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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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My hubby and I were coming back from Ottawa this afternoon when we drove right into a windstorm; one of those that blow over power lines, weaker trees and anything that isn't tied down in your yard. We were nearly blown off the road a couple of times and my hubby had to hold the wheels at a 20-degree angle to keep the car on the straight line. So I say, "I can't believe how easily our car gets buffeted around." To which he replies, "Oh sure, buffeted, yup we're buffeted alright, that was buffeting if I’ve ever seen it." Which is his charming way of telling me that I was using a word people don’t usually use (dontcha just wanna smack em sometimes  ) But it got me to thinking…how DOES one come up with the adequate word for a situation. You don’t stop to search your memory banks when you’re talking, you just spit it out. I could have said blown about or knocked or pushed or any number or words BUT without consciously thinking I said buffeted – which to me is the perfect word. Has anybody ever seen a paper or study on how the mind processes thoughts to come up with the perfect words? How does our mind, without us consciously thinking about it, choose the words that we use?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I can't answer your question, Bel, but I have had similar thoughts, especially when I write something, then re-read it and discover that I have subconsciously included a pun or some similarly serendipitous combination. I just sit back and chuckle at myself and say "Now, how did I do that!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear belMarduk: as a jest, "buffet" ought to come easily to you, since it is derived from an old French word:
ME < OFr, dim. of buffe, a blow:
Since most storms have isolated gusts, "buffet" is a perfect word to describe the sensation.
It used to puzzle me why a side table in diningroom with extra silverware, condiments, beverages, dessert awaiting end of meal was called a "buffet". Turns out to be an entirely unrelated homonym
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Carpal Tunnel
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Has anybody ever seen a paper or study on how the mind processes thoughts to come up with the perfect words?
It does?
Oft, in the stilly night,
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
I think of what I might have said
When others were around me.
At such a woeful waste of wit
Constructively I weep,
And often, in the still of night,
I kick myself to sleep.
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old hand
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old hand
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Perfect poem keiva, to whom do we owe the thanks?  Has anybody ever seen a paper or study on how the mind processes thoughts to come up with the perfect words?Well bel, in simple form, this is what I think... The brain stores and therefore retrieves information by association. This filing system is complex but in general it is temporal in nature, that is, it files by date. Most of the sorting and filing is done while we sleep, subconsciously. When we are awake fighting wars, the assault of information overwhelms, so we put these bits of environmental stimuli into short term storage until the relative calm of dreamtime. Then the filling clerk on the night shift can began sorting them into strings and packets by category, and while he's at it he can start retrieving stuff from closets that we have told him that we will need in the coming day. Perfect words and perfect thoughts almost always come in the early morning or late at night.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Bel, i am with you, you get buffeted by the wind..
once coming into manhattan, the two lane exit ramp from the bridge, met the two lane highway, to become a three lane highway. traffice was heavy (isn't always?) but it was moving.. the middle lane drivers (the merge lane) keep neatly letting alternate traffic in. (one car from bridge, one car from highway, *followed by one car from bridge, one car from highway(repeat from *))
I commented the traffic was neatly collating..
"collating? what do mean collating? how can cars collate?"
but isn't that what they were doing? what word would you use? and why can't cars collate?
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Carpal Tunnel
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M-W says: to arrange in proper order, with an emphasis on pages being ordered for printing. I've only used it in making multiple copies of a multi-page documant on a photocopier. Print five copies of page one and put them in five different output slots, five copies of page two and put them each on the five copies of page one, etc., rather than five copies of page one followed by five copies of page two. Your cars were sort of collating in that they were doing the same sort of thing physically and metaphorically, but it's a bit of a stretch, I think. Interleave might work better as the "right" word. That said I think your companion was a little brain dead not to see what you meant by collate in this context.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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About Keiva's poem:
What are all those stairs that tsuwm writes about? I think he's got French stairs and German stairs and mebbe some others--those stairs we go down mentally after having left a social situation when we realize what we should have said? I know tsuwm has these stairs on the tip of his tongue.
About the words we use: This is the turf of the psycholinguist, isn't it? Those word psychologists who study the language patterns of inidividuals and can even identify people by the language they use and the way they use it.
Best regards,
WindWrecked
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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French stairs and German stairs
French stairs: l'esprit de l'escalier
German stairs: treppenwitz
I have to agree with Keiva's poem in this case-- I'm more likely to be descending those ol' stairs than dazzling the company with a word aptly spoken. But I have my moments.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Keiva: That's carrying l'ésprit de l'escalier too far.
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