The Mandelbear's Musings

Ursine, as you might expect, is the language of bears. Or at least of mandelbears; I can't speak for the rest of the genus. Or maybe it's just this bear. In the (unlikely) event that "Understanding Ursine" turns into a series, this will serve as an introduction. The title has been somewhere on the bear's to-do list for several years -- this post from May, 2014 lists it among many proposed projects. It's well known that procrastination is a common ursine characteristic.

Reducing expectations: Much of the ursine vocabulary is involved with reducing the listener's expectations -- lack of self-confidence is another ursine characteristic. Notable in this category is "I'll try to remember", which is a common response to a non-urgent request made while the bear is doing something else. The meaning is, approximately, "I'm doing something else right now, and I might get engrossed in it again. When I reach a stopping point I hope I'll remember your request, but I might not."

Along the same lines, another common response to a request is "I'll try." It really doesn't matter what the request is or how trivial it is -- this is a default instant response that comes out before the bear has had time to think about what actions they actually have to take. It might be better to wait for a second or two, but the bear is afraid (with some justification) that the request will be forgotten by that time, or (with much less justification) fail to be accomplished.

Delaying interactions: Another large category serves to put off an interaction until the bear can actually pay attention to it. For a long time the bear has been using "Can't hear!", which is actually a worn-down form of the more accurate but longer "I'm not where I can hear you right now; I'll be out in a minute." Unfortunately, humans usually take "can't hear" as a request to speak louder. Would "later" or "busy" work better? "Busy!" has been used in the past.

"Working!" and "Working on it!" are other responses in this category. In both there is the implication that further conversation at this time would distract the bear from something it's doing. "Working on it" further implies that it's doing something you requested -- or thinks you're about to request.

Indications of overload: On rare occasions, the bear will say "Please..." in a pleading tone; this indicates that the bear is under extreme stress and is about to go completely non-verbal. A warding-off gesture, palm outward, usually means that either this has already happened, or that the bear is on the phone.

A four-letter interjection repeated at intervals of roughly a second is usually an indication that the bear is involved in a task, such as cleaning the floor or groping under the sink for a cut-off valve, that is causing them physical pain (more rarely, mental distress) but nevertheless has to be done.

Sorry: Some concepts don't translate well, and we're still unsure exactly what "Sorry" means. It may have originated with any of a number of phrases that start out "I'm sorry, ..." but now appears to be mostly an indication that something is going wrong and the bear is too overloaded to say anything else. There is also the implication that the bear is taking the blame for whatever is going wrong; that usually means that the bear's self-esteem is even lower than usual.

I've mentioned verbal tags or keywords before; "snapdragon" and "Basingstoke" for example. Another one, a little more recent, is "meow". (Colleen is also known as the Cheshire Cat -- it fits.)

"Meow" basically means "come over here and hug me or kiss me as soon as you have a chance." It's something that Colleen can say any time, in any company, without being embarrassed and without embarrassing me. Useful.

The day after flower_cat and I have another of our perennial arguments about the meaning of some word that we each use differently, or my interpretation of her tone of voice, or some such minor semantic quibble, along comes theferrett with this post about the language of love:

Everyone hears "love" in their own, unique language. What makes your partner feel safe and cared for can often be a bunch of phrases and habits that make absolutely no sense to you.

We've all heard the story of the wife who left her husband because he didn't pick up his socks. It sounds dumb -- but for that wife, part of the phrase "I love you" meant "I'll keep the floor clean for you." Likewise, sometimes, speaking love involves nonsensical phrases like, "I'm sorry I hurt you" when it should be perfectly apparent that nobody means to hurt anybody.

Learning what things tell your partner "I love you" is what often makes the difference between a long-term marriage and an early divorce.

It's mostly about nonverbal "language" like cleaning the kitchen; one that I learned early in our household was putting the forks into the dishwasher with the tines down. But it also applies to common phrases that we understand in different ways.

I've learned, for example, that when I introduce an offer to help with the phrase "Would you like me to...", the invariable answer is "no", sometimes followed by "I'll do that," which is always implied whether it's stated or not. Whether it's convenient or physically possible for her doesn't matter, my asking the question that way implies that it's something she should be doing, and she feels bad for not being able to. These days, if I have any damned sense, I'll just say "I'm going to..." and do it. Or, if there really is some uncertainty, "Is there any reason why I shouldn't...", in which case the expected "no" frees me to get the chore done, whatever it was.

One that I've learned quite recently is that it's very important to my Cat that we spend some time within touching distance in the evening when I get home. It doesn't have to be right next to one another; as long as she can reach out her hand for me to hold, she's happy. More about that one downstream a little.

Old bears are sometimes capable of learning new tricks.

I find myself highly amused by the way the Younger Daughter is raising her status in school by telling her friends, when they ask about where she got her unusual dresses, that "My Mom designs them and has her dressmaker make them." It's perfectly true, but at the same time it sounds a lot better than "Mom buys the fabric and one of her friends puts them together."

I suppose that's why my job title is "Chief Software Scientist" instead of "oldest hacker in the company".

Yesterday, as I listened to a podcast about the future of publishing, media, information systems, and social software, I made a list of troublesome words and phrases:

content
consumer
user experience
platform
rich interface
monetization

What's in a name? A lot. The podcasting and AJAX revolutions were mainly linguistic phenomena. Suddenly there were words that crystallized ideas and patterns of behavior that had been evolving for years. We won't solve our problems by coining new buzzwords. But awareness of what our words condition us to think, and not think, has never mattered more.