The Word Part 3

All this thinking about words got me thinking about words. My original word was structure. The thing I found most interesting about the word after spending some time with it was it’s variability. While not the most diverse word in English, it shows a little bit about how many meanings a word can have. Structure is a little boring. All of it’s meanings have to do with how things are put together. But it got me thinking about shades of meaning. And that led me to the word set. Set supposedly has more definitions than any other English word. About.com said that the Oxford English Dictionary has 464 definitions for the word set. And 396 for run. So this got me thinking about the variability of meaning in English words. These words with many meanings are called homonyms.

When I emailed Beth for my final step, I got told to relate this idea to the word “deer.” As in the animal. It turns out, this word had only one meaning. How deflating. I couldn’t have been more disappointed, because the word deer provided no insight into my fascination with variation. It was a literal, concrete word that could only mean one thing. Unless you didn’t see it but only heard it. Dear. As in Dear John. So now we’re into homophones. Words that sound the same, but have different meanings and spellings. Confusing. I’m glad I learned English before I had time to think about it. This is a crazy language.

So what does this all mean? Why is this important that words can mean different things, and words can seem to be the same and mean different things. It means language is interesting. It means you can use homonyms and homophones and all sorts of different linguistic tricks and oddities to make something interesting with language. I know this class is about New Media, but I think it all comes down to good writing. Whether you want to be a web designer, movie maker, or create graphic novels, all of these things are just manifestations of written language. So if you can’t control the English language in an effective and interesting way, you can’t create things in other media that connect with people. Not very easily anyway. I guess that what I’m saying is that most media products have their origin in the written language. And that’s how structure and deer work together.

I tried to come up with a way to put all of this into a New Media-ish project with after effects and such, but I think that since all of this stuff led me to think about language, it was best served in essay form. Now if that isn't seeing sideways, I don't know what is. Or is it a cop out, falling back on the medium in which I'm most comfortable, writing? I guess we'll never know for sure, as it would have been a subconcious impulse for me. I would certainly never take the easy way out on purpose.

The Word, Part 2

I see now I never got to the final part of this assignment. Ah, well. Sorry about that. The word, structure, I have to admit, didn't get me thinking a lot in specific terms. One thing it did make me think about is the variability of meaning in English language vocabulary. The same word can mean so many different things. For example, I found 11 meanings listed for the word structure. it's interesting to me that the language has such a variety of definition for simple words. This led me to playing the dictionary game a little bit, in which I basically look through a print dictionary. It's not as easy to pick out random words in an online dictionary. "Stock" was a near neighbor of structure, and had 63 meanings in my dictionary (61 online). I'd be interested to know how true this is in other cultures and languages, and if this phenomenon make English difficult to learn. I suppose if I were going to propose a project, it would be a in-depth linguistic study to see how much variability of meaning exists in other languages. Off the top of my head, I would guess that Asian languages have little overlap, what with their huge character sets, each conveying very specific meanings. But that's just a jumping off point for some reading, I guess.

Sorry again that I didn't complete this appropriately. The complexity level was a touch high for me. I don't really have time for such convoluted processes at this time in my life. I'm operating on a just-in-time manufacturing structure around here.

The Word

structure

50 Qs, Take 2

My final project idea was not really clearly stated, largely because I don't yet have a clear idea about what I want to do. I want to tell a story in video, using only the sound effects and music in concert with video to tell the story, without resorting to any dialog. So on that pretty nebulous structure, I will cast my net of what if questions, and see what filters out.

what if the Main Character (MC) could hear sounds other people can't?
what if MC heard things differently?
what if MC heard dog whistles?
what if MC heard plant sounds?
what if MC could hear plants being cut down or picked (stolen from R. Dahl)?
what if MC's voice made instrument sounds?
what if MC's body made different sounds as he moved through the scene?
what if actions and sounds were completely mismatched?
what if this were a really simple story?
what if MC had to interact with other characters?

what if they had to communicate through instrument or sfx sounds?
what if the music wasn't a 'song' per se?
what if the music were all instrument sounds in place of regular foley?
what if this ended up as crappy as the dogs barking jingle bells stuff?
what if it was really cool?
what if it started when the guy woke up, and followed him through his day through sound?
what if he became synchronized with others during his day?
what if santa claus got involved?
what if it were stop animation?
what if the project didn't require any actors?

what if it was stop motion with actors?
what if the characters were toys?
what if I planned it out frame by frame, beat by beat?
-for example, at 100 bpm, in 15 fps animation, I would need the foot to hit the ground every nine frames to land on the beat.
what if this is far too complicated?
what if i ask my friends to act in this thing?
what if they're terrible?
what if i shot the models against the greenscreen?
what if i built a set, but composited in backgrounds?
what if i just did a stop animation story, and scrapped the whole audio specific idea?
what if these were two separate, and good ideas?
what if I sat on one for later?
what if I went for it, and tried to do it all?
what if I had time to actually do this well?
what if I stopped paying my bills, and became a bankrupt and went to debter's prison because I spent too much time on my homework?

Not quite 50, but it certainly has put some flesh on the project's bones. Too much, but that's good, for the moment.

Reaction to Class 3/2

Honestly, I don't remember much.  I forgot to post about it at the time, and now its gone.  Ah, the transient nature of the memory.  Is there such a thing as true memory?  This book I'm reading, Vertigo, has a lot to say about memory, and whether we can actually remember anything, what with the myriad memory replacements that exist now.  When we see pictures of places we've been, and read descriptions of events we witnessed, the recorded version of it tends to displace our own memories.  We see a picture of the Eiffel Tower from below, and remember seeing it like that, even if we never had that particular vantage point.  The picture replaces our memory, and when we think of our own experience there, the photo has replaced our actual experience of the place.  So therefore, it doesn't matter that I can't remember class, because it probably wouldn't be a true memory anyway.

Just kidding.  The Plato discussion was about what I expected.

Republican Plato

Well, you don't stay in print for 2400 years without delivering some pretty good stuff.  Here we have the foundations of the liberal arts education, and the idea that intellect trumps opinion, and science trumps faith.  It's pretty impressive to me that Socrates, via Plato, is still relevant today, as we enter the era of recovery from leadership that never got out of the cave.  It's also pretty sad commentary on the immutability of human nature.  These ideas were out there, clearly stated 2400 years ago, and we still have to deal with leadership that is in it for the power.  We still struggle with the unenlightened elevating rulers who value opinion and action over intellect, and faith over science.  You'd think we're programmed that way, and we'll never get over it.  

I can only point to history as a pendulum.  Human society seems to swing back and forth between enlightened and unenlightened eras.  I hope that we're on our way back to secular, educated, and intelligent, but it's hard to say.  I think the new guy in charge is more likely to think that way than the last guy, but hard times are coming.  And hard times are pretty bad for secular, enlightened thinking.