Autocorrect, or not

Lovely article by Emma Jane (of The Australian)  in today’s online Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-joy-of-autosex-I-mean-autolicks-I-mean-autocorrect/

I recall the problem (if we can call it that – maybe closer to a “nuisance” or a “bother” – it’s important to classify and rank one’s hassles, on a daily basis)  that can happen when you have a hiccup in your spelling and you get a ridiculous autocorrect. Nicely represented in Jane’s title: The joy of autosexd I mean autolicks I mean autocorrect.

When I was writing  Language Most Foul. A Good Look at Bad Language (Allen&Unwin, 2004), my spelling (in these cases correct) of the notorious 4-letter swear words in English brought up the most delightful (and wrong) options for the c-word, the f-word, and other such items in that same family. Either Word and Google have got with the times, or I’ve successfully learned how to “add” to my own idio-dictionary (my word), and now all the words I need are there, where they should be.

I like Jane’s article for a linguist’s reasons: because it manages to hold still in a freeze-frame a snippet of language occurrence that is essentially ephemeral (here and gone in a nanosecond) but now lends itself to analysis. To give you a further idea, I quote her here:

Particularly embarrassing autoincorrects are achieving viral status on the internet, and are responsible for the success of highly entertaining web sites such as damnyouautocorrect.com.  eg … the case of young Michelle who sends an SMS to her Aunt Liz to see if they’re still on for a movie date.

“Yes!” Aunt Liz texts back. “I’m just heating up some ladybits for your father.” The disappointing news for dad is that Aunt Liz actually meant “leftovers”.

Damn You Autocorrect also offers iPhone screen shots of:  AN ANNOUNCEMENT that someone’s mum is about to receive the “Touched by an Asian” (instead of the “Touched by an Angel”) box set; and AN ATTEMPT to quote Ralph Waldo Emerson which reads: “It’s not the journey but the dusty jockitch that counts”.

The possibilities, of course, are endless. Enjoy.

Assumptions

I once did a plenary paper about “assumptions” for a Language Conference. It was subtitled: I’ll have  what she’s having, an utterance borrowed from the movie When Harry met Sally (1989), which as everyone knows was built on a mountain of assumptions, most of them false. My paper explored the often unwitting gap that stretches between what is taught and what is learned.

I was interested to read something recently, in an essay submitted by a Masters student of mine (at Anaheim University), where assumptions again take centre stage. I’ve reprinted it here, with Laurel Costill’s permission, because it’s so beautifully pithy. She writes –

Explaining how misunderstandings occur:

In order to formulate a sentence, a speaker must first evaluate how much the hearer already knows. At this step, it’s possible that the speaker evaluates the hearer incorrectly. For instance, by the speaker’s statement that the hearer looks like Selma Hayek, the speaker was giving a compliment; the speaker assumes that the hearer has the same opinion of beauty of Selma Hayek.

However, the hearer may only know of Ms. Hayek from the movie Frida and interprets the comment to mean that she desperately needs to pluck her eyebrows.

When is an apology an apology?

Language is slippery. Slopes, ditches, gullies and puddles – all traps where meanings can slither away, never to reappear in the same form. Down there, in that dark, dank environment, apologies – together with denials, evasions, retreats and whitewashings – all rub shoulders, compare notes and plan early retirements.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the domain of public apology, which is so often reduced to farce or fracas. There was the case of Catholic Bishop Richard Williamson  and his so-called apology. First he made some outlandish public statements involving Holocaust denial. Then, following the outrage expressed at his comments, the bishop issued further public statements – containing “regret” about “imprudent remarks”, and about about causing “unnecessary distress”.

Let’s look at the choice of words. First off, “imprudent”. Is this the best he can come up with? That his comments were careless? Lacking prudence? Needing care?   Is this what it’s called when you falsify history, draw demonstrably from a cache of untruths, which you then harness to an anti-Semitic agenda?

With “unnecessary distress” we have no agency, no responsibility spelled out.  On the contrary, “unnecessary” is a veritable reservoir of ambiguity, allowing Williamson to distance himself from any surrounding unpleasantness. The lurking implication is that they who take offence really shouldn’t get so hot under the collar; it’s their reaction that causes these kerfuffles; and if they just took it differently, we could all dispense with the  “unnecessary distress”. In other words, blame the victim for the fuss.

Without doubt, the underlings who draft these texts are skilled at their craft. Political correctness requires a statement, but we’ve reached the point where no one expects that the statement do anything other than fill the slot in the public conversation where a statement is needed.

We’ve forgotten that for an apology to count as an apology, a number of prevailing conditions are required. Ideally, five elements are needed:  the apology should name the behavior that’s happened; accept responsibility for it; offer an excuse or account (but not a justification) for how it came about; ask forgiveness; offer to make amends.

“Sorry for how I spoke to you in front of the boss yesterday (naming behaviour). I was totally out of line (accepting responsibility). It had been a very hard day (explaining) but it shouldn’t have happened (not justifying). Please accept my apology (asking forgiveness) and if there’s anything I can do to make up for it, please say so” (offering to make amends).

We could score an apology out of 5, by asking:

• Is the behavior being apologized for named?
• Is responsibility accepted?
• Is the account more than a justification?
• Is forgiveness sought?
• Are amends offered?

Let’s revisit the bishop and his “regret” for  “imprudent remarks”  causing “unnecessary distress”.

1. The behavior is diminished to the point of “imprudent remarks”, for which “regret” his mentioned. Regret does not of itself constitute an apology.
2. No responsibility is accepted, other than admitting more care might have been taken.The implication is: if the offended were less touchy about these matters, there wouldn’t be a problem.
3. No account is given.
4. Regret does not automatically ask for forgiveness.
5. No amends are mentioned.

So Bishop Williamson gets a big fat zero.

This article appeared in Spectrum, The Sydney Morning Herald, around the time of PM Kevin Rudd’s apology to the Aboriginal people of Australia.

Oh what a difference a preposition makes!

29 April 2010

Passing by a beautician’s shop. Sign on the counter : MAKE WRINKLES DISAPPEAR. (Then in smaller letters…) for 8 hours. Was $120. Now $100.”

I thought to myself, hmm,  that’s not bad. Get rid of your wrinkles over an 8-hour time frame. I wonder how long you remain wrinkle-free?  That’s when I gave some further attention to the preposition and realized that I’d misread it (the smaller print didn’t help). It wasn’t ” MAKE WRINKLES DISAPPEAR in 8 hours” . It was “MAKE WRINKLES DISAPPEAR for 8 hours”.  Oh what a difference a preposition makes!

Politeness Can Be Toxic

There’s a linguist in the USA, Charlotte Linde by name, who’s done some very interesting work on cockpit conversations. You know, in planes, between pilot and co-pilot. Not just any such conversations – her specialty is cockpit conversations just prior to a crash.

In other words: What’s going on in the talk at the point of the nose-dive? Recovered from the black box, and analyzed post-crash, these dialogues have a great deal to reveal. No doubt this is why such extraordinary efforts are invested in preserving talk that might otherwise be highly ephemeral. Like most talk, here today, gone tomorrow.

In a nutshell, they show that politeness is incompatible with emergency. This is because politeness is wordy and wordiness gets in the way of clarity. And when the going gets tough, clarity is what you want.  It’s the same reason, theatre surgeons don’t say things like, “I wonder, nurse, if you’d mind checking the range of scalpels you have at your side there in that tray, and passing me one, when you’re ready.” Likewise, in the army, especially in combat scenarios, commands are given briefly, minimally and unambiguously. You’d never hear: “Corporal, go over that way, see how many enemy soldiers you can kill, look out for snipers, and take care of yourself. We don’t want you getting hurt.”

However, it’s not only in life-and-death contexts that politeness can be clumsy. Take the following conversation I had at a Sydney theatre box office, a far cry from a plane crash or a surgical procedure or a combat zone. Well, under usual circumstances, anyway.

It’s a real-time, face-to-face conversation. What we call “transactional”, rather than “interpersonal”. I’m not trying to get to know the chap working there. I’m just trying to get some information, and maybe then, if all goes well,  acting on the information. In other words, this is about goods-and-services, not relationships.

I’ve come in to the theatre to ask a question about my subscription. I want to know if I can transfer some of my tickets to someone else.  The conversation is not without its own challenges, however. In order to be heard, I have to lean in quite some way; and the glass screen separating us is tinted, so the visuals are also compromised.

This is what ensues. The box office man starts off, replying to my inquiry.

I think you can’t do that.

I can’t?

Mmm, I think you can’t.

You think, but you don’t know?

Well, I do know, that’s what I’m saying, I think you can’t do that.

You’re not sure, though, are you?

Well, I am sure, actually.

So you know that I can’t do it?

That’s right. You can’t.

So why did you say you “think”  I can’t?

Because that’s what I think is the case.

But it’s not just your opinion. You seem to know that this actually is the case.

Yes, that’s right.

So, there’s a policy about this and you know what it is.

Yes that’s right.

So, if someone comes up to you, in the box office, to ask about this policy, and you’re there and you know the answer, why would you compromise your assertion by saying “I think”?

Um, because I’m giving my opinion on the policy.

But the policy is a matter of fact, not opinion. It’s fixed and un-negotiable, surely.

Yes, that’s right.

So what is wanted in such a situation, is the policy, not your take on the policy.

Yes.

Where you have a knowledge of the facts and that’s all you have to transmit.

I think that’s what I did, isn’t it?

No, you didn’t, you phrased the information in such a way as to create doubt.

Did I do that?

Yes, you did.

I think I didn’t.

There, you’ve done it again. You know that you didn’t, but you persist in using “think”.

I’m just being polite.

Ah “polite”. Yes. But have you thought about what you might lose as a consequence of your politeness?

No, I don’t think I have.

Written out like this, it seems interminable; and I can’t say I came away confident that I had a convert to the cause of clear communication.

Linguistic politeness has multiple roles and they’re mostly valid and purposeful. In essence, it comes down to showing respect and/or avoiding abrasion between people engaged in the complex work of verbal interaction.

It’s possible to keep it clean and clear, without sacrificing quality or causing offence. Though sometimes, as with my conversation with the box office man, polite and clear seem destined to collide.

PS Since writing this blog, I’ve been alerted to the fact that Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers had a chapter on this very topic.

PPS Since writing the above PS, I have read the Gladwell book and highly recommend the chapter on fatal cockpit talk.