Table Graces and the Nuances of Language
My dear old Dad always said a table grace before every meal. Very solemnly, head bowed, eyes closed, and very, very King James English. Because in my Dad’s mind, when you talked to God, it had to be in King James English.
Most of my Catholic friends have a version of “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts…”, while the Church of England tends along the lines of “For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen.” “Amen” is “AH-men”, not the Evangelical style “Ay-MEN!”. Anglicans don’t do high-fives with God.
Without getting into the virtues of gratitude for our daily blessings, be it to a Judeo-Christian God, or to Allah, or to the universe, or even to the multiverse, let’s consider what all this tells us about our individual, personal languages.
Each of us has a unique language, similar to but not identical to that of those around us. There are, if you like, eight billion languages on the planet, some mutually intelligible, but mostly not.
Even if we speak to each other supposedly in the “same language”, we can’t assume we are speaking the “same language”. For example, in British English to refer to a woman as “homely” is a compliment. In North America, not so much.
Vocabularies can differ even between generations. One of my law partners, of my vintage, was regaling us about pirates and said how he’d like to grab their booty. At that, the young lawyers just lost it. They explained to us old guys that “booty” means a certain body part. In that light, it did give the story an interesting twist.
Newfoundlanders regularly refer to one another of all generations as “Boy” or “Girl” with utmost endearment. It’s not uncommon to hear a man on the phone with his own mother, “Well, Girl, I’ll be over to see you next week!” But in a mixed-race setting in the US, calling someone “Boy” could spell deep trouble.
When I first encountered the German-Canadians of the Upper Ottawa Valley, I judged them very brusque, even discourteous, by their manner of speaking. As I came to know them as individuals, I discovered them to be warm and generous. They just were economical with their words, their minds conditioned by a thriftier language. (This was true even of younger generations who no longer used German on a daily basis.)
Language use defies logic. Italian-Canadians will address one another as “You Wop!”, and young Afro-Canadian males can use the N-word for one another. All in good fun. But if I said it, it would be hugely offensive. Logical? No, but them’s the rules, and you need to be sensitive about them.
As communicators we can’t just assume that what the listener hears is what we said. A speaker or writer who doesn’t think about nuances will often miss the target, or even worse, hit the wrong one. Unintentionally offending an audience is the greatest of sins.
As we attempt to communicate our important messages, we need to be acutely aware of these language gaps and gauge audience reaction to ensure they are fully and always “with us”. We do this in three stages.
First, in planning the communication we consider our audience, its demographic, its communication style, and its readiness to hear what we want to say. Second, we test the audience as we go along, particularly in speaking. Watching the faces and the eyes tells us all we need to know about how our words are being received.
Where the reception of our message is critical, recap is important. Not repetition, which would be boring and counterproductive, but a brief (and ideally clever) recapitulation of the message in a short and memorable fashion.
Amen.