Our Written Language Is Flawed And Confusing...

Should we try harder to understand those who question it?

Horydczak, Theodor, 

It is a mess, I have said it for as long as I can remember. I have lots of examples, like silent letters, words that sound nothing like they are spelled, the fact that y is only "sometimes" a vowel... The list is very long and I have never had the energy to compile it. Luckily one woman has taken the time to explain why she had so much trouble with at least one aspect of it. In her article Kate Gladstone tackles what it is to be a person with autism dealing with the insanity that is handwriting.

It is fascinating and revealing. See it here... 

So much of her article strikes a chord with my personal experience. I have "learning differences" and although there is no real way to compare that to the experiences of someone like the author or this article, I hope it is safe to say that we each see the world differently than others do to varying degrees. And that it won't offend when I say that I feel like I may be able to understand and empathize. There are many things about our written language that have always annoyed me greatly because they are so inefficient. Often parts of it are so senseless and ridiculous that it seemed to me as a child that someone must have been playing a cruel joke on me. Why should it be this way, why wouldn't anyone try to fix it? And most of all, why is everyone pretending it is normal!?

It's a common thread in my life, I despise inefficiency and am drawn to simple and elegant design. I rail against things that don't make sense (cents, sents) and feel like I need to do something to correct a problem that I clearly see in front of me. Honestly, people who just accept the status quo without question sometimes seem weak willed to me. Just saying "Thats the way it is" is NOT an answer I have ever found acceptable, even when I was small.

So when Kate said in her article "When our best efforts at understanding are penalized, we often stop trying or caring." That really hit home... It was something I had often thought myself. Yes, what ever you do, don't be that clever kid that can see the folly in the flawed language that your teachers are tasked with instructing you in at all costs. Hopefully kids with differences have it better than her and I did. 

It has taken me my whole life to be able to compose the text you are reading now with some amount of confidence... Even though I likely could have thought it or spoke the words when I was very young. I have wrestled this monster for decades, and it is an ugly beast. The funny thing being, is that once most people learn to a point that they are comfortable, they just stop. I could not, I needed to prove that I was not the idiot I was being made out to be, so I kept going, and I still learn and understand more and more little by little. Forcing it all into my head like shoving unruly snakes into a basket with many holes. I can do more now than I could when I was 40. I could do more when I was 40 than when I was 30, and if you look at my writings from when I was 20... Back when most people are "finished learning such things"... Well, let's just say I would be deeply embarrassed. For most, our written language is either quirky, and fun, or boring, and automatic. For me, it has always been an oppressive creature pinning me down. Finally, later in life, I feel like there is hope I may eventually get the thing into a half nelson.