Stop Playing with Yourself or You'll Go Mute

I agree with you Jack; Non-native speakers are definitely better students than apathetic native ones. It really was a good blog, and I admit that I’m nitpicking with this response, but I know you’re a good sport so here it goes. I don’t like that you are insulting people who have trouble communicating with others, while putting writers on this ‘more highly-evolved’ pedestal.

Something’s been bothering me lately too, Jack. It has come to my attention that a majority of English majors are grossly pretentious – or at least that’s what they start to sound like after their years and years of schooling make them think that they are better than the rest of the world because they can write. I have to say I’m with you on the depression. I’m depressed at the verbal masturbation that I seem to witness on a day-to-day basis from all of the “English experts” around me. This goes out to those who think that people who can’t write are just monkeys. Let me tell you a story of a student that I consistently worked with over the last year.

Some of you might be surprised to know that I teach Tae Kwon Do, a Korean martial art that’s a bit like Karate. Often times, I work with students whose parents have moved their families to America from Korea to work here for a few years. All of my students know that I am an English major, and in a few different cases, I’ve been hired to tutor middle-aged Korean men, the fathers of my students, in English. Now, I’m not talking about struggling immigrants here; I’m talking about people who work for large corporations as engineers or marketing directors or even teachers who want to learn how to speak to Americans. These men are very intelligent – they just can’t speak English, let alone write it.

One of the men I tutored was named Chingu, which translates to “friend” in English. He went by Jeff in his office, but he really should’ve kept his Korean name because he was one of the most amiable souls I have ever encountered. He worked for Hyundai as an environmental data analyst and wanted to learn to speak to his American colleagues. I came to his home twice a week, where I’d eat dinner with his family and speak with him about pretty much anything. “How was your day?” “Any plans for the weekend?” Small talk mostly, but sometimes we’d touch on some deeper topics. “What do you miss most from Korea?” “Do you remember anything about the war from your childhood?” “Are you worried about your children being taken away from their first culture?” He didn’t always have the right words, but he answered with my help. We’d work through it until his ideas could come to the table. The thoughts were there in his mind; he just couldn’t get them out of his mouth.

Sometimes as we’d sit, struggling with meaning, trying to pin down exactly what it was he was saying, I’d toss him a few words to see which one he’d bite. “Do you mean ‘upset’?”, “’Disappointed’?”, “’Afraid’?” “’Anxious’?” He would toss them all back. One day as we went through this little routine, Jeff, chewing on his tongue as he forced out his thoughts, and me, searching my brain for better words to offer him, he taught me something that I’ll never forget. He shook his head, and in not-so-perfect English basically told me, “Nothing I say will be exactly what I mean – in English or in Korean.”

I took a lot from his frustration that day. He was completely right; we can never say exactly what we mean. And those of us who get the closest with our language should consider ourselves lucky – not better. So here’s my point, finally. Jack, I think you’re wrong to be so judgmental of those who can’t write well. You obviously have a great gift; you can easily plan what it is that you’d like to write or say so that it is very close to what you are thinking. That’s a talent that has taken practice and probably some natural skill. But that doesn’t make you better than anyone. Frankly, you’re blog was a bit intimidating, putting off those who might be afraid to be seen as a monkey by the editors of AFewLinesMagazine.

I say that we are not better than others because we know how to write, but that we are a special breed; not better, just more easily understood. However, when we, the easily understood, spend our time admiring our own skills and taking pride in our abilities, we are terrible communicators… It is shameful when our heads are too far up our own asses for anyone to hear what it is that we are trying to say.

In love and friendship,

S. Pine