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Situational language
Take William F. Buckley for example. Like many Americans, I mourned his recent death. While I rarely agreed with his political stance, I read his editorials with a smile because I admired his use of language. He wrote beautifully crafted sentences in books on politics and philosophy. He also wrote novels. Buckley was a pleasure to watch when he moderated his television program "Firing Line." The language conveyed with his eyes and his smile spoke paragraphs even when he sat silently. I had another occasion to think about language as a result of a telephone call. I picked up the phone, "Hello." No response. I said it differently, "Hello?" At this point, someone mispronounced my name. You'd think that around Christmas or Easter, everyone would know how to pronounce "Herod." This caller struggled with where to break the two syllables in my last name. He was calling for the Alabama Trooper's Association and was seeking a donation to that Association. I do not respond to telephone solicitations, especially when they disturb my evenings. Even more, I am a retired teacher and wondered if the Alabama Teacher's Association should not form a committee to seek donations to help their families. In less than a half hour, I got a second call. This caller knew how to say my name. I told him I had already been contacted. He asked what the result was. I told him. I could tell from the language he used that he was getting a little huffy. The Alabama State Troopers have an office across the street from The Nethermost. It seemed appropriate for me to walk over and repair any damage I had done to my reputation among the State Troopers. They were very polite to my inquiry the next morning. Even more, the three troopers looked around for a receipt to give me for tax purposes. Being April, these three troopers and I were thinking about tax deductions. One trooper said that he listed the cost of his socks as a tax deduction. Sure, regulations require that he wear a certain kind of socks as part of the uniform. T-shirts, too. They all had on the same style: white undershirt, visible at the top. The undershirts are required uniform and tax deductible. "What about your drawers?" one of them asked. It went on from there. I knew that this language was banter between two comrades who were very aware of the elderly codger standing in their office with his mouth ajar. The third trooper entered the hilarity with language taking the banter to an entirely new level. "You'd better watch out. What if your wife reads your tax forms?" This is situational language. The language I typically hear from Alabama State Troopers is quite different. "Sir, do you know how fast you were going in this fifty-five mile per hour zone?" And, this is followed by, "May I see your driver's license and vehicle registration?" You know the language I use in this situation. To the first I respond, "Maybe I had crept up to sixty two, sir." My second response is meek, "Yes, sir." I am reading the sometimes humorous, sometimes frightening book titled "Still Broken: A Recruit's Inside Account of Intelligence Failures." A. J. Rossmiller writes about situational language. "Army soldiers tend to speak primarily in acronyms and profanity, with the occasional regular word thrown in." He goes on to say that Marines speak in profanity with an occasional acronym thrown in, and the Air Force guys have a vocabulary of engineering terms and occasional haughty profanity. These uniformed service men and women are our sons and daughters. They don't talk like that in front of us. No, they are smart guys and gals who know to use situational language. Recently, there was a need down here in The Nethermost to start my chainsaw. I've seen guys who hold chainsaws in one hand and, with a jerk or two, get that thing to purring. It doesn't work that way for me. I lay the chainsaw on the ground and yank repeatedly on the rope. (Note that I used no adjectives in the previous sentence because this is a family newspaper.) After many failed attempts to start the saw, I become aware of the host of deceased family elders hovering nearby. My mother would put her hands on her hips and remind me that such language is a reflection of a limited vocabulary. My father would laugh and say, "Hush, Audrey. A boy has got to have some wildness if he's going to amount to anything."
Some young engineers might see my book of fiction, pick it up, and be surprised at the language it contains. After all, former students will remember a very staid Professor of Mathematics, one who required proper decorum in class. "Not to worry," I'd tell them. "That's not me talking in those stories. That's Lawrence, or Jonathan, or Wesley! Maybe even Robert or Thomas! You know me better than that." I might chide them for such a mistake with even stronger language depending on the situation.
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