Tuesday, October 13, 2009

A Clockwork Orange

O my brothers, I must skazat an appypolly-loggy, for to you these statements are simply chepooka and gloopy, but to me it's choodesney. You most likely don't pony what I govoreet. Its purpose isn't to razdrez you, so don't gooly away yet. I came up with this idea for my first blog post after many minootas of cally messels running through my mozg, and then this horrorshow messel (I hope) came to jeezny, in hopes of making you skirk your gulliver and lose your rassoodook.

Enough with the Nadsat, hopefully you grasped the gist of that paragraph, even though it contained a number of words you've probably never heard (unless you've read A Clockwork Orange or speak Russian). Before reading any further or google searching to find out what any of that meant, in your post (if you plan on posting, if not just do it in your head) type out the gist of the previous paragraph, don't retype anything out word for word, just a short summary.

So even though you have no idea what those nonsense words mean, you could hopefully get a basic understanding of the paragraph. So how did you go about getting a general idea of this gibberish? Simply put, I'd say your subconscious disregards the nonsense words and pieces together the context of the words you do understand. When you read the sentences, did you try and attach an English word to each Nadsat word? You most likely didn't, as there are many words and you don't want to waste your time. The likely happening is that your subconscious went to work, translating the context into ideas while ignoring the nonsense.

Well this is bringing me to my point: Each person contains their own thought-language; a specific way of thinking that really only makes sense to themselves. Words are what our thought-languages are translated into in order to make sense to others. My thoughts were translated into words, where in your brain they were translated into your own thought-language. Your thought-language filled in the blanks from the nonsensical word language. Makes sense? Perfect! If not, it was simply because my thoughts weren't being translated correctly.

9 comments:

  1. Brilliant idea Michael. Here is my thought-language interpretation of your paragraph:

    Oh my friends and fellow ToK bloggers, I must apologize because, to you, these statements are probably weird and stupid, but to me it's easy. You probably don't understand what I'm saying. It's purpose isn't to confuse you, so don't walk away yet. I came up with this idea for my first blog post after many minutes of ugh *cough* Sh-sub-par-itty idea's running through my mind, then this brilliant idea (I hope) came to me, in hopes of making you scratch your head and lose your mind.

    Michael: Have you actually read A Clockwork Orange?

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  2. Wow, that's a rilly cool way of thinking. Understanding the first paragraph wasn't too difficult but I had to re-read the last one about a basquillion times. I guess i had a hard time translating it into my thought-language. I <3 your blog :)

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  3. Jess: Nice job cheating, as you had already admitted to me haha. I was moreso looking for people to paraphrase my paragraph. But, I assume your intention was so people could check how near their gist-ing matched up to the real thing, how thoughtful.

    Shea: Thanks for the compliment!

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  4. Ah Michael Johnson... as usual you amaze me with your geniusness. I definitely agree with what you wrote, it was quite interesting as well. Im constantly exasperated when people dont translate my thought-language correctly. I once read something really cool about the subconscious, something similar to this but I cant for the life of me remember where it was..

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  5. I hate A CLockwork Orange and I will never read it. You're blog made me sad.

    It made me sad because I do not disregard the nonsense words, I make definitions for them. For example razdrez. I think razdrez means razzle because there are 2 z's. Gloopy is goofy because of the 2 o's. Messel means morrsel because they rhyme.

    Indeed.

    So anyways my point, well I didn't actually have a point to this other than to point out how much that book frustrates me. If I had to choose a side on your thought-language debate, I agree with you that we all have our own.

    Haza!

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  6. Dearest Micheal...
    You really are quite right, no surprise there. Languages can be interpreted in many different ways and therefore many different definitions. For us to not know at certain language proves this as you demonstrated. Not many of us can understand Russian and so when we read it and if some of us did in fact google it, we would all come with different answers and different ways of looking at it.
    So jolly good show!

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  7. My mind is filled with untranslatable thoughts on what you wrote. hmm...intriguing! I think you have a talent for this sort of thing...I really quite enjoyed the thought provoking component of it and the ultimate draw of the nonsensical words...one thing I will mention though is that my brain read the paragraph and then went back and did indeed try to translate each unfamiliar word. However, I still genuinely agree with your thoughts. Good work.

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  8. Wow... you're amazing. I thought at first that you were doing a mix of english and something like pig-latin, but quickly disgarded that idea when I couldn't identify any pattern in the unknown words. I was hoping that it had to take some logic to figure out what you were trying to say.

    My thought-language didn't really fill in the blanks, it just leftmost of them blank. I really didn't get a whole lot from that paragraph. I wonder what that means about my thought processes...?

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  9. Sorry I haven't commented until now, Michael. I was waiting for your next blog post to come out so I could comment on that, but alas your writing has subsided.

    You've touched on one of the main difficulties with words. My ideas get represented in a language that you translate into your own mental representations. Apart from language, what ways might there be to verify that my ideas are accurately represented in your mind? Let us all know if you figure out an answer to that one.

    Tricia, you are invited to add your thought-language to our general discussions on Monday and Friday mornings at 8 a.m. - we supply the coffee, but bring your own mug. No one would be offended if you brought snacks with you.

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