Monopolizing the cloud

Simon, a laid off software engineer, takes to writing poetry.

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Simon: Listen!

I jostled with the laid-off crowd

Exiting the company gate,

Then all at once I saw the cloud

Smugly smiling, we’re all too late.

 Rajiv: Sounds familiar…

 Simon: A reworking of... I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils...

Rajiv: The original sounds more, what, timeless? What’s it all mean?

 

Simon: The cloud is a metaphor.

 

Rajiv: For?

 

Simon: For the Internet. For the Internet being taken over by some entrepreneur. Mega-entrepreneur.

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Titanic

Old salts, J. Hook and P. Crook, wharf cafe, bright weather.

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Hook: To be out there again.

Crook: Day like today.

Hook: Mind you plain sailing days have their own dangers.

Crook: Makes merchantmen easy pickings for pirates off East Africa?

Hook: Ever tell you I had a distant rellie who was on the the Titanic?

Crook: Ha. Pull the other one.

Hook: S'true as I'm sitting here today. He was a cook. Went down with her.

Crook: Really??

Hook: So I've always remembered that those glassy calm seas, when you go full speed ahead hold just as many dangers as when you're plunging slow ahead through a Force 8.

Crook: Not to put too literary a turn on it, but the Titanic was like the world, wouldn't you say? You think the structure is indestructible but one day a small event tips the balance and we all fall down.

Hook: The world, or our bodies. How's your stomach?
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Conversation maps

Harvey and Marvin, two linguists of natural language processing, discuss a metaphorical kidnapping case.

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Harvey: Six months ago, the only person talking about conversation maps was Warren Sack.

Marvin: Six months ago. And then what happened?

Harvey: You google CM now, and the links list is headed by some nurses saying a discussion about diabetes is a Conversation Map, and a Very Verbose somebody is defining a Conversation Map as a model for “creating a model of a messy situation.” And this guy has actually stuck a copyright mark on the expression.

Marvin: But if these are very specific instances of the word “conversation” and “map” others more genuinely entitled to use them, like conversation analysts, will pick them up and use them?

Harvey: They won’t be able to if someone from another field has got in first and copyrighted their use. The terms have been kidnapped.

Marvin: Relax Harvey. You’re a conversation analyst. You have a right to use the word. You draw pictures of conversations on paper, maps. What could be a clearer way to describe what you do?

Harvey: It’s a bit surprising that people from other fields are coming over the fence and taking such simple words…

Marvin: Out of our mouths?

Harvey: Why can’t they find their own metaphors?

Marvin: Metaphors are what language is built on. When scientists run out of words, they become predatory. When their own terms are too difficult, they become like Genghis Khan. They scale the wall. Invade new territory. But eventually they die away. According to Guy Deutscher, even grammar is a reef of dead metaphors.

Harvey: So now there are people out there trying to copyright metaphors.

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Pragmatic-functional approach

Critic: Where are you coming from on this?

Author: My position you mean?

Critic: Yes, your approach. You’re covering functionalism, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, pragmatics, discourse, arts, media, you even divert into diversions.

Author: All of those, yes, and then some, I suppose.

Critic: Aren’t you afraid of covering too much ground, not digging deeply enough, spreading it all too thinly?

Author: If you must pursue all these agricultural allusions, of the ploughing not being thorough and there not being enough fertilizer. The farmer plodding through the field? But let me give you another metaphor, poetry. Think of the conversations as being like haiku. Not a great deal is said but key words ignite ideas in the mind of the reader. An associationist style.

Critic: With all due respect, it’s a bit difficult to write a treatise in verse.

Author: Just because it isn’t done often doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Anyway, it isn’t verse. It’s discussion.

Critic: Still, by covering so many topics, you lay yourself open to accusations of not being any kind of expert, or explorer or experimenter but rather a popularizer, a pretender, or a poser.

Author: Well, it’s not just reportage. There is a common theme. I have an approach, a central idea that I hark back to, that frames the commentary.

Critic: Hmm?

Author: You might call it a pragmatic-functionalist approach.

Critic: A what?

Author: Language as an instrument. It’s a tool. It helps us live our lives. We use language to get things done. We use language to express ourselves, to interact with others, to get others to do things, to entertain, to create. The approach begins with a question. Why is he or she saying what they are saying, the way they are saying it? What do they hope to gain, consciously or unconsciously?
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Metaphor or simile

What do you mean by the “grammar” of film?

This is an easy question to answer. The starting point is this. The structure of language is a metaphor for the structure of film. We will begin with the smallest element of language. Oh, let me be clear here. The smallest element of written language.

A letter?

Exactly. And one letter corresponds to one frame in a film. Now, here is the structure. I think you will agree that there is a neat symmetry.

Letters make up a word. Several frames make up a shot in a film.
Words make up a sentence. Several shots make up a scene in a film.
Sentences make up a paragraph. Several scenes make up a sequence in a film.
Paragraphs make up a story. Several sequences make up a film.

Yes. In fact the symmetry is so marked as to be almost parallel. So parallel it almost looks like a simile.

Ah. Touche.
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