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Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing
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Now we know: I can read my own mind, and you can read your own
mind, and this self-mind-reading is even easier to do than breathing
in and out on a lovely April morning. When I write something like “I
have a little green ball” on the whiteboard, I read my mind as I read
the board, so I understand it—and I’m positive, therefore, that you
understand it. Meanwhile, you read my sentence and your own mind
together and the meaning is so perfectly clear to you that it’s nearly
impossible to imagine that you’re not understanding exactly what I
intended.
I have a little green ball. Even a five-year-old could read this sentence
and know what I mean, right?
Try something. Bring both hands up in front of your face, and use
each one to show one possible size of this “little” ball. (You can try
this with friends: have everyone close their eyes and show the size of a
“little” ball with their hands, then open their eyes, and look around.)
Hmm. Already there’s some possible disagreement, even though it
seemed so clear what “little” meant.
Maybe “green” is easier: you know what “green” is, right? Of course.
But now, can you think of two different versions of “green”? three versions?
five? In the twenty-five minds in a classroom, say, we might have
at least twenty kinds of little, and maybe a hundred kinds of green,
and we haven’t even discussed what kind of “ball” we might be talking
about. Those of you who are math whizzes can see the permutations
that come from all those variables. If I sent you to Mega Toyland with
the basic instructions, “Buy me a little green ball,” the chances are slim
that you would come home with the ball I had in mind
charles lowe and pavel zemliansky - Personal Name
1st Edition
978-1-60235-184-4
NONE
Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing
Communication
English
Parlor Press LLC
2011
USA
1-366
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