Thursday, April 26, 2012

The Secret Language of Siblings

There was a book I had to read once in one of my Italian Lit classes, called "Lessico Familiare" (Family Lexicon), and it was a story about an Italian family, demonstrating the fact that as families we have an almost exclusive language with each other that more often than not other people don't understand.  I was reminded very much of this book this week as I was reading an email from a friend.  The point this person was trying to make in the email was very different from the meaning I got from the email because of the way it was written.  The gist of the email was talking about the temple and how they were excited to go.  However, the email was written in all lower case, with multiple of these: "...." in the body.  Now, when I am speaking with my siblings (and by speaking I mean in this case emailing, texting, IM-ing, etc., etc.,), there are usually only 3 possible meanings for this: "....":
1.  I am uber annoyed
2.  I am aghast at your stupidity
3. What I just said was probably a lie
4.  I am bored
Writing in all lower case also suggests to me that one has no energy and is very apathetic about what they are writing me about.  But ironically enough, the writer of the email was actually trying to express their excitement.  Lesson learned for the day:  No matter how funny or clever I think I am when I communicate with others, they won't be able to comprehend my greatness in humor, wit, ability to pinpoint intricate emotions, etc., so I should spend my time only talking to my brother and sister.

1 comment:

  1. haha I feel that way sometimes––that my family might be the only people who will ever understand my weirdness. and by weirdness, I really mean awesomeness...

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