Episode 85 How spooky is language?
From Structured Visions · 48:29
Show by Jodie Clark
What makes Ouija boards spooky? Is it language? After all, it's the letters of the alphabet that take up the most space on these devices, and they're just waiting for something to be spelled out. Who's doing the spelling? And what kind of spells are they, after all? In this episode we'll be exploring the occult etymologies of words like 'spell' and 'grammar'. We also examine the spookiness of receiving messages that come without the coordinates of selfhood. As Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou writes, 'The point of a fish trap is the fish. The point of the word is the idea. Once you've got the idea, you can forget the word.' What if language is a net that shapes itself around an idea to bring it into a different plane of existence? In this episode I share my own spooky idea: that human language is the Earth's way of creating nets of selfhood from which new ideas emerge. The story I read is 'My late grandmother', and it's available on grammarfordreamers.com. Connect with me (and sign up to my newsletter) here: grammarfordreamers.com/connect Follow me on Instagram @grammarfordreamers, Facebook www.facebook.com/Grammarfordreamers/ or Twitter @jodieclarkling Subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you like to listen. Rate, review, tell your friends!
More episodes of Structured Visions
More episodes
- Episode 1 The mystery of the little Black baby dolls
- Episode 2 Chutes and Ladders, or I am being so American
- Episode 3 Objective, descriptive and other broken promises in linguistics
- Episode 4 I'm like, social structure really pisses me off!
- Episode 5 Kill your peas and other stories from alien worlds
- Episode 6: I was one of the those: uniqueness and community
- Episode 7 I left, like, that night: the isolated individual
- Episode 8 The Model Person: traffic, politeness, French kissing and fingernails
- Episode 9 It's not fair! The rational, disembodied person
- Episode 10 Potties and bodies
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