En este clima de división, en el que parece estar al alza la proyección del odio contra muchos grupos, al tiempo que los extremistas de toda denominación manifiestan su desprecio a las instituciones democráticas, contamos con la certeza de que en, algún lugar, alguien —mucha gente, me atrevería a decir— está tomando nota de todo lo que ocurre a partir de su propia experiencia. O quizá lo recuerden y lo anoten más adelante, si pueden. ¿Quedarán ocultos y reprimidos sus mensajes? ¿Aparecerán, siglos después, en una casa vieja, al otro lado de un muro? Mantengamos la esperanza de que no lleguemos a eso. Yo confío en que no ocurra.
Margaret Atwood. El cuento de la criada, introducción.
Once when I had everything settled about a new apartment in Manhattan— advance rent paid, the lease signed, the movers ready —I was informed that I could not have it because it was a professional apartment. Writers are not professionals, because “their clients do not come to them.” I thought of writing to the Department of Housing or whoever made this law, “You have no idea how many characters ring my doorbell and come to me every day, and I absolutely need them for my existence,” but I never wrote this, only reflected that prostitutes could probably qualify, but writers couldn’t.
—Más valdrá que te lo diga, Rincewind. Según costumbre, hay ciertos contactos entre los Señores del Mar Circular y el Emperador del Imperio Ágata —siguió el Patricio—. Es un contacto muy ligero, porque tenemos pocas cosas en común. Nosotros no tenemos nada que ellos quieran, y ellos no tienen nada que nosotros podamos pagar. Es un imperio antiguo, Rincewind. Antiguo, astuto, cruel y muy, muy rico. Así que intercambiamos saludos fraternales por correo albatros. A intervalos poco frecuentes.
Vetinari, patricio de Ankh-Morpork. El color de la magia. Terry Prattchet.
De cuando un imperio se negó a abrir sus puertas porque el otro imperio no tenía nada que le interesara.
Meanwhile, any married woman who has no children of her own will be pitifully pitied behind her back. Or mocked for looking after kids who are not really «hers». Or for looking after her cat/ cats as someone who will die ‘alone’. You might argue you never have but I bet you snort to anyone’s life whose idea of happiness doesn’t match yours. I’ve done…
Maybe that’s why the current movement to call the absent father a «sperm donor» or the woman an «egg donor»; seems superficial and terrifies language purists. These language purists are apparently not aware society changes too quickly to keep the language the way it used to be.
WHERE IS THE METAPHOR WITHIN THIS NONSENSE ABOUT LANGUAGE AND HOW IS IT RELATED TO WRITING FICTION?
Robert McKee, the guy who teaches how to write movie scripts, says the words are mere tools to create good stories with which to persuade people. Through images (movies have images).
Jane Aitchinson introduces us to the metaphor, by the use of words and whilst it can be deemed obvious (since she is a linguist and not a script writer); it comes to us that words bring out images of their own that will end up being translated into movie scenes.
I only need to name Switzerland and you will imagine cows as well as glorious and majestic peaks. But if I add tax paradise, then it ain’t as squeaky clean. It includes a few gangsters wearing white collars and using Mont Blanc pens.
Both, Aitchinson and McKee, reckon metaphors as powerful persuasive images. They change our reaction to events. And they need to grow roots into collective mindsets. They don’t work equally in China as they do in Ireland.
They have their own life force. Such as the word ‘ neo liberal’ is an insult in my country. It deems evil entrepreneurs ready to take everything away from the poor. No matter how much of a responsible company they do own or how many new companies they help to start1. No matter how much they are part of the money religion we all profess.
That’s how that pair of American linguists were right. Metaphors are local. They shape imagined realities by persuading us the world is this and not that way.
Every language is a different world. As a writer you need command of the language. Not to make of it something beautiful [additional problem]. To persuade. To enchant. To create metaphors. To listen and be able to pick up the metaphors that could work in most places. To go up the ladder is better than down… Isn’t it?
Have fun making up your own metaphors. Pasto kalo.
La muerte no es silenciosa. La muerte zumba. La muerte danza con bordados de hifa en la túnica. Zapatea con cientos de piernitas. En un agujero de hormigas.
¿Que se agazapa y no la escuchas? Ocupado en otras cosas. Eres tú mismo. La muerte medita en voz alta, Grita. Gime. Y se viene en un latido. Mucho más joven que la vida misma.
Circulan declaraciones, acusaciones, escritos, entre jueces, acusadores, el fiscal general, el despacho del Lord Canciller; cada paso del proceso es claro, lógico y está destinado a crear cadáveres de acuerdo con el procedimiento legal debido. George Rochford será juzgado aparte, como un par del reino; los del común serán juzgados antes. Llega la orden a la Torre: «Traigan los cuerpos». Es decir, traigan a los acusados, llamados Weston, Brereton, Smeaton y Norris, a Westminster Hall para el juicio.
Una reina en el estrado. Hillary Mantel.
¿Y si eran cuerpos, es porque ya sabían que los iban a ejecutar?
Are the worlds as different because of their languages’ alternate realities?
UNPROVEN YET TRUE?
It might be and it might not be that reality is shaped by language (nonetheless the gravity works in all of them, despite the name). Nor Sapir or Whorf were able to prove it.
However, at least in Spanish, there’s this business of citizens and citizeness… To speak of ciudadanos and ciudadanas, when the word citizens/ciudadanos covers under its umbrella both male and female citizens… Right?
What’s the political pursue of such a language desecretation then? Yes, the idea irritates a bunch of people but is it worth analysis?
Let’s imagine for a moment that what happens in English does in Spanish as well. The use of the generic engineer, doctor, physician, lawyer and driver is deceitful, sly and manipulative to the point we rarely imagine a woman upon hearing these words. How many of these words did you imagine as women when reading? I can bet. None. Jane Aitchinson mentions the scientific study in her lectures. She doesn’t specify how it was tested tough.
NEUTRAL?
What comes out of this supposedly neutral space where the male noun doesn’t evoke an equality paradise in which women as well as men do pilot airplanes?
Back then, when I wrote the Spanish entry, I wouldn’t have been able to follow the lead to the explanation. What comes out of it is an imagined reality in which women are politely hushed. Taken into account just for the sake of appearance. Imagined realities come from language. Thus.
IN INHERITANCE
Besides the non neutral gender suggested by nouns, there’s a second quality inherent to language: inheritance.
A mother is someone married to the father (note the submission). She gave birth and looks after the offspring.
Maybe nothing at all but also, a collection of stereotypes! Mothers can’t be single (which is why the rush to have a wedding). Mothers can’t adopt and they can’t, certainly, leave their kids in the hands of someone else… So they should stay home and never work. I know. The definitions are changing. But the way they change is dependant on tiny revolutions and, in the meanwhile, bring prejudice into scene. » Why should the guy fall in love with a woman with kids and waste his youth on someone else’s kids».
No one would notice Joseph, Mary’s husband, became a mere p.p1. ( padre putativo or putative parent) in Jesus life to save us from seeing the problem. For the guy won’t be given the ‘father’ status in spite of the love and time given. That’s reserved to the ‘chap’ who organized it all from above.
TO BE CONTINUED
Some say that p.p. is the origin of the mock ‘Pepe’ in Spanish. ↩︎
