Of late I have been ever more absorbed by the way we do not say what we mean when we say what we say; we use all sorts of codes and keys, hints and intimations, signs and signals, to such a degree that even the most blunt and terse remarks, such as yes and no, quite often do not at all mean affirmation or negation, but rather suggest routes of negotiation, or carry loaded messages having to do with past events and discussions, or are comments on matters of a wholly different import than the one at hand; so that, for example, a quiet no means one thing and a loud one another, and a muttered yes one thing and a whispered one another, and so on in that vein; and this is not even to enter into conversation about body language, and facial expression, and eyebrow elevation, and percentage of pique, and amount of amusement, or the way that some men, and it seems to be mostly men who do this, pretend to be hard of hearing when they hear something they do not want to hear or respond to or be lured into; so that pretending to be hard of hearing turns out to sometimes be a way of saying something without having to use words, which are so often misconstrued, misapprehended, misused, or miserable altogether.
We say yes when we mean I would rather not. We say no when we mean I would say yes except for all the times yes has proven to be a terrible idea. We say no thank you when every fiber in our bodies is moaning o yes please. We say you cannot when what we mean is actually you can but you sure by God ought not to. We say no by staring directly at the questioner and not saying anything whatsoever. We ask questions that way also.
I am fascinated by how language is a verb and not a noun. I am riveted by how language is a process and not a preserve. I am absorbed by the way that we all speak one language but use different tones and shades and volumes and timbres and pronunciations and emphases in order to bend the language in as many ways as there are speakers of the language. Perhaps every one of us speaks a slightly different language even as we seem to be using the same words to one another. Perhaps all languages are like this although I know only this one, and this one not so well even after swimming and thrashing and singing in it since I was two and three, and learning to make sounds that turned people around in the kitchen and made them laugh or occasioned sandwiches and kisses or sent me to my room ever since I was four and five, and learning to pick out letters and gather them in gaggles and march them in parades and enjoy them spilling down pages and into my fervent dreams.
Perhaps languages use us in ways that we are not especially aware of; perhaps languages are aware that they need us to speak them, or else they go flailing into the dark to be forgotten except by stones and the oldest of trees. Perhaps languages invent themselves and then have to hunt for speakers. Perhaps all languages began from the music of insects and animals and wind through vegetative creatures. Perhaps languages began with the sound of creeks and rivers and crash of surf and whisper of tides, so that even now, eons later, when we open our mouths to speak, out comes not so much meaning and sense and reason and clarity but something of the wild world beyond understanding. Perhaps much of the reason we so often do not say what we mean to say is because we cannot; there is wild in us yet, and in every word and sentence and speech the seethe of the sea whence we came, unto which we will return, which cannot be trammeled or corralled or parsed, no matter how hard we try to mean just what we say.