Post by potia on Feb 7, 2010 14:19:00 GMT -1
In an effort not to further derail the "Is Paganism more relevant today than Christianity?" thread I thought I'd start up a thread to try and open out this thorny issue of language use on the forum a bit.
Every now and again we get threads that start using terms that some among us look at with glazed eyes. Those using the terms are usually only to happy to explain what they mean if asked. Those who don't understand what is being said are often rather hesitant about asking for explanation.
People who use these terms naturally (regardless of educational background) can get frustrated with requests for simpler language and may see it as requests for dumbing down of ideas.
People who haven't come across the terms before (again regardless of educational background) can feel embarrassed and sometimes slightly ashamed that they don't understand more.
Sometimes those who are asked to explain things realise that they could have explained things better and in explaining what they meant to say are able to clarify their own thoughts on things to a greater depth than they had before.
Sometimes those who ask for an explanation then feel the joy of learning something new and realising that there is a word for a concept they were groping with but struggling to find the right words.
We sit at our keyboards in the safety of our homes or workplaces typing out our thoughts. We may not want to be challenged emotionally as we sit but even in highly intellectual debates our emotions can not be divorced from who we are. Most of us don't like being pushed out of our comfort zones even when it's good for us.
Text based interactions are notorious for causing problems of mis-interpretations and then escalations of emotional responses. None of us will be totally immune to that effect.
Can we all try and keep each other in mind a bit more as we type?
And perhaps this thread can be used to ask for explanations of words if we don't want to post the question in the thread the words came up in for whatever reason?
New words for me recently:
Theophany
Exegetical (still not sure I have grasped the meaning of that one actually but think it's to do with explaining things from a philosophical point of view)
Edited once for clarity
Every now and again we get threads that start using terms that some among us look at with glazed eyes. Those using the terms are usually only to happy to explain what they mean if asked. Those who don't understand what is being said are often rather hesitant about asking for explanation.
People who use these terms naturally (regardless of educational background) can get frustrated with requests for simpler language and may see it as requests for dumbing down of ideas.
People who haven't come across the terms before (again regardless of educational background) can feel embarrassed and sometimes slightly ashamed that they don't understand more.
Sometimes those who are asked to explain things realise that they could have explained things better and in explaining what they meant to say are able to clarify their own thoughts on things to a greater depth than they had before.
Sometimes those who ask for an explanation then feel the joy of learning something new and realising that there is a word for a concept they were groping with but struggling to find the right words.
We sit at our keyboards in the safety of our homes or workplaces typing out our thoughts. We may not want to be challenged emotionally as we sit but even in highly intellectual debates our emotions can not be divorced from who we are. Most of us don't like being pushed out of our comfort zones even when it's good for us.
Text based interactions are notorious for causing problems of mis-interpretations and then escalations of emotional responses. None of us will be totally immune to that effect.
Can we all try and keep each other in mind a bit more as we type?
And perhaps this thread can be used to ask for explanations of words if we don't want to post the question in the thread the words came up in for whatever reason?
New words for me recently:
Theophany
Exegetical (still not sure I have grasped the meaning of that one actually but think it's to do with explaining things from a philosophical point of view)
Edited once for clarity