Grammar and meaning

This article was inspired by a question that somebody asked me in one of my classes in the Canguro Academy. It was about this meme that they had seen on the internet:

I don’t want to adult today.
I don’t even want to human.
Today, I want to cat.

The student wanted to know if the grammar in the meme was correct, and if it was ok to use this type of language.

In this article I’m going to answer that question, and the answer will reveal the secret to producing perfect English grammar, every time.

It seems to be an undeniable fact that languages have grammar rules. If you’re learning English, you can study and follow those rules and with enough practice you can use them to produce perfect English.

One place we can find these rules is in the dictionary, so let’s use the dictionary to help us decide if the English in this meme is correct or not. Unfortunately neither human, nor cat, are listed as verbs in the dictionary, so as a good teacher, it is my obligation to say that the English in this meme is wrong.

You see, we have to teach people to follow the rules. Without these rules to hold language together there would be total chaos, and nobody would be able to communicate. ‘Human’ as a verb doesn’t exist. It’s not real. Not like the number 102, which is right here…

Wait a second. 102 isn’t in the dictionary. Or 103. Or 104. Or in fact, almost every other number. Unfortunately, that forces me to say that any English which contains numbers is probably incorrect. We can’t just have people creating their own numbers. There would be chaos!

Although I am being sarcastic, that is exactly what most learners are taught about language, and the end result is that most students leave the classroom filled with the fear of making mistakes, but worst of all, filled with the fear of creating language.

To understand why that’s a problem, let’s travel to Ireland.

On the 4th May, 1939, the Irish writer James Joyce published his final book. It was called Finnegans Wake, and it had taken 17 years to write. The book was declared by some literary critics to be a masterpiece and as important to English literature as the works of William Shakespeare.

It tells the story of the Earwicker family, who live in Dublin, and… well, that’s all I can tell you. But, not because I’m ignorant, but because Finnegans Wake is no ordinary book.

For a start, Finnegans Wake is written in an idioglossia, or ‘personal tongue’: a language invented by the author, and totally unique to him, that mixes English with other languages to create new words, puns, and rhymes.

And its uniqueness doesn’t stop with the language. Despite 80 years of literary analysis nobody really knows what the book is about. Or whether it is about anything at all. It doesn’t appear to have any clear setting, or story, or characters. Let me read a paragraph so you can see what I’m talking about:

The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later on life down through all christian minstrelsy. The great fall of the offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan, erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes: and their upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the park where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since devlinsfirst loved livvy.

And it continues like that for more than 600 pages, which gives it the reputation of being the most difficult book to read in all of English literature. But, upon close analysis, what seems at first to be meaningless nonsense does appear to have some deeper meaning. For example, let’s take that 100-letter word from the paragraph I just read:

It contains the word for ‘thunder’ from various different languages:

bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!

Hindustani gargarahat: thunder

Japanese kaminari: thunder

Finnish ukkonen: thunder

Greek brontê: thunder

French tonnerre: thunder

Portuguese trovão: thunder

Swedish åska: thunder

Danish torden: thunder

Irish tórnach: thunder

And when we pick out some other key words and concepts from this paragraph, it seems to be about the loud thunderous noise it made when an old man fell off a wall and died. But that’s only one interpretation. And there are lots of interpretations.

Literary figures like Joseph Campbell and Anthony Burgess have written competing theories about what the book is about, and what it means, while others like Vladimir Nabokov described the book as: “…nothing but a formless and dull mass of phony folklore…”

So which is it? A work of nonsense, or genius? How can more than 600 pages of words be a masterpiece of literature, and also completely meaningless?

The answer to this question is the key to producing perfect English:

Humans create meaning.

This is a very difficult lesson for many people to accept, because there’s a big problem with the understanding and teaching of language that started when the first grammar book was written thousands of years ago. Many people think that language is made of nouns, and verbs, and tenses, and rules, and that those little pieces create language. But those things are a result of language, not what makes language work.

Language doesn’t exist because of grammar, grammar exists because humans communicate. Words don’t exist because they are in the dictionary, they are in the dictionary because humans use them.

And that brings us back to the meme. Even for people with only a basic level of English, the meaning of the meme is clear, even if you won’t find the verb ‘cat’ in the dictionary.

So the English in this meme is perfect.

Unfortunately, many people think this is a toxic concept, and that probably includes you. It’s highly likely that all your years of education have made you believe that some person or some book can tell you if a piece of language is right or wrong.

You want a judge to declare the grammar correct or incorrect. You want a referee to blow a whistle if there is a penalty, or allow the game to be played if everyone is following the rules. You want a teacher to give you a thumbs up or thumbs down.

But think about this for a moment: There are approximately 7,000 languages in the world today, and a vast majority of those languages have never been written down, and have never been studied. They have no dictionaries, or grammar books. The ‘rules’ of those languages have never been taught to anyone, ever.

Does that mean that those languages are just pure chaos, and nobody can understand each other? Of course not.

In reality, every use of language is an act of creation. Almost every sentence you produce has never been produced by another human in the history of the universe. The idea of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ is completely meaningless in language. There is only one way to judge language:

Successful communication = perfect language

This is the philosophy that we live by in the Canguro Academy, and once you adopt it, you become an unstoppable communicator. And the best part is that you can do this with any level of English.

All you have to do is engage in the ancient human art of creating meaning. It’s something that we’ve been doing for thousands of years. Out of all of the living creatures on this planet, it is a gift that only we have. Please don’t waste it.