Do we live in the Age of Rebus? We’re swamped with emojis and memes, aren’t we? It’s as though we’ve returned to hieroglyphs to say what we mean. “I speak pics,” is a reasonable response to “What is your native tongue?”
Using pictures instead of words isn’t a new practice. It extends through many cultures and across all human-bearing landscapes. Totem poles and petroglyphs in North America, many glyphs in Central and South America, and those well known Egyptian hieroglyphs are examples. I suppose we could include the images of the ancient Greeks’ zodiac, also, when I look to the heavens to spot Orion or Cancer or Sagittarius. Words seem so abstract by comparison. No wonder that even in an Age of Words, we live in a parallel Age of Picture-Writing. If you have a smart phone, chances are you have received at least one text with more emojis than words. Call it a sign of the times. Why are we so motivated to speak in pictures? Is it because they truly are “worth a thousand words?”
In The Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant writes:
“Despite the great wealth of words which European languages possess, the thinker finds himself often at a loss for an expression exactly suited to his conception, for want of which he is unable to make himself intelligible either to others or to himself. To coin new words is a pretension to legislation in language which is seldom successful; and, before recourse is taken to so desperate an expedient, it is advisable to examine the dead and learned languages, with the hope and the probability that we may there meet with some adequate expression of the notion we have in our minds. In this case, even if the original meaning of the word has become somewhat uncertain, from carelessness or want of caution on the part of the authors of it, it is always better to adhere to and confirm its proper meaning—even although it may be doubtful whether it was formerly used in exactly this sense—than to make our labour vain by want of sufficient care to render ourselves intelligible.
“For this reason, when it happens that there exists only a single word to express a certain conception, and this word, in its usual acceptation, is thoroughly adequate to the conception, the accurate distinction of which from related conceptions is of great importance, we ought not to employ the expression improvidently, or, for the sake of variety and elegance of style, use it as a synonym for other cognate words. It is our duty, on the contrary, carefully to preserve its peculiar signification, as otherwise it easily happens that when the attention of the reader is no longer particularly attracted to the expression, and it is lost amid the multitude of other words of very different import, the thought which it conveyed, and which it alone conveyed, is lost with it.”
With regard to words, you know that meanings, and therefore, uses, change. Take the word testament. The word’s original meaning of “contract, covenant, will” has been altered to mean “testimony.” The switch in meaning might derive from a confusion of sounds (testament, testimony—maybe the same reason people confuse cavalry with Calvary). Testimony, which means “evidence,” “formal statement,” “attestation,” and related terms like “confirmation,” “proof,” and “witness,” does not and has not meant “contract” or “covenant” until recently. The Old Testament was a “contract,” that is, a “covenant” between Yahweh and the Hebrews. The New Testament is a newer contract (Though as the late comedian Mitch Hedberg says—here in paraphrase— because it is about 2,000 years old, it ought to be called the More Recent Testament or the Latest Testament—the implication, of course, is that it is not really “new”) But because living languages always undergo changes, if you look up testimony, you will probably find that testament is now listed as a synonym, such is the way of widespread use, even widespread erroneous misspeak. Today’s normalcy is yesterday’s normality--thank you, President Warren G. Harding.
So, words undergo changes in meanings. Kant advises that we look at the etymology of words to find their root meaning, but that advice ignores the nature of living languages. It also ignores the addition of knowledge that has occurred with the rise of empiricism. Certainly, no one in Kant’s circle of acquaintances knew about DNA, black holes, or quantum effects. The name deoxyribonucleic acid is a product of word synthesis; black holes lie in the fabric of space-time; and quantum, derived from a Latin word, has a new meaning, even showing up in a James Bond movie title (Quantum of Solace). Yes, Immanuel, we have gone back to the origin of our words, but we have repurposed their use. And even if there were such an animal as “proper meaning,” it would be at best a chimera.
Maybe we rely on hieroglyphs and emojis because we cannot delve deeply into every idea. We are simply simplifiers (Is that a redundancy?) We like short cuts (more redundancy?), and emojis are those short cuts. Do they convey the precise meaning that a paragraph of carefully chosen words might convey? Probably not, but we’re accustomed to generalizing. Kant’s The Critique of Pure Reason is a very long work, some of it not well explained: Regardless of the intellect and logic of the philosopher, he could not account for nuances both intended and unintended in his own writing. And to be purely logical, I should say that a full explanation of anything might require an infinitely long explanation, or at least an indefinitely long one—too much for us finite beings in a rush.
Etymology, that branch of language study Kant advises we use, fascinates me because words came into existence under the influence of insight, accident, and habit. Modern teacher evolved from tacn, an Anglo-Saxon (Early English) word for “sign” or “guidepost.” I hypothesize that it originated during an insight about the relationship between teacher and pupil. As a blogger and formerly as a professor, I thought of myself as a guidepost who pointed the way toward knowledge and discovery more than as one who gave out either or both. I like leading the horse to water and leaving the drinking up to it—though I confess to lapses in practice, namely, to trying to force others into seeing what I see. That notion of being a guidepost is the reason I write on the title page of this website that these essays are meant to be points of departure for your insightful thinking. “Thirsty? Look, there’s a stream (of thought).”
Finding the exact words that convey a precise meaning to all is a difficult task because every person takes a background into a conversation. We can state and imply, but the audience can infer. The phenomenon of audience participation in meaning is one reason emojis have proliferated. The original smiley face has morphed, and now there are emojis of faces squeezed in laughter with tears on either side of the face. Nuances abound, and they derive from writer and audience. Emojis have their “synonyms” and “antonyms.” And when someone sends us one, we are more than passive recipients of a smiley face. We apply meaning that the sender might not have included in the message. And even if we don’t change the meaning, we change its degree of representation by interpreting it as more or less intense.
Is there an ever-increasing desire to go back to the days of hieroglyphs because choosing words is work, hard work? I’d guess that that’s part of the process of living in fast times with overwhelming connections to the world, connections that our medieval and ancient predecessors did not have. There might also be a desire to simplify a world of exponentially greater knowledge and an indefinite number of facts both tied to a global “culture.” English might be a Germanic language, but it is also a language of borrowed terms just as diet in affluent countries is an amalgam of culinary internationalism. That long period of Roman occupation and the widespread Latin Church left their marks as every struggling biology and paleontology student learns.
Rebuses, emojis, memes, glyphs, and even sign languages, all these complement the words that we, like Kant, find difficult to use for precise meanings. We could speak math, I suppose, in an attempt to make meaning as unshakeable as the meaning of two plus two. But every use of math is usually so specific that those nuances we treasure as the heart of meaning, would not be possible. How does one find an analog of a smiley face and a smiley face with tears in two plus two? By going to a Base Six math?
We are, it seems, bound to indefinite variations of meanings whether we choose glyphs or words. If you pick up a formal logic book, you’ll see that symbols play a part in “pure reason,” but you’ll come away with a quizzical look on your face because such precision doesn’t seem to apply in human interactions. Even in “science” there’s variation, particularly in the social sciences, but also, apparently, in some of the so called “hard sciences.” If you doubt that, you need to review the history of civilization during the COVID pandemic or during current debate over global warming. What is “THE science?” What is the most reasonable course of action? Quick, someone show me an emoji.
Where does all that leave us? Well, to paraphrase a famous cigar smoker, sometimes a smiley face is just a smiley face with only a generalized meaning, and sometimes a group of words… (Thirsty? There’s a stream—of thought)
Using pictures instead of words isn’t a new practice. It extends through many cultures and across all human-bearing landscapes. Totem poles and petroglyphs in North America, many glyphs in Central and South America, and those well known Egyptian hieroglyphs are examples. I suppose we could include the images of the ancient Greeks’ zodiac, also, when I look to the heavens to spot Orion or Cancer or Sagittarius. Words seem so abstract by comparison. No wonder that even in an Age of Words, we live in a parallel Age of Picture-Writing. If you have a smart phone, chances are you have received at least one text with more emojis than words. Call it a sign of the times. Why are we so motivated to speak in pictures? Is it because they truly are “worth a thousand words?”
In The Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant writes:
“Despite the great wealth of words which European languages possess, the thinker finds himself often at a loss for an expression exactly suited to his conception, for want of which he is unable to make himself intelligible either to others or to himself. To coin new words is a pretension to legislation in language which is seldom successful; and, before recourse is taken to so desperate an expedient, it is advisable to examine the dead and learned languages, with the hope and the probability that we may there meet with some adequate expression of the notion we have in our minds. In this case, even if the original meaning of the word has become somewhat uncertain, from carelessness or want of caution on the part of the authors of it, it is always better to adhere to and confirm its proper meaning—even although it may be doubtful whether it was formerly used in exactly this sense—than to make our labour vain by want of sufficient care to render ourselves intelligible.
“For this reason, when it happens that there exists only a single word to express a certain conception, and this word, in its usual acceptation, is thoroughly adequate to the conception, the accurate distinction of which from related conceptions is of great importance, we ought not to employ the expression improvidently, or, for the sake of variety and elegance of style, use it as a synonym for other cognate words. It is our duty, on the contrary, carefully to preserve its peculiar signification, as otherwise it easily happens that when the attention of the reader is no longer particularly attracted to the expression, and it is lost amid the multitude of other words of very different import, the thought which it conveyed, and which it alone conveyed, is lost with it.”
With regard to words, you know that meanings, and therefore, uses, change. Take the word testament. The word’s original meaning of “contract, covenant, will” has been altered to mean “testimony.” The switch in meaning might derive from a confusion of sounds (testament, testimony—maybe the same reason people confuse cavalry with Calvary). Testimony, which means “evidence,” “formal statement,” “attestation,” and related terms like “confirmation,” “proof,” and “witness,” does not and has not meant “contract” or “covenant” until recently. The Old Testament was a “contract,” that is, a “covenant” between Yahweh and the Hebrews. The New Testament is a newer contract (Though as the late comedian Mitch Hedberg says—here in paraphrase— because it is about 2,000 years old, it ought to be called the More Recent Testament or the Latest Testament—the implication, of course, is that it is not really “new”) But because living languages always undergo changes, if you look up testimony, you will probably find that testament is now listed as a synonym, such is the way of widespread use, even widespread erroneous misspeak. Today’s normalcy is yesterday’s normality--thank you, President Warren G. Harding.
So, words undergo changes in meanings. Kant advises that we look at the etymology of words to find their root meaning, but that advice ignores the nature of living languages. It also ignores the addition of knowledge that has occurred with the rise of empiricism. Certainly, no one in Kant’s circle of acquaintances knew about DNA, black holes, or quantum effects. The name deoxyribonucleic acid is a product of word synthesis; black holes lie in the fabric of space-time; and quantum, derived from a Latin word, has a new meaning, even showing up in a James Bond movie title (Quantum of Solace). Yes, Immanuel, we have gone back to the origin of our words, but we have repurposed their use. And even if there were such an animal as “proper meaning,” it would be at best a chimera.
Maybe we rely on hieroglyphs and emojis because we cannot delve deeply into every idea. We are simply simplifiers (Is that a redundancy?) We like short cuts (more redundancy?), and emojis are those short cuts. Do they convey the precise meaning that a paragraph of carefully chosen words might convey? Probably not, but we’re accustomed to generalizing. Kant’s The Critique of Pure Reason is a very long work, some of it not well explained: Regardless of the intellect and logic of the philosopher, he could not account for nuances both intended and unintended in his own writing. And to be purely logical, I should say that a full explanation of anything might require an infinitely long explanation, or at least an indefinitely long one—too much for us finite beings in a rush.
Etymology, that branch of language study Kant advises we use, fascinates me because words came into existence under the influence of insight, accident, and habit. Modern teacher evolved from tacn, an Anglo-Saxon (Early English) word for “sign” or “guidepost.” I hypothesize that it originated during an insight about the relationship between teacher and pupil. As a blogger and formerly as a professor, I thought of myself as a guidepost who pointed the way toward knowledge and discovery more than as one who gave out either or both. I like leading the horse to water and leaving the drinking up to it—though I confess to lapses in practice, namely, to trying to force others into seeing what I see. That notion of being a guidepost is the reason I write on the title page of this website that these essays are meant to be points of departure for your insightful thinking. “Thirsty? Look, there’s a stream (of thought).”
Finding the exact words that convey a precise meaning to all is a difficult task because every person takes a background into a conversation. We can state and imply, but the audience can infer. The phenomenon of audience participation in meaning is one reason emojis have proliferated. The original smiley face has morphed, and now there are emojis of faces squeezed in laughter with tears on either side of the face. Nuances abound, and they derive from writer and audience. Emojis have their “synonyms” and “antonyms.” And when someone sends us one, we are more than passive recipients of a smiley face. We apply meaning that the sender might not have included in the message. And even if we don’t change the meaning, we change its degree of representation by interpreting it as more or less intense.
Is there an ever-increasing desire to go back to the days of hieroglyphs because choosing words is work, hard work? I’d guess that that’s part of the process of living in fast times with overwhelming connections to the world, connections that our medieval and ancient predecessors did not have. There might also be a desire to simplify a world of exponentially greater knowledge and an indefinite number of facts both tied to a global “culture.” English might be a Germanic language, but it is also a language of borrowed terms just as diet in affluent countries is an amalgam of culinary internationalism. That long period of Roman occupation and the widespread Latin Church left their marks as every struggling biology and paleontology student learns.
Rebuses, emojis, memes, glyphs, and even sign languages, all these complement the words that we, like Kant, find difficult to use for precise meanings. We could speak math, I suppose, in an attempt to make meaning as unshakeable as the meaning of two plus two. But every use of math is usually so specific that those nuances we treasure as the heart of meaning, would not be possible. How does one find an analog of a smiley face and a smiley face with tears in two plus two? By going to a Base Six math?
We are, it seems, bound to indefinite variations of meanings whether we choose glyphs or words. If you pick up a formal logic book, you’ll see that symbols play a part in “pure reason,” but you’ll come away with a quizzical look on your face because such precision doesn’t seem to apply in human interactions. Even in “science” there’s variation, particularly in the social sciences, but also, apparently, in some of the so called “hard sciences.” If you doubt that, you need to review the history of civilization during the COVID pandemic or during current debate over global warming. What is “THE science?” What is the most reasonable course of action? Quick, someone show me an emoji.
Where does all that leave us? Well, to paraphrase a famous cigar smoker, sometimes a smiley face is just a smiley face with only a generalized meaning, and sometimes a group of words… (Thirsty? There’s a stream—of thought)
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