Today I wrote my lesson for this week’s ethics classes. It’s more of a critical thinking class, rather than ethics, about language. A sample:
In our world there are many different languages, around 6000-7000, depending on how you count them. Some languages like Spanish and Italian are closely related, and speakers of one are able to understand a bit of the other language. Some like English and Japanese are totally different, and can’t be understood at all by a speaker of the other unless a person learns them.
• What sort of problems are caused by different languages?
• What advantages are there to having many different languages?
• Is it good that there are many languages, or would the world be better if there was just one language?…
Words change meaning over time. Not too long ago, the word “literally” meant something that actually happened. But now it’s common to hear people say things like, “I literally died laughing”. They don’t mean they really died – in fact they mean the opposite, that they didn’t really die. Some people get upset that people are using the word to mean a completely different thing.
• Is it okay that people start to use words to mean new things that they didn’t mean before?
• Is there a “right” way and a “wrong” way to use language, or does it not matter as long as people can understand you?
I ran the first three classes tonight and it’s a really fun topic, with a lot of really interesting and varied comments from the kids.
At lunch today I took Scully out for a walk. We stopped at a Vietnamese place where I got a pancake stuffed with bean spouts, pork, and prawns, served with mounds of fresh salad. It was really good, and possibly even healthy.
New content today: