Cultural Perspective

With immigration so much in the news, why don't we review this? More has been added to it.

Every culture has elements and idiosyncrasies that seem strange to outsiders. We tend to notice these idiosyncrasies in other cultures but not in our own. Just for a sense of perspective let's look at some aspects of the English-speaking cultures that others might find strange.

Start with the keyboard. We learn the alphabet as ABC... but then the QWERTY order on the keyboard is completely different. Why don't we just make one or the other as the alphabetical order? This doesn't seem to make much sense. There is a reason for the QWERTY order and that is so secretaries of the past could have the most used letters of the alphabet easiest to reach. But nowadays almost everyone does their own typing. Speed typing is not a factor any more because it is of no use for a writer to be able to type faster than they can think.

Then we come to the 99 pricing in stores. An item does not cost $15. It's ONLY $14.99. This is an effort to get shoppers to think that they are not really paying $15. In some stores every price has "ONLY" in front of it. This honestly borders on comical.

What about food packaging? The contents of the package are often pictured smiling at the buyer, who will be having it's flesh for dinner. You buy a package of fish or chicken and it is on the package smiling at you. Maybe you buy eggs and there is a hen smiling at you or milk and there is the a cow smiling at you apparently delighted that you are having it's children, or milk intended for it's children, for dinner.

Who are the "experts"? We are in a democracy where we are supposed to question what we are told. But somewhere out there are "experts", who are always telling us the best time to go to bed or warning us about what might cause cancer. We usually follow what these "experts" tell us without having any idea of who or where they are. Always in the news is that the "experts" have said this, or the "experts" have decided that.

Is it only good people who die in our culture? That's what it seems like if you read a newspaper. There is always bad things and crime happening. But the obituaries inevitably portray everyone who dies as having lived a saintly life. Obituaries are always about how kind and generous they were and how well-liked. Somewhere out there must be less-than-saintly people who do all the bad things that are in the news. But when we read the obituaries, it is only the saints that die.

We have a tendency to portray dogs as male and cats as female, as if the two were one species. But a dog is just as likely to be female as male and a cat is just as likely to be male as female.

Ghost stories don't make sense. Why is it only decrepit old buildings that are haunted? Why can't modern buildings be haunted? What if a ghost had been into cars? Why couldn't a car be haunted? If a ghost is free from bodily requirements then why does it have to live anywhere? Why couldn't a ghost have a look around the moon?

What about name-shortening? Michael is shortened to "Mike", Deborah to "Debbie", and so on. But how much sense does this make to people from other cultures? If we are going to call someone "Mike" then why not just make that his name? 

Then what about nicknames? If a person is to be called by a name then why not just change their name to it? Why does a person need a formal name, a shortened name, and then maybe a nickname?

Our culture really has a thing about the heart being the center of emotion and feeling. The truth is that the heart is a muscle that pumps blood and has nothing whatsoever to do with emotions. Your heart is a lot like the water pump in your car. Saying something like "I am listening to my heart" is like saying "I am listening to the water pump in my car".

We have distorted the shape of the heart. If you close your fist that is about the size and shape of your heart. It looks nothing like a Valentine ❤️. The heart is not red. Blood inside the body is actually blue and appears red only when exposed to outside oxygen.

Our culture has a lot of misnomers. America's two major political parties are the Democrats and Republicans. But if we look up "democrat" and "republican" in a dictionary both words mean the same thing, a believer in representative democracy. America's Civil War was between the Union and the Confederacy, but both of those words also mean the same thing.

Finally we come to our language and it's utter illogic. You have probably noticed that you drive on a parkway but park on a driveway. That is only the beginning of the illogic. Just as one example consider the sets of words that look like they should be related but actually have nothing to do with each other. 

Some of the words in these sets are related, an example being "select" and "elect", but so many other words that look like they should be related actually have nothing to do with each other.

Found and Founder and Foundry 

Principle and Principal

Emerge and Emergency

Gain and Again and Against

Pose and Oppose and Opposite and Suppose 

Secret and Secretary

Sham and Shame 

Shin and Shine

Pin and Pine and Spine 

Electric and Eclectic

Good and Goods 

Success and Successive

The most baffling of all is Meteor and Meteorology. It sounds like meteorology is the observation of meteors, but the two have nothing to do with each other.

A second is a unit of time but it also means next after first. This must be very confusing to people learning to speak English.

To decompress means to take away compression. Using the same logic, "delight" should mean to turn off the lights. But it has nothing to do with lights, it means to make someone happy.

"OK" is supposedly the most commonly used word in our language. But it isn't a word, it is just two letters put together. It is because our language lacks a general informal term of agreement, where "yes" isn't quite the right word.

Another word that our language lacks is one that describes a relationship that is not a pair and not opposites. An example is salt and pepper. The two go together but yet are not opposites and not a pair, because you can use one without the other.