Thought-provoking essay, and it's a testament to your powers of communication that it has triggered such lively conversation.
"Grammar sets the limits of the collective imagination." "Speak softly and carry a big verb." I'm ambivalent about grammar: I love breaking its rules, but it irritates me when some other idiot does it.
Have you ever tried writing nonsense? It is impossible! "Language is discipline; thinking is not" (Hegel, my man!)
I was just talking with the wife today on a hike about how hard it is to write good nonsense poetry. I've only written two nonsense poems that I liked, and they were based on little creatures that she doodles sometimes. I aspire secretly to the quality of Edward Lear, but I always end up like Edward Thomas!
Interesting that you use the term "good nonsense." If the adjective "good" applies, then it is not nonsense. Nonsense isn't good or bad. It obviates distinctions of any sort. My point was that even--especially--when you attempt to circumvent the rules of language--grammar--they assert themselves. I would call the verse of Edward Lear silly or anti-lyrical, but not nonsensical. Lear's basic structure is the sentence--more emphatically than one finds in the most "sensible" verse, since the structure is doing all the work in Lear's case--and the sentence, with its closed circuit, its subject and object, its beginning middle and end, is inevitably an organizing principle. Sentences are like the "happy families" of Anna Karenina's opening sentence: They are all alike.
I wouldn’t call Lear “anti-lyrical.” His stuff is highly lyrical. Most of them are songs, or ballads. “Good nonsense“ is highly structured, like you say. It understands the rules, the syntax and the categories of words, so that it reads like any other poem. It’s the choice of the right-sounding nonsense words that make or break it. They have to sound absolutely right. They have to sound like they have an etymology, and a connotation, that is appropriate to their function in the sentence. “Gromboolian plain” and “Chankly Bore” and “Vorpal Sword” and all that. I’m not very good at coining words like that, although I wish I was.
By "anti-lyrical" I meant that the Lear pieces are not at all "interior" or introspective: the surface is everything (which explains why I like them so much). A lyric, to my thinking, is the antithesis of a limerick (the best limericks in fact mock the conventions of the lyrical mode). I did not say that "good nonsense" is highly structured. Quite the opposite: I said that structure--rules, syntax, etc., i.e., grammar--IS sense. You lay down some rules ("they have to". . . "they have to" . . .), but having rules at all negates the possibility of "nonsense." "That is appropriate to their function in the sentence," you write--that is a very Mr. C thing to say! As I've said before, I enjoy sparring with you so much because we come from such different directions. You are unceasingly logical, didactic, orderly, emphasizing precedent and tradition, a wonderful example of that grand creature, the poet/philosopher. I bet you are a terrific teacher--indeed, crazy old weirdo that I am, I am always learning from you.
Ah, I see what you mean. You’re right, I forgot about that sense of lyrical. We do compliment each other very well. You help me see my blindsides.
I would agree with you that structure is sense. It’s all the rules and steps that give rise to the message wherein we find the meaning of it. A real nonsense poem would be, in the strictest sense, incomprehensible, as some of your poems are. What did you call them again? I forgot the term you used.
It certainly does. Norretrander goes over this in the book. The difference between the amount of information we receive from our senses and our consciousness is vast. Millions of bits per second versus 16-40 bits per second. And what's crazier is that we're conscious of stimulus about a half second after it happens, but our brain retrofits the information so that we experience it as if it happened earlier than we're actually aware of it. So we are certainly slower than our minds.
A couple of concepts I struggle with in your article:
1. Exformation as 'meaning'.
As I see it, whatever remains (not what is expunged) in the process of transferring information is the expressed meaning. The rest, exformarion included, is tantamount to a plurality of contexts that may or may not actually relate to the mental (thought) reality of the creator of such information. The example you provide of Hugo's "?" is a clear pointer in that direction. His publisher answered him with a "!" in jest. I suggest that both were content for a time not because the question was answered to Hugo's satisfaction, but because it was still time to wait. But that's my imagination speaking.
2. Grammar teaches us how to think.
I find that quite impossible as a proposition since we think before we express anything and only when we express it do we attempt to model it (edit it) according to the accepted way of expressing things in our communication circle(s). The illustration that comes to mind here is expression in different languages (with widely differing grammar structures). The thought/emotion/intuition/feeling/inkling, etc is there, extant and expectant of an expression that will truly represent it and, with the help of grammar, we assist that thought mould itself into a communicable piece of information.
In fact, on re-reading Hegel's quote, that is precisely what I believe he means.
In answer to your first point, I would say that what you're doing when your imagination is speaking, is reconstructing the context around the message. It's not the meaning of the "!" itself that you're describing, it's the meaning of the context surrounding the use of that symbol. That you think it's a joke says something about how you're imagining their relationship, which is context.
To your second point: consider why you're separating the activity of thought from the language that expresses it. I agree with you that there is 'thinking' that happens before we're able to express it. But there must be something in the expression itself that reflects the nature of the thought. This is true not only of language and thinking, but of everything in nature. Richard Dawkins has a new book out about this as it pertains to biology. The Genetic Book of the Dead. His contention is that organisms are like books that record information about their environment. The skin of a desert lizard, for example, is a mapping of the environment of the desert that gave rise to it. So, too, is my contention that language reflects how we think. And grammar is the map of that thinking.
Thanks for replying Robert. Unfortunately, I cannot agree with you. If thought or mental activity is pre-eminent and preexisting (separate by definition), then context, though influential, can hardly be called the message or information itself. If two individuals (twins for example) are exposed (grow up) in the same environment, it can hardly be said they'll think or express themselves the same way. In fact, a message being encapsulated in grammatically comprensible language (the container), necessarily occurs later and as an expression (effective or not "?") of the thought process.
Regarding 'genetic mapping' based on 'the dead' as a valid simile for the act of communication, I cannot see how that may work apart from as a metaphorical analogy. Communication and expression are alive and though one may attempt to trace back sources and environments (context), this process can never prove the validity of such mapping conjectures at the individual level within literature/philosophy or day to day language in any significant way.
But it's all good. It got my juices going. Thanks again.
What do you think about classical education? I graduated high school in 1971, and even then in a public school in Berkeley they had Latin class for the high track kids. Without Latin there is shaky foundation for grammar. Yet there are different “schools” as to teaching it: classically vs whole language immersion.
The high school where I teach just phased out Latin two years ago. It's a shame, but I get it. I dabbled in it for a few years, back when I thought I was going to learn a dozen languages. I don't know what would be the best way to teach it. What are your experiences? I think a survey course in Latin and Greek language and culture would be great. Get an overview of things, and if you're interested, pursue it further. Otherwise it would at least be a good foundational class.
I ask because you talk about the decline of grammar, and Latin is viewed as a foundation for the learning of any language. There are homeschool publishers with hard discipline learning methods. There are others who swear by language immersion, like the former chief Latinist at the Vatican. Sometimes a little of both is good. But unquestionably it stands as a guidepost for classical education. It used to be taught even in public schools until recently. Witness the decline.
A little bit of both seems good. It's about practicing however you can get it. We're creatures of habit, and it takes doing it over and over again to understand it. I wonder if Latin would help with a decline in grammar. I think that's more an issue of not teaching grammar enough than not teaching Latin. Grammar isn't a fun topic. It's difficult and requires rote memorization and repetition. There's no getting around that. It's only once you've internalized it that you can really start playing with it.
Very interesting to read about the meaning of meaning hear as steered by grammar... Here's a perhaps strange one to add to the meaning of grammar mix. Do you remember Plato's you change the music, you change the state (of course you do), well, along those lines 'Morality is grammar'
Thanks Marcus. Yeah, a line like Plato’s is very apt, as it gets to this idea of an underlying structure of music or grammar and how they shape our experiences. Morality is grammar insofar as understanding grammar makes us better thinkers, and that’s essentially a good thing.
I used to love grammar! Thus, I was like a toddler playing with blocks! But so much time- so much life, death, joy and sorrow have gone by, I can’t remember much of the complexities of grammar. I think what I have now is basic muscle memory.
Great piece Robert. Questions about the use of grammar come up a lot in learning foreign languages, and it is a fascinating subject, pitting the new wave of “natural language” people against the classical grammarians. As for me, I happen to love both, but my love of grammar arrived much later, when I was forced to learn English grammar to help me learn French grammar to learn French. You are right about grammar and poetry in the highest sense: if you know it, you can dare to disobey it, in search of a higher artistic result than if you had obeyed it, at least in that case!
I agree with you there Robert. I should've mentioned learning a foreign language as part of an interest in linguistics and grammar. It was the case for me, too, that studying French and German, and dabbling in others, gave me a better sense for the grammar of my own language. It makes you pay attention to it.
Good point. It was only when I was in first semester French in college that I realized my knowledge of English had been so deficient. Like, they call that a conjugation? Who knew? But then I grew up in Berkeley . . . in the 60s.
Thank you, this is such needed information for me right now. I have a friend who is a good writer and I have described his writing (prose)as lyrical. Then I recently learned that one of my favorite author’s writing has been described as lyrical.
I am unpacking what all of this means, as I want to improve my writing. The timing of receiving this article is perfect!
Thank you Sue. It’s worth trying to understand what’s similar between them that makes them lyrical. It will deepen your appreciation of both your friend and your favorite author.
Is poetry a good example of exformation? Paradoxical is it that the poet can seem to ignore grammatical construct and yet produce deeper imagining? I recall being disappointed in my college class on "generative transformational grammar" and the ideas of Noam Chomsky. I thought we'd be diagramming sentences!
I wouldn't say the poet 'ignores' grammars. Rather, they understand its mechanisms well enough to play with them. Take a simple example like figures of omission. Ellipsis, zeugma, diazeugma. It's when you remove an element from a sentence but that element is understood by the reader. It's a way of creating compression in your lines, and so a valuable tool for the poet. But you can't take anyway just any element you want. You have to know what can be implicitly understood in the sentence. You have to have a good understanding of the parallel structure of the sentence in order to know what to take away. Hence, you have to have a good understanding of grammar to be a good poet.
Oh nice. Let me know what you think. It’s a good overview of his ideas, but also very melancholy, as he speaks a lot about his wife who passed, and how he still feels her voice in his head. That’s actually the impetus for the book, if I remember.
Good points, Will. The rules of grammar that make writing legible are not always the rules that make something sayable, if for example, corrupting syntax or using the wrong word evoke the sense that we’re going for. On the other side of this argument is the “imitative fallacy,” which is believing that, in order to convey something, the writing has to imitate it in style and character, i.e. in order to convey confusion, the writing itself should sound confused. This isn’t the case. It’s a balancing act between these two poles.
Thought-provoking essay, and it's a testament to your powers of communication that it has triggered such lively conversation.
"Grammar sets the limits of the collective imagination." "Speak softly and carry a big verb." I'm ambivalent about grammar: I love breaking its rules, but it irritates me when some other idiot does it.
Have you ever tried writing nonsense? It is impossible! "Language is discipline; thinking is not" (Hegel, my man!)
Wonderful insights!
Thanks!
I was just talking with the wife today on a hike about how hard it is to write good nonsense poetry. I've only written two nonsense poems that I liked, and they were based on little creatures that she doodles sometimes. I aspire secretly to the quality of Edward Lear, but I always end up like Edward Thomas!
Interesting that you use the term "good nonsense." If the adjective "good" applies, then it is not nonsense. Nonsense isn't good or bad. It obviates distinctions of any sort. My point was that even--especially--when you attempt to circumvent the rules of language--grammar--they assert themselves. I would call the verse of Edward Lear silly or anti-lyrical, but not nonsensical. Lear's basic structure is the sentence--more emphatically than one finds in the most "sensible" verse, since the structure is doing all the work in Lear's case--and the sentence, with its closed circuit, its subject and object, its beginning middle and end, is inevitably an organizing principle. Sentences are like the "happy families" of Anna Karenina's opening sentence: They are all alike.
I wouldn’t call Lear “anti-lyrical.” His stuff is highly lyrical. Most of them are songs, or ballads. “Good nonsense“ is highly structured, like you say. It understands the rules, the syntax and the categories of words, so that it reads like any other poem. It’s the choice of the right-sounding nonsense words that make or break it. They have to sound absolutely right. They have to sound like they have an etymology, and a connotation, that is appropriate to their function in the sentence. “Gromboolian plain” and “Chankly Bore” and “Vorpal Sword” and all that. I’m not very good at coining words like that, although I wish I was.
By "anti-lyrical" I meant that the Lear pieces are not at all "interior" or introspective: the surface is everything (which explains why I like them so much). A lyric, to my thinking, is the antithesis of a limerick (the best limericks in fact mock the conventions of the lyrical mode). I did not say that "good nonsense" is highly structured. Quite the opposite: I said that structure--rules, syntax, etc., i.e., grammar--IS sense. You lay down some rules ("they have to". . . "they have to" . . .), but having rules at all negates the possibility of "nonsense." "That is appropriate to their function in the sentence," you write--that is a very Mr. C thing to say! As I've said before, I enjoy sparring with you so much because we come from such different directions. You are unceasingly logical, didactic, orderly, emphasizing precedent and tradition, a wonderful example of that grand creature, the poet/philosopher. I bet you are a terrific teacher--indeed, crazy old weirdo that I am, I am always learning from you.
Ah, I see what you mean. You’re right, I forgot about that sense of lyrical. We do compliment each other very well. You help me see my blindsides.
I would agree with you that structure is sense. It’s all the rules and steps that give rise to the message wherein we find the meaning of it. A real nonsense poem would be, in the strictest sense, incomprehensible, as some of your poems are. What did you call them again? I forgot the term you used.
Great stuff. I have problems with grammar sometimes. This explains it in a way that I can understand. My mind moves quicker then my mouth.
It certainly does. Norretrander goes over this in the book. The difference between the amount of information we receive from our senses and our consciousness is vast. Millions of bits per second versus 16-40 bits per second. And what's crazier is that we're conscious of stimulus about a half second after it happens, but our brain retrofits the information so that we experience it as if it happened earlier than we're actually aware of it. So we are certainly slower than our minds.
“We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.”
C.S. Lewis
A couple of concepts I struggle with in your article:
1. Exformation as 'meaning'.
As I see it, whatever remains (not what is expunged) in the process of transferring information is the expressed meaning. The rest, exformarion included, is tantamount to a plurality of contexts that may or may not actually relate to the mental (thought) reality of the creator of such information. The example you provide of Hugo's "?" is a clear pointer in that direction. His publisher answered him with a "!" in jest. I suggest that both were content for a time not because the question was answered to Hugo's satisfaction, but because it was still time to wait. But that's my imagination speaking.
2. Grammar teaches us how to think.
I find that quite impossible as a proposition since we think before we express anything and only when we express it do we attempt to model it (edit it) according to the accepted way of expressing things in our communication circle(s). The illustration that comes to mind here is expression in different languages (with widely differing grammar structures). The thought/emotion/intuition/feeling/inkling, etc is there, extant and expectant of an expression that will truly represent it and, with the help of grammar, we assist that thought mould itself into a communicable piece of information.
In fact, on re-reading Hegel's quote, that is precisely what I believe he means.
Excellent topic by the way.
In answer to your first point, I would say that what you're doing when your imagination is speaking, is reconstructing the context around the message. It's not the meaning of the "!" itself that you're describing, it's the meaning of the context surrounding the use of that symbol. That you think it's a joke says something about how you're imagining their relationship, which is context.
To your second point: consider why you're separating the activity of thought from the language that expresses it. I agree with you that there is 'thinking' that happens before we're able to express it. But there must be something in the expression itself that reflects the nature of the thought. This is true not only of language and thinking, but of everything in nature. Richard Dawkins has a new book out about this as it pertains to biology. The Genetic Book of the Dead. His contention is that organisms are like books that record information about their environment. The skin of a desert lizard, for example, is a mapping of the environment of the desert that gave rise to it. So, too, is my contention that language reflects how we think. And grammar is the map of that thinking.
Thanks for replying Robert. Unfortunately, I cannot agree with you. If thought or mental activity is pre-eminent and preexisting (separate by definition), then context, though influential, can hardly be called the message or information itself. If two individuals (twins for example) are exposed (grow up) in the same environment, it can hardly be said they'll think or express themselves the same way. In fact, a message being encapsulated in grammatically comprensible language (the container), necessarily occurs later and as an expression (effective or not "?") of the thought process.
Regarding 'genetic mapping' based on 'the dead' as a valid simile for the act of communication, I cannot see how that may work apart from as a metaphorical analogy. Communication and expression are alive and though one may attempt to trace back sources and environments (context), this process can never prove the validity of such mapping conjectures at the individual level within literature/philosophy or day to day language in any significant way.
But it's all good. It got my juices going. Thanks again.
What do you think about classical education? I graduated high school in 1971, and even then in a public school in Berkeley they had Latin class for the high track kids. Without Latin there is shaky foundation for grammar. Yet there are different “schools” as to teaching it: classically vs whole language immersion.
The high school where I teach just phased out Latin two years ago. It's a shame, but I get it. I dabbled in it for a few years, back when I thought I was going to learn a dozen languages. I don't know what would be the best way to teach it. What are your experiences? I think a survey course in Latin and Greek language and culture would be great. Get an overview of things, and if you're interested, pursue it further. Otherwise it would at least be a good foundational class.
I ask because you talk about the decline of grammar, and Latin is viewed as a foundation for the learning of any language. There are homeschool publishers with hard discipline learning methods. There are others who swear by language immersion, like the former chief Latinist at the Vatican. Sometimes a little of both is good. But unquestionably it stands as a guidepost for classical education. It used to be taught even in public schools until recently. Witness the decline.
A little bit of both seems good. It's about practicing however you can get it. We're creatures of habit, and it takes doing it over and over again to understand it. I wonder if Latin would help with a decline in grammar. I think that's more an issue of not teaching grammar enough than not teaching Latin. Grammar isn't a fun topic. It's difficult and requires rote memorization and repetition. There's no getting around that. It's only once you've internalized it that you can really start playing with it.
Very interesting to read about the meaning of meaning hear as steered by grammar... Here's a perhaps strange one to add to the meaning of grammar mix. Do you remember Plato's you change the music, you change the state (of course you do), well, along those lines 'Morality is grammar'
Thanks Marcus. Yeah, a line like Plato’s is very apt, as it gets to this idea of an underlying structure of music or grammar and how they shape our experiences. Morality is grammar insofar as understanding grammar makes us better thinkers, and that’s essentially a good thing.
I used to love grammar! Thus, I was like a toddler playing with blocks! But so much time- so much life, death, joy and sorrow have gone by, I can’t remember much of the complexities of grammar. I think what I have now is basic muscle memory.
And I truly enjoyed your article.
Thank you Maria. It is a lot like playing with blocks. That’s how I teach my students about building sentences with phrases and clauses.
I need to lean on and learn from your work and learn to love grammar again.
If you love writing, I'm sure you love grammar, too.
Very similar to my thoughts and experience.
Great piece Robert. Questions about the use of grammar come up a lot in learning foreign languages, and it is a fascinating subject, pitting the new wave of “natural language” people against the classical grammarians. As for me, I happen to love both, but my love of grammar arrived much later, when I was forced to learn English grammar to help me learn French grammar to learn French. You are right about grammar and poetry in the highest sense: if you know it, you can dare to disobey it, in search of a higher artistic result than if you had obeyed it, at least in that case!
I agree with you there Robert. I should've mentioned learning a foreign language as part of an interest in linguistics and grammar. It was the case for me, too, that studying French and German, and dabbling in others, gave me a better sense for the grammar of my own language. It makes you pay attention to it.
Good point. It was only when I was in first semester French in college that I realized my knowledge of English had been so deficient. Like, they call that a conjugation? Who knew? But then I grew up in Berkeley . . . in the 60s.
Thank you, this is such needed information for me right now. I have a friend who is a good writer and I have described his writing (prose)as lyrical. Then I recently learned that one of my favorite author’s writing has been described as lyrical.
I am unpacking what all of this means, as I want to improve my writing. The timing of receiving this article is perfect!
Thank you Sue. It’s worth trying to understand what’s similar between them that makes them lyrical. It will deepen your appreciation of both your friend and your favorite author.
Yes, I am working on paying attention. The word lyrical just intuitively came up, almost like I sensed it.
I do write poetry and songs.
All connected I am sure.
Your coaching is valued!
Thanks again!
Thank you.
Is poetry a good example of exformation? Paradoxical is it that the poet can seem to ignore grammatical construct and yet produce deeper imagining? I recall being disappointed in my college class on "generative transformational grammar" and the ideas of Noam Chomsky. I thought we'd be diagramming sentences!
I wouldn't say the poet 'ignores' grammars. Rather, they understand its mechanisms well enough to play with them. Take a simple example like figures of omission. Ellipsis, zeugma, diazeugma. It's when you remove an element from a sentence but that element is understood by the reader. It's a way of creating compression in your lines, and so a valuable tool for the poet. But you can't take anyway just any element you want. You have to know what can be implicitly understood in the sentence. You have to have a good understanding of the parallel structure of the sentence in order to know what to take away. Hence, you have to have a good understanding of grammar to be a good poet.
Thank you! An excellent explanation. But the way, I’m reading the book you suggested, “I Am A Strange Loop.”
Oh nice. Let me know what you think. It’s a good overview of his ideas, but also very melancholy, as he speaks a lot about his wife who passed, and how he still feels her voice in his head. That’s actually the impetus for the book, if I remember.
Good points, Will. The rules of grammar that make writing legible are not always the rules that make something sayable, if for example, corrupting syntax or using the wrong word evoke the sense that we’re going for. On the other side of this argument is the “imitative fallacy,” which is believing that, in order to convey something, the writing has to imitate it in style and character, i.e. in order to convey confusion, the writing itself should sound confused. This isn’t the case. It’s a balancing act between these two poles.