Systemic Change in Modern Language

"It's worth knowing the rules so you can break them, and that's okay" - Ali Anderson-Dyer (28th May 2020), Artistic Director of Bunbury Banter Theatre Company

Language should be allowed to evolve.

The other day, when I was attempting to write a character's emotion, I kept deleting it because it wasn't clear enough in my eyes. You know me, I care very much about the words that I use, and yet I couldn't find any terms that could describe the reaction of shock and urgency as I imagined it, all I could think of was "!", and then it hit me, that was the term. I hesitated at first, it wasn't a word, I couldn't just write the character "!" as a line of dialogue. But why couldn't I? If it could punctuate the end of a sentence to give it emotion, why couldn't it punctuate a lack of dialogue the same way. After all, what isn't said is as important as what is said. And if ellipsis can be used to express a pause or the lack of speech, then surely this should be acceptable. My audience might not be comfortable with it, but is that really my responsibility, haven't I already done a whole blog arc about learning to trust them. And if the guards in Metal Gear Solid could use it to show that they are at alert, then surely, I could! But... it doesn't follow grammatical convention; it breaks the rules.

?

!?

!

Is... Is that really a bad thing?

Aren't we living in the age of rule-breaking? From digital theatre being expanded in lockdown to mass protests because the laws and systems and rules that exist aren't right, from media exploring new stories of intersectionality in a world of reactionaries to the civil rights movements that stand against contemporary laws and for the lives of the LGBT community and the POC community, from video game engines creating worlds that were unthinkable not too long ago to promoting education in schools on topics such as racism and bigotry and black history and the LGBT community that wouldn't have even been considered a decade ago, we are breaking the norms of the past. The Overton window of time progresses through experimenting with what can be.

Is language really going to be step that's too far for some people, and by some people I mean my inner turmoil. I just really want to justify "!", but my systemic side disagrees. I worry that using it could confuse people, the last thing I want, or maybe even ostracized from certain groups for being plain wrong in their eyes.

I'm not going to lie, I've shunned people for their usages of language, and when it became commonplace in my social sphere, I adopted it and acted like I always used it. I'm one of those people... I'm... a language-centrist. That hurts to say. I recall the me of 2016 who mocked some of my friends for using "XD" to show that they were laughing, then all my friends used it, and then I used it and acted like I always did, up until the point that my sphere of friends got better phones and started using emojis like the rest of the civilised world, and as soon as they started mocking me for holding onto the old world, I moved on. It was a dark time for us all. I've grown since then, I've conditioned myself beyond those immediate reactions, though they linger in my mind. I try my best to never let it out, but I was raised in a family and culture that was 'proper', as toxic as that sounds, and so I have my own ingrained biases. Though my ignorance is still clear on many issues.

I'm lucky to have people there to support me in this kind of personal growth.

Young People Lead Language Revolutions

"?no?" is not something I would ever write casually, but I would use it in a play. It isn't grammatically correct, it's not how our language currently works, and yet it is effective in conveying more emotion than a line of stage directions or further dialogue elaboration on one's expression. I picked it up from my younger sister who writes likes this, as well as with many other text shorthand's and creative uses of punctuation and language. When asked about its meaning, she couldn't explain it but she could express it. As I understand it, a normal quote like "no?" would end with an inflection while a furrowed brow forms throughout, ending with clear cues that it is a question. However, "?no?" is slightly less a question and more an expression uncertainty or perplexity, with the beginning of it being stressed rather than employing an inflection, and the furrowed brow forming just before the sentence is spoken. This allows facial expressions and tone to come across in text with the addition of a single character. This new application of punctuation and linguistics can be found elsewhere, such as "!no!" indicating more panic in the quick expression or one jumping to alert just before speaking rather than during. Furthermore, these forms are as deep as they are broad, as this one line can be expanded into more meanings. For example, if I were to write "???no???" then it connotates bewilderment, almost shocking confusion, and an urgent level of uncertainty, making the line far more dramatic and stretching it out as this reaction would have a second or more of one visually acting out these emotions.

Other examples include using extra ellipsis "......" to show a greater pause than usual, or perhaps even a hesitation or build up to the following dialogue. The usage of capitals to emphasise The Point. a lack of capitalisation at the start of a sentence can show its casual informal nature or indicate that what's being said shouldn't be taken too seriously. A simple "-" between two quotes can connotate a change of speaker. Instead of traditional stage directions, one can follow the recent meme format of simply using the formula of "[character name]: *[action being committed]*" to directly show that actions contribute to conversations like dialogue. It's important to remember that context is key for all of these.

These linguistic nuances are far from new, they stretch back before the modern common usage on Twitter, through to its popularity on Tumblr in early 2010s, and possibly even stretching back to forums and comments from the late 2000s. I'm sure someone else has documented them academically but if so, I couldn't find it and thought I would give it a try decoding their meanings.

The most interesting thing about these creative forms of language that express far more than traditional grammar is that they weren't created by some Shakespeare of our time or by professional linguistics, rather, they were simply created by unknown young people online and adopted en masse without qualm. Perhaps the originators, and the perpetrators, are the Shakespeare of our time, disguised among us online, as language is clearly evolving due to the presence of the internet. Another fascinating thing about this is that this collection of new nuanced in language isn't something that is often explained, this new complexity to ease communication in a medium without body language and tone is something that is similar enough to usual grammar for many to either not notice or correctly interpret subconsciously.

In the medium of theatre, these new additions to our language may, at first, seem unnecessary.

Stage directions exist and explaining "with sudden alertness" changes nothing compared to "!" as theatre is meant to be performed and not predominantly read. However, these can open new pathways of interpretation, from reader to director to actor to audience, as expressing a character discovering something in public that, unbeknownst to the audience at the time, they already know, would likely originally be conveyed with a clear explanation of such, but to use "!" instead of "with shock" can open up so many new interpretations. While the latter can lead to the actor portraying shock in unknowing on first viewing and false shock in second viewing, they are limited to portraying "shock". Whereas the former opens up a range of emotions that can be experienced that the director or reader could interpret in whichever way they consider to be more effective, such as the character simply being more alert to this discovery, rather than being shocked.

Last month I worked with a writer on a monologue and they helped me understand that much of what I try to express with dialogue could actually be conveyed through mannerisms, facial expressions, and simply in the tone of what is being said, and therefore stage directions and certain word choices and punctuation choices can be far more useful than I had originally thought. This led to me exploring how I wrote certain things, and me being me led to a lot of angst over not getting it just right, which then led to me to thinking about "!", but also brings up another reason why these new ways of writing can be beneficial.

I care very much about the words that I use. I've gone over this before in another blog, but I want to iterate that although I struggle finding the right words, I don't have a very limited vocabulary. If I am relatively well-spoken and yet still struggle with many words, then that means there's likely a lot of people out there who do struggle with a limited vocabulary, or who have certain disabilities of additional support needs, that makes it very difficult to express themselves. A new generation is growing up as native speakers of this new online language that has created many effective linguistic shorthand's, and limiting people to traditional grammatical rules and scriptwriting rules such as confining certain expressions to stage directions or employing eloquence in how things are worded to achieve the tone and body language desired, just makes it more difficult for these people to enter theatre and playwriting. By accepting, normalising, and utilising effective modern changes in language, we could open the door to many new young brilliant playwrights who are worried that they aren't 'good enough' for theatre.

It's important to note that, as I've claimed before, "All words are made up", but some words were made up more recently than others and they're treated differently to words that have been accepted long ago. The word "selfie" was added to the Oxford Dictionary in 2013, but I was advised against using it by a teacher in an essay I wrote only a year after that, with them saying it wasn't a 'real word'. It just wasn't treated similarly to words like "photograph" that has been accepted for over a hundred years. "All words are made up" often lumps newer words with older ones, which detracts from the point that newer words should be as accepted as older words are but in our current climate they simply aren't, which is an issue. While all words do matter, the treatment of certain words are what is being explored right now.

Totally unrelated note is that "metaphor" has been an accepted word since Ancient Greece.

Language has Always Evolved

We are in a brave new world of evolving language, thanks to the rise of internet culture.

From the 1500s evolving "God be with ye" to "Godbwye" to "Goodbye" and American capitalism and their by-the-letter ad costs coercing the public into removing an "l" from "cancelled" and the "u" from colour, so has our current memeified generation simplified words phrases such as "I am going to" into merely "I'ma" and invented new words such as "Yeet" to connotate throwing far and "Kobe" to connotate throwing with accuracy. These words are even starting to be adopted by dictionaries, and as the internet flourishes and more and more generations log in, so too will these new and bold grammatical shortcuts expressing emotion be entered into our comprehension of written language. At least I hope they do. 

Which leads me to rules and why they should be broken. Again, "?no?" and "!" alone are not grammatically correct, at least in the understanding of language as it is today, and yet it works. It expresses much more in much less and may pave the way into new deeper nuances of literature and language, and it begins by not following conventions, by subverting expectations, and by breaking the rules. What's wrong with taking a bold stand against grammatical conventions.

If it gets the point across, if it's more effective than any other option, if it works, then the only reason people aren't accepting it is simply an appeal to authority when they themselves are part of that authority.

It's like perpetuating systemic oppression because you believe it will be perpetuated anyway, or believing that you shouldn't install an access ramp to your building because you're building doesn't already have an access ramp and if it needed an access ramp then it should have had one already. Rejecting new effective ideas because of 'the way things are' is ridiculous at best and harmful at worst.

And this is just language and totally not an allegory for something more serious so we can play around with as many language-related ideas as we like, and if they don't work then, well, we will learn that and then will just not use them anymore. New forms of language aren't set in stone, but it's better to see what can be done by using chalk on it than to leave it blank forevermore.

Effective and Positive Change is Healthy

Theatre is a perfect place to experiment with creative ideas.

I've been storytelling for some years now and this month, as I have been working on a short duologue with another writer, I was taught that not everything needs an all-encompassing formula. He was talking about my one scene attempting to include every single story structure theorised by man, but that got me thinking. There are so many storytelling theories out there, from Joseph Campbell's "Hero's Journey" to John Truby's "The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller" to Dan Harmon's "Story Circle", there are countless structures that can be used to create a story. Many of these structures can contradict each other, and there's none that can be applied to every single great movie, none are perfect. Rocky has essentially no structure at all, the inciting incident doesn't even appear until page 55 of the screenplay, but it's still a fantastic movie. Every episode Dan Harmon has written for Community follows a clear structure and some are good, and some are less good, with the stories often greatly benefitting from the structure and a few being restricted by it.

You don't always need formulas. Sometimes trying something new, or breaking all the preconceived conventions, or going with the flow, or even following the flow, can lead to better stories. Rocky is very different to Romeo and Juliet which is unlike Knives Out which is dissimilar to the Godfather which doesn't play to the same rules as Endgame which is nothing like an episode of Community which is extremely different to Rocky.

It's important to see things as they are and make a judgement call for that one story, and decide whether what you are writing is being well served and preserved by the system you are using, or whether the system you are using needs to be removed and something else is tried in it's place. Maybe even defund the system but keep some core aspects of it that you think benefits the story. It's up to you. We live in a society where everyone's voices can be heard, you don't have to listen to the conventional speeches or the loudest shouts, sometimes you just need to listen to unique perspectives and make yourself heard with your own ideas on these topics.

Some voices would even say my first paragraph ends with a grammatical error as it begins a sentence with "but". Some would say the error is the fact that there isn't a capital letter after the ellipsis, but other would argue that is the ellipsis shows a break in a single sentence then it would be disingenuous to start with a capital letter. Perhaps language is just a social construct and literally whatever we collectively decide is okay is okay, and that collective can be as large as the world or as small as a group of playwrights or even just yourself. We give language meaning. We give all social constructs the meaning that they hold. If everyone in the world decided and agreed that today was actually Monday or Friday rather than whatever day it actually was, then it would be.

Interpretation is important. Perspective is vital. Not everything is as it seems, a "!" as a line of dialogue itself can have many meanings, but the context gives it life.

maybe I wrote this very long blog to justify the usage of "!" in a short story. or maybe I wrote this short story about social issues to prove that I am the King of the Allegory. I'll leave that up to you.

But what I'm taking a stand on is this. Language, like society, should be allowed to evolve and change. Keeping everything as it is, desiring things to go 'back to normal' when back to normal isn't as great as it could be, as it should be, doesn't help to expand what could be. Change is always inevitable, it's important you play your part to make sure it goes down a beneficial and effective path, and if you have to break some rules to do that, then that's okay.

 

Thomas McClure

Thomas is part of the Bunbury Banter Young Playwrights Programme 2019-2020