the benefit of categorization is that we don’t have to take the time to get to know a person before deciding who they are. Although this reasoning is sound, I disagree. I believe that in categorizing someone, we are making assumptions about someone based on their gender or race. This to me just seems to state that every white girl is the same, which is not true. Not every white girl wears UGGs and drinks pumpkin spice lattes, but also people who don’t fit the category of a white girl can enjoy these things. The article also mentions that it can be dangerous to group people of outgroups together, but I don’t see the benefit in any circumstance.

If we assume that people who look the same identify in the same way, we can not only look foolish, but we can also offend people. Although this next example was a meme a few years ago, we can assume people’s gender. In doing so, you can use the wrong pronouns and make people uncomfortable and upset. Things like this could very easily be fixed if we just took the time to ask people what their pronouns instead of assuming. This is just one of many ways we can offend by categorizing people as we do with books and characters.

We can also offend people by assuming correctly. Hear me out on this one. I am a straight, white, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, female. With these details of me, you are probably picturing a basic white girl. Now this assumption of me is true. I do consider myself to be basic, but I don’t want to be called that. I don’t want to be generalized into a category because there is so much more to me than Starbucks and UGGs. Other people feel the same way. In a video on youtube, Daniel Howell came out as queer. In this video, he discussed many things. One of the things he discussed is how as a kid people called him gay, which he later discovered to be true. He went on to discuss how people continued to try to guess his sexuality up until that point. Dan told his followers that, even though they were right in their assumption that he was not straight, he did not like people guessing in the comments nor did he want people who guessed right to say “we knew” when they found out. Although Dan’s experience is not on the same level as mine, the concept of people labeling you behind your back, even if it’s correct, is unnerving.

Tying this back to class, Professor McCoy discussed how categorization is a part of life. I recall Professor McCoy mentioning how categorizing makes things easier for us to understand. I see where she is coming from with this. If you categorize something, it takes the mystery out of it. For example, with books, many people like certain genres over others. Personally, I don’t like historical fiction as much as I like realistic fiction or fantasy. So when Lauren told me to read The Book Thief, I mentally decided that, no matter what she said about the book, I won’t be interested. It was through this categorization that I rode off what might be the best book ever. You can see the damage this can do if this is done with people.

Bringing this back to where it all started, Sara’s struggle to put Vlepo in a box shows how as humans we are constantly trying to categorize things. Some things are harder than others, but when it comes to people, we should try to avoid making assumptions. Making assumptions, even if they are true, can be hurtful. So next time you meet someone, try to block out your judgemental subconscious and ask questions. Let people tell you the facts about them instead of coming up with your own work of fiction. And you know what they say about when you assume. I’ll let you fill in that one yourself.

September 18, 2019September 19, 2019 by Isaac Schiller - No Comments

Bakkaspect

Dionysus is multifaceted, and therefore cannot be defined by a single name or culture. He is, as said by Percival Everett, “NOT [HIMSELF] TODAY.” Continue reading “Bakkaspect”

September 18, 2019 by Leila Sassouni - No Comments

Interpretation is in the Eyes of the Individual

Quite frequently, I doubt myself. I question my interpretations of a text, and I also compare my thoughts to others which leads me to doubt my abilities as a writer and a thinker.

Upon embarking on Professor McCoy’s English 203, I prematurely read through the class syllabus. While I read through the syllabus for a class I had yet to even experience, I came across McCoy’s message to sign up for a so-called English department account. After my first failed attempt at thoroughly reading her directions in order to make this account, I emailed her. This uncertainty was likely a misunderstanding on my end rather than a miscommunication on Professor McCoy’s side. Through our various email correspondences, Professor McCoy helped me arrive at the conclusion through Percival Everett’s quote that “it’s incredible that a sentence is ever understood” (Erasure). In life, there are times where ideas, statements, and general knowledge can be so easily misinterpreted. This misunderstanding can lead to my own self-doubt, which is unnecessary as there are various pathways of interpretation.

The combined idea of self-doubt and misinterpretation can be very easily applied to the meme of the “Suspicious Pants”, posted on Twitter by an account entitled “You Had One Job”. Upon first glance, I simply saw a pair of pants upside down with its pockets facing down. However, through both class and group discussions, I dug deeper and landed upon various, interesting interpretations. With the combination of all ideas, my class and I identified a creepy face, an Annoying Orange, a pair of pants suspicious of us, and a face with scissor lips.

Each of these thoughts range in their creativity. We can either give the pants a personality and assume that this clothing item is suspicious of its viewers, or we can assume that we are the ones meant to be suspicious of a pair of pants. We can either see a face with its black button eyes and stapled smile, or we can see the Annoying Orange’s face.

As I sit down now to do this blog post assignment, my eyes are drawn once again to the epigraph. The account’s title catches my eyes and I note a distinct juxtaposition. There is an identified difference between understanding who the individual is in saying that such person had one job. I cannot tell if the pair of pants had one job, or if I personally failed to execute my job in properly interpreting this item.

The beauty of interpretation is that there is no final answer; interpretation is in the eyes of the individual.

So frequently, I feel that my opinion is wrong or that I am reading a text improperly. This feeling has become more evident for me through class discussions of Frenzy. While I uncover bits and pieces of information that I assume are valuable, my fellow peers somehow dig even deeper and land upon ideas I have never thought of. During my group’s in-class discussion, I wondered who Hera was and what her motives were to freeze Semele. Hera is said to have “touched the frozen beauty of Semele’s face”, which I could not understand (Everett 13). I thought she was simply manipulative and that she just did not favor Semele. However, through group discussion, my peers informed me that Hera essentially wanted to hurt anyone who came into contact with Dionysus. While during our class time I felt somewhat discouraged, for this assignment I feel the ability to be more open-minded.

In applying the idea of open interpretation to my job as a student in class this semester, I need to remind myself that there is no such thing as being wrong. I need to stop myself from accumulating any feelings of self-doubt. Just as our class’s pronunciation of the word “elementary” shows, there is no correct answer. While I may pronounce this term as being “try”, a peer of mine can pronounce the phrase as being “ta-ary”. Neither of these is wrong, but it is because we are told neither of these answers is wrong. We are not bound by a set of rules that guide us in a correct direction. Each of our responses are solely dependent on our upbringing and hometown.

In this course, rather than compare my responses to the various ways other students respond to questions and readings, I will analyze my own work and develop each idea. The quality and value of my statement or point is most significant. Following these ideas will help me become stronger as a writer both in this course and as an evaluator of work.

September 17, 2019September 18, 2019 by Elizabeth Roos - No Comments

Humorous and Dramatic Irony

The interesting thing about irony for me is that real irony is far more sincere than earnestness. To accept the absurdity of a situation is to accept the humanness of it. Utter sincerity suggests a kind of belief that one knows all there is to know about a given circumstance. That is not to say that one should ever make light of serious and grave and important issues, but that open and genuine intellectual curiosity should never be a casualty in any situation. Irony is not always funny. Humor is not always ironic. — “Coming Home from Irony: An Interview with Percival Everett, Author of So Much Blue”

When looking at choosing an epigraph to base my blog post on, the question of sincerity and accepting the humanness of a situation is what caught my eye in this particular circumstance. The idea that Percival Everett puts forth—about whether or not it is more sincere to be ironic than earnest in a situation—deals majorly with the concept of humor, and deciding if something is appropriate in a given situation. Of course, deciding if something is appropriate depends on that specific situation, but Everett’s argument remains: “That is not to say that one should ever make light of serious and grave and important issues, but that open and genuine intellectual curiosity should never be a casualty in any situation.” Is that true, however? Should we embrace irony in any situation, because of its open and genuine intellectual curiosity?

In my own first few weeks of English 203, irony seems to have found a comfortable place in our own classroom discussions. It is a common part of conversation, something a lot of us revert to and pick up on as a way to diffuse tension, and create connections with our peers. As an aspect of humor, this is to be expected. And this irony is not unwelcomed. At no point, as far as my observations can tell, has anyone made light of a situation through irony that has seemed inappropriate or distasteful—and we have covered a handful of serious, grave, and important issues already. Going forward, I would like to pay more attention to the use of irony in our class, maybe as a sort of experiment—but I digress.

To return to my own question: should we embrace irony in any situation, and should it never be a casualty, as Everett says? Regardless of whether or not we should, I believe that it’s true that there will always be those who will send an angry glare in the direction of the one who makes the ironic joke during a grave situation. With that aside, before I answer this question, I’d first like to try and define what Everett means by “casualty.” Does he mean that the use of irony in a conversation causes the end of the conversation itself? Or does he mean that the irony itself is the casualty? For the purpose of this post, I am going to agree with the former.

The reason that Everett gives for why irony should be embraced, and what drew my attention to this epigraph in the first place, is that irony is more sincere than earnestness. That “to accept the absurdity of a situation is to accept the humanness of it.” Once again, this sort of belief is very situational. For one to be earnest in this way, there must be an absurdity to identify first. But that seems obvious. At this point, I’d like to look to one of the texts that we have been studying in class. In Frenzy, by Percival Everett, the god Dionysos seems to utilize irony frequently. In fact, throughout the novel his tone seems to be majorly based around the concept of irony. Either that, or some similar form of blasé humor.

“Still, there is something missing. I think the true cell of a god is conceit,” says Dionysos on page eleven of Frenzy. There are a multitude of moments in the novel where Dionysos makes observations such as this—many times when he is examining his own existence. The true irony, an irony that doesn’t quite catch up with the humorous kind, I believe, is that while Dionysos is seen as the god of frenzy and experience, he is prevented by his own divinity from experiencing full sensation—a fact that this quote supports, as Dionysos goes on to use Vlepo to try and gain that full experience, seemingly to no avail.

At this point, I’d like to differentiate two different varieties of irony that I can observe. There is the humorous, intellectual kind of humor that Everett talks about in the epigraph above, and there is the dramatic irony, the kind of irony when one examines the existence of Dionysos in Frenzy. The kind of irony that is the product of a sequence of events and apparent misfortune that pertains more to one’s empathy than to a sense of humor. In the end, Everett engages in both—but it seems that it may be more acceptable to play upon that light, humorous irony than the dramatic in conversation.

In this blog post I’ve engaged an amalgamation of ideas—Everett’s idea that irony is perhaps more sincere that earnestness, whether or not it is appropriate to embrace irony in any situation because of its open and genuine intellectual curiosity, and the potential difference between humorous and dramatic irony. In the end, I believe it comes down to a matter of opinion , whether or not irony is appropriate in a situation. As for my opinion—I recognize the sincerity of it. So on that end, I agree with Percival Everett.

September 17, 2019September 17, 2019 by Shelagh Neeley - No Comments

The One That Got Away

To some, the one that got away can be referenced to relationships, and the person that someone broke up with, or a relationship that they didn’t notice was going downhill. Or that statement could be talking about the number one; the one that got away. The way that I discovered this book was when we were determining on if certain book(s) we were given were novels or not. Our class was split into 4 groups, and each group was given a book(s), after a couple minutes passed of us talking in our groups, we passed the book(s) on. On the last turn, my group got the book “The One That Got Away” by Percival Everett, and illustrated by Dirk Zimmer. My first impression of this book was that it was cringe, but it was funny at the same time. It humored me that the title was, to me, two faced. You could view this title in a math form, or in the way that some may view it as, relationships.

I immediately held up the book to my group, and started reading, all eyes on me; it was not nerve-wracking at all; I quite enjoyed it. On first starting the book, my I was impressed, it’s a definite child’s book, that is quite adorable. The book is about a group of Wild Westerners, who are herding the number one’s like cattle, horses, or however you choose to view them. The group caught quite a big one, and they decided to go look for more, the group looked everywhere they could possibly look. The group then comes across a herd of one’s, and “They rode into the herd and threw hoolies over one, then another, until they had captured many. They put the new ones in the coral with the first one.” (Everett, 12-13) The group then went to sleep for the night. When they woke up, the men counted the one’s they caught, and noticed one was missing, one ESCAPED! So, they left their camp, and went out to look for the One that had escaped. They eventually did find the one, a top a mountain. They get into quite a pickle though, there’s a piece of stair missing. They must find the part of stairs that is missing. They do, they find it in a well, how conveniently placed! The group goes back up, and places the stair, continuing their journey up. They get to the top, finally, and find NOTHING. They then head home, discussing on how many one’s they have, eight in total. “But when they reached the coral… they had not a single one.” (Everett, 31-32) At the end of the book, there was no single one, they all combined together, since there was eight. But, in the beginning, there was 9, so, hence the title, the one that got away. If you look at how many one’s they had in total, and look at it in a math perspective, there had 8 one’s, in the one’s place.

On the relationship spectrum, the saying “She’s/He’s the one that got away” is stated a lot. I’ve even said this myself. According to urban dictionary, the one that got away means, “A person who you were originally supposed to end up with but due to a cause of fate or by consequences caused by you, the relationship failed. As time goes by, you wonder what you and that person could have been, making them the one that got away.” There’s also a song by Katy Perry, that is called “The One That Got Away”. She sings about how she met a guy during the summer after high school, they hung out most of the summer. But, at the end of the Summer, they would have to split ways, he was the one that got away due to School having to start up again, or him going off to college. In the end, the quote, “The one that got away” can be interpreted in multiple ways. Whether you are a math person, and you look into the quote as the number one got away. Or, you look at it from a relationship perspective, and look into the quote as a person got away from the relationship. If you are the one that got away, or if your significant other got away, don’t dwell on it. The relationship wasn’t meant to happen in this life, and it didn’t happen for a reason. A reason to protect you in some way. It will happen in another life. Accept that it won’t happen, and move on. Find someone who will treat you the way you should be treated. You don’t need someone right now, you have time. As stated in the movies, Transylvania, you have time to find your zing. Whether that is days, weeks, months, or years; you will find your zing.

September 17, 2019 by Amanda Neri - No Comments

Interpretation

After looking back at the course epigraphs, we looked at in class on the first day, I found myself keep going back to the suspicious pants. The pants just caught my attention, I was kind of confused on why we were talking about pants on the first day of classes, but I didn’t worry about that. I soon realized that the pants just have so many meanings to them, there is not one specific meaning because it’s how you look at them and how you intercept the meaning. The pants make me think of all different ways that they could be suspicious, for example at first, I interpreted them as being suspicious of the reader. I know in class when we were going over the different interpretations someone said something the pants looks like they have a mouth and the belt loops are the mouth being sewed shut. There are just so many interpretations and so many ways to see one thing. When I start to look at the tweet more it’s starting to become eye opening. I start to realize certain details that might not have been noticeable at first or might not even have any meaning towards anything. I began to notice little things like the time and date of the tweet or even the account name which is @_youhadonejob1. That put things in a different perspective and starts to make me wonder, what the “one job” was that these pants didn’t do. Or even the job the pants did do.

Even though we all interpret things differently and have a different understanding of what’s going on in certain things like what we are reading it all comes together. The interpretation of something is really how we start to learn it. according to David Brock’s blog, he says “we may be looking at the same picture, but we see different things and we see things differently”. Just like the pants, everyone interprets things differently.

Knowing that there are many things interpreted differently I thought this ENGL 203 class was going to be difficult because I might have a different interpretation or understanding others in the class. When weeks started going by and we keep going through classes I was reassured by Professor McCoy that no interpretation is wrong. Everyone is going to have a different way of looking at something and learning things. Which means that everyone is going to have many amazing ideas or points of views on what we are discussing in class. Using everyone’s ideas in our small discussion groups helped make the topic we were talking about clearer. Having all different opinions helps in the group environment since it helps better understand the information as class goes by.

In this class we have had so many discussions, during these discussions I get to hear all the different interpretations or even opinions of different things. Similar to the pants, there was one day we were talking about pronunciation, of the word “elementary”. Just like everyone has their own interpretation of the pants, we all had our own ways of saying “elementary” whether it be “el-luh-men-tr-ee” or “el-luh-men-tree”. Or even when we went around the room to see who says “pop” and who says “soda”. There is no right or wrong answer, it just depends on the person and how they interpret it. Going along with the class I know there really never is a wrong meaning or pronunciation. These came up again when we started reading The Bacchae, when there were all the different names and since no one in the class was around to hear the correct pronunciation we just have to go by what we think it is, there is no right or wrong. Just giving it a try is really all that matters because there are so many different views.Figuring all of this out I come back to where I didn’t realize why exactly on the first day of classes, we were talking about these pants that were suspicious in some way. I have realized that since everything happens for a reason, Professor McCoy had her reason. With the pants still in mind I have learned that all interpretations are right and how there are many ways to pronounce a word. There is not a right or wrong in your opinion and everything is interpreted differently.

September 16, 2019 by Ryan Silverstein - No Comments

Embracing Absurdity

I think it’s safe to say that everyone has been in their fair share of absurd situations. Where we know that we should know how things operate, and assume that everyone else has complete understanding, and yet we have no idea what we’re doing. I am no stranger to this phenomenon. When I first started English 203, I think it’s fair to say that I felt overwhelmed. Sure, I had taken English courses before, but the level of expertise that this class seemingly demanded was much higher than my initial expectations. The situation felt ridiculous to me, as someone who had always been so confident in his English abilities. I was forced into curiosity.

As I’ve experienced more of this class, I feel that I’ve begun to settle in with my workload. However, this particular epigraph spoke to me, as it had a strange way of encapsulating how I felt then. I had to accept the absurdity. For example, reading The Bacchae proved to be a bit of a challenge to me. Being in an English class whilst also having a difficult time understanding the english of the book was, well, ironic. However, I used this to my advantage, and let my natural curiosity take over, which helped me greatly with processing the book. I had to embrace this perceived ridiculousness in order to understand it.

This quote assisted with me establishing some goals within this class. For one, it made me realize that I need to open myself to more ideas, lest I get swept away by ideas I refuse to understand. The idea of New Criticism was an idea that I had heard of before, but had chosen to omit from my way of thinking prior to this class. In order to wrap my head around it, I had to open myself up to new ways of thinking, specifically to new ways of considering literature in this scenario. Additionally, I’ve also decided to approach these strange concepts with an open curiosity, as I feel that the more willing I am to simply roll with that which I consider strange, the sooner it will cease to be strange to me.

September 16, 2019 by Ashley Kupiec - No Comments

Questions of Origin and Identity in English 203

“Thank you,” I said. “I came back to this place to find something, to connect with something lost, to reunite if not with my whole self, then with a piece of it. What I’ve discovered is that this thing is not here. In fact, it is nowhere. I have learned that my name is not my name. It seems you all know me and nothing could be further from the truth and yet you know me better than I know myself, perhaps better than I can know myself. My mother is buried not far from this auditorium, and there are no words on her headstone. As I glance out now, as I feel the weight of this trophy in my hands, as I stand like a specimen before these strangely unstrange faces, I know finally what should be written on that stone. It should say what mine will say:

I AM NOT MYSELF TODAY.”

–Percival Everett

The first time I read this epigraph in the English 203 syllabus, I had little knowledge of what this class would entail, except for what I could extrapolate from the course description. In all honesty, I didn’t even know what the word “epigraph” meant. That being said, the quote still struck me; the exact thought that popped into my head was something along the lines of “huh, that’s relatable.” Everett, in this quote, captures the image of a person lost and searching to find themselves again. I think on some level, many people have been that person trying to “connect with something lost;” I know I have.

September 15, 2019September 16, 2019 by Hailey Cullen - No Comments

Isn’t it Ironic?

Irony. It’s all around us, in plays, movies, school, and relationships.

Irony is especially important in the literary world. This is evident from the Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms’ four-page-long definition and examples of the word. The general definition of irony from the Bedford is “a contradiction or incongruity between appearance or expectation and reality.” (Ross Murfin and Surpryia M. Ray, 217). What I get out of this definition is that irony is unexpected for the person experiencing it, and that it is often something that occurs in the opposite way than the person’s original intent. When I think of irony, I think of a humorous blunder of one’s words backfiring against oneself. However, as listed in the Bedford, there are many different types of irony that can have various effects.

One example is dramatic irony. This specific type of irony is often involved in theatrical experiences where the reader or audience is aware of an important plot point while a character or actor on stage is not. One can see this play out in the famous Greek tragedy, the Bacchae, written by Euripides. In the play, Greek god Dionysus plans to cruelly punish the town where he was conceived that didn’t recognize him as a god. We can see dramatic irony in the play when Dionysus spitefully encourages the king Pentheus to visit the women of the town that have run to the mountains under Dionysus’ influence. Dionysus dresses Pentheus in women’s clothing as a disguise and lures him to where he will order the women to attack him. All this time, Pentheus does not know Dionysus’ true identity whereas the reader/audience does. Thus, it is dramatic irony.

Tragic irony is complementary with dramatic irony in the Bacchae. Tragic irony is when a character’s previous ideas or words end in the character’s tragic end. We see this when Pentheus’ hate towards Dionysus comes back to haunt him as he is murdered by Dionysus’ followers at the end of the play: “… with unending shrieks, fell Pentheus. For he realized his fatal hour had come.” (Euripides, 1110, 157)

After experiencing the different aspects of irony from the Bacchae, I am not surprised that one of the epigraphs Dr. McCoy offered for our class to use for our first blog post assignment is a quote from author, Percival Everett, about irony.

In this epigraph, Everett looks at irony candidly with an alternative perspective. Even though irony can sometimes be a bad thing, as seen with the gruesome death of Pentheus in the Bacchae, Everett argues that irony is essentially human and that viewing life with an ironic perspective is healthy. He believes that irony is actually quite genuine — even more so than utter sincerity, as it recognizes the imperfections of life. He does emphasize the difference between irony and humor, by stating that irony should never “make light of serious or grave and important issues.” (Everett)

I agree with Everett’s perspective on irony. I believe it is true that the only thing humans can know for certain is that they don’t know anything. Perhaps irony is a way of realizing this absurdity of life and accepting it. In my daily life, I experience irony. I may want to do one thing but I end up doing another. A funny example of this is the story of how I became an education major. Both my parents are teachers. Naturally, I never wanted anything to do with the field of education because I didn’t want to be the girl who does exactly what her parents do. But after realizing my love of helping others, especially children, I knew I had to be an elementary school teacher. Thus, is the irony of life.

I can apply irony to school, in particular, to English 203. Especially with writing, as subjective as it is, one may believe he or she is making one point, but the reader could interpret that same point much differently than intended. I will do my best to clearly illustrate my ideas while keeping in mind another Everett idea, that “it is incredible that a sentence is ever understood.” (Everett, Erasure) It is also ironic that sometimes, when I write, I am more focused on achieving a high final grade than actually progressing my writing skills. I know that this is not a method that will help my personal growth. In this class, I will strive to better my writing abilities to promote further self-growth instead of constantly trying for a perfect grade.

I can tell just by this short epigraph about irony, that Everett is a wise man who doesn’t pretend to know everything, as some “wise” men do. He affirms the importance of irony by explaining that it is not just a tool for humor or a literary device, but an outlook on life. I am looking forward to reading more of this wise man’s works and excited to try pushing new boundaries in the classroom where I will always keep in mind the irony of life.

September 13, 2019September 16, 2019 by Hannah Smith - No Comments

Misunderstandings in writing of all forms

Over the past two weeks, I have found myself thinking about suspicious pants more and more. When I first looked at the pants, I could not understand why they were so special, nor why they were on the syllabus for my English 203 class. Since it was summer, I pushed the pants out of my head and went back to relaxing by the pool. I didn’t put much more thought into the pants until the first day of class. After being told to interpret the pants, I was left stuck. I mean, they were just pants. What is so special about a pair of pants draped over a chair? Neither I nor my group understood that it was not the pants that we were interpreting. But the caption. The twitter post was captioned “Suspicious pants.” I didn’t pick up on this at first, but the sentence can be interpreted in many ways. Were we suspicious of the pants, or are they suspicious of us? When one of my classmates brought that up, I started to understand the beauty of the pants. It was at that point Profesor McCoy quoted Percival Everett’s Erasure “It’s incredible that a sentence is ever understood.” This resonates with me because not only did it make the pants assignment make sense, but it also got me thinking about how, with social media, it is becoming harder and harder to get the real meaning. Still using the pants example, if you heard the caption spoken, maybe you could decipher its meaning.
My mother always used to tell me to never text your friends about important things or during arguments, because you can easily misinterpret what they are saying without hearing their voice. Now everyone always knows that your mother is always right, but it was at this moment I realized how right she was. The Odyssey Online wrote an article discussing how, through social media, miscommunications are becoming more common. This is due to the many parts of unspoken social cues that drive the conversation. For more on nonverbal communication and the science behind it, check out The Nonverbal Group. When things are written, it is very easy to misinterpret a text, tweet, or even a book due to the missing conversational cues. I’m sure everyone has read a book for school and come in to discuss it and find out that they misinterpreted the entire thing. Although recently Professor McCoy has discussed that there are many interpretations and none of them are wrong, I have definitely had my fair share of way off the mark interpretations. Some of my worst interpretations, however, were not based on literature. I’m sure everyone has misread a text in a way that made the sender seem mad, or passive-aggressive. It these misinterpretations that cause arguments and end friendships. I think that the tweet in reference shows just how easy it is for a message to get lost.
It is at this point that I am wondering whether this was a problem back in the letter-writing days. I’m sure it must have been. Even though the language is always changing and evolving, language couldn’t have evolved too much over the past 50 years. Not enough to have really made a difference in our understanding of writing. But also, if language could be understood so easily 50 years ago, why would we struggle with it today? Have we gone backward since the days of writing letters? Or maybe it is not the writing, but the proofing. If language was understood years ago, maybe the act of proofreading made it easier to understand. Today, very few make sure their texts make sense before the send them. Very few check their grammar and spelling before posting a tweet. Maybe that is what my mother was always talking about. If one reads over their message or post before they send it, they can clear up any grey area in the message.
I doubt this would solve anything. Everyone thinks differently, which I believe is the point of the exercise Professor McCoy had us do on the first day of class. To show that everyone has a different mindset and point of view. No one will see anything the same way. We all bring different things to the table. On the discussion of the pants, I questioned the meaning of the account name, while my group member, Kevin, discussed how humans see faces in almost anything, which leads us to see the face in the pants. Both are different interpretations of the same thing.
If we can have so many interpretations of something as basic as a tweet about “Suspicious pants,” then imagine what other things people can see in different ways. From pieces of art to the dress from 2015, everyone sees things differently. The most important thing when interpreting things is to remember that everyone has their own interpretation and they are all valid. If we can open up and listen to other people’s interpretations, even if they are about pants, you can learn something new, and maybe even get a blog post out of it.