Thursday, January 25, 2024

day no. 16,530: lost in translation

"A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things."  Herman Melville

You can win a spelling bee and fail a philosophy final. It is easy to assume that an ability to pronounce large words translates into an understanding of large concepts, but it doesn't. A parrot can be taught to say, "Amen," but cannot be trusted to make intercession. A clever child might say, "red light," but should not, therefore, be permitted to drive. Just because the kid can count to ten doesn't mean you should let them do your taxes.

"If you say, 'The social utility of the indeterminate sentence is recognized by all criminologists as a part of our sociological evolution towards a more humane and scientific view of punishment,' you can go on talking like that for hours with hardly a movement of the gray matter inside your skull. But if you begin, 'I wish Jones to go to gaol and Brown to say when Jones shall come out,' you will discover, with a thrill of horror, that you are obliged to think. The long words are not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard. There is much more metaphysical subtlety in the word 'damn' than in the word 'degeneration.'"  G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Large words sometimes require the least amount of intellect. They may take a bit of skill to pronounce, but it does not require any sentience to pronounce them as law. Legalese may the jargon of the jurisdiction, but it doesn't require any sense of justice to repeat it.

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