The @ sign - my symbolic resistance

By guest explorer: Fred Shivvin

Language is dynamic and constantly changing, that is what makes it powerful.

 

But when our language changes - the word meaning, the punctuation, grammar, usage rules, spelling, and more - we often don't like it. Many of us resist many of these changes, and some sticklers never give in.

But for most of us, slowly, gradually, insidiously, the unwelcome changes slip into how we talk and write. The shift happens without our awareness, until one day we find ourselves using the word form, sentence structure, punctuation, etc., that we had resisted in the past.

We don't often recognise our shift to acceptance, we don't remember how long we resisted, we don't often even notice we've stopped fighting language change. And if we do, we might shrug an acknowledgment, and then get on with life and language.

But there's one change I resisted for exactly 27 years and 9 months. Until last week, to be precise.

Cynical - the easy way out

It's that time again in Australia - the time we're not officially in an election but, yeah, we sure are in an election. We can tell by the politicians' behaviour: the clearing of decks, the salves to lobby groups, the announcements, the special funds for 'special' electorates. 

One of the words I hear a lot around election time is cynical. We're told the 'voters are cynical' and wary of political promises, but equally we hear that some politicians undertake actions as 'cynical attempts to win votes'. And we turn off. 

That makes me wonder: where does cynicism reside? 

Is it in me - in the way I interpret other people's behaviour as negative? Or is it in other people - in the way they think they can treat me, can buy me off? If I describe a politician's actions as cynical, just who is the cynic? Is it a type of judgement or is it a more general 'lens' through which a person sees the world? 

Welcome to the first Wordly Explorations for 2022. I will return to truth soon, but the universe keeps flinging things at me that don't allow much writing time, and not enough for a challenging topic like truth.