I recently discovered this podcast about linguistics called Lingthusism and weâve really got into it, itâs great for driving and hanging out at home! Check it out; the hosts will infect you with their enlingthusiasm, too!
In Episode 15 the closing remarks from Gretchen prompted me to think about how the more we learn about something, the better (hopefully!) we can contextualise it and articulate how something affects us, people we know or groups.
âŚthereâs a certain amount of similarity that linguistics has to another hobby that Iâve taken up â stargazing.
Before I started stargazing, I would go outside at night and look up at the stars and be like âwow thereâs stars, thatâs nice! Theyâre there! Look, pretty!â
I knew one or two constellations but if I couldnât find those⌠oh, thereâs stars.
Now that Iâve been stargazing for over a year and I know what most of the constellations are and how they move through the sky at different hours of the day and different times of the year and I have names associated with them â I go outside and when I look at the same sky, and what I see there is different because all of the individual pieces have meaning now and have associations with them and have patterns that I can see.
And obviously the sky hasnât changed, Iâve changed.
But in many cases, language is kind of like all those stars â youâre surrounded by it all the time, you hear and see it, itâs there, but being able to look at language like a linguist looks at language, is, now you have words and you have frameworks that you can put in â hereâs what all these sounds are, theyâre not just a bath of sounds, theyâre âconstellationsâ.
So you have this way of making sense of all of the stuff youâre seeing and experiencing and putting it into some sort of context.
I think for me thatâs one of the things thatâs really magical about linguistics. And stargazing!
This really struck a chord with me. As Iâve said before, one of the frustrating things about being young is not having the vocabulary and understanding to effectively describe things that happen and the way they make you feel.
Here are a few constellations that, over the years, have come together and helped me make sense of the world to an extent. Non-exhaustive, of course.
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[Internalised misogyny, Gaslighting, Rape Culture and Bro Culture constellation slides]
We could name stars for conceptsâŚ
NotAllMen alpha
Youâre crazy centauri
Ball & chain beta
But to be more positive, I also saw a post recently about Green Flags â the opposite of âred flagsâ (little hints from words and behaviours that warn us of potentially abusive or otherwise dangerous and unpleasant people) i.e. hints that show youâre with a good person! Hereâs a constellation for that, too.
Because while weâre sold a lot of red flags disguised as green ones (looking at you, RomComs), weâre also rarely actively taught what real respect, kindness and care looks like. So, letâs share examples of those to help each other out, too.
Perhaps itâs because of a recent conversation with a friend whoâs recovering from a horrible relationship experience with a man (and hey that could be⌠just about any of my friends! Sad indictment of our world); they wondered how it can ever be easy to identify abusive people before youâre so wrapped up in it.
Honestly, I think itâs really difficult. Most of us have had run-ins we might have avoided if weâd known the signs. But sadly, society doesnât teach us about red flags in a useful way â not to the extent it likes to couch abuse in the language of romance, thus sending extremely confusing and dangerous messages to children â who then become the adults entering into relationships that go badly.
A kind of relationship vaccine
People are quick to blame women especially for not realising how bad a person a man was, or for not âmaking himâ leave or change, when in reality itâs incredibly tough. Especially when combined with emotional manipulation and other forms of control. I think part of the reason itâs hard for us to identify is not having the frameworks in place to identify and describe these phenomena. But we can have them!
This is why womenâs networking is vital, too, and why itâs often derided as gossip and bitching and other things that not only minimise its importance to men, but between women as well. The more women are discouraged from speaking to each other, the more abusers can get away with it, and with more people. Friendships are so valuable. And while ultimately our relationship decisions are down to us, a concerned friend who has experience and spots abusive tendencies can really save a life.
If we learn to spot and describe forms (or constellations) of problems in society, we can better understand and tackle them. Similarly, the more we share and discuss these aspects of behaviour and beliefs with people we know, the better equipped we all are to navigate our interpersonal relationships. Not just romantic ones; professional, platonic.
There are loads more that could be made â under the different axes of oppression; racism, anti-LGBTQ, ableism, classism â if you make one, let me know!
Friendships and frameworks I recently discovered this podcast about linguistics called Lingthusism and we've really got into it, it's great for driving and hanging out at home!
