Mar

11

words mean things: humanities

writing

HU·MAN·I·TIES     [HYOO-MAN-I-TEEZ]     N.

One of those most interesting things I found while looking into this word is that it is often defined by what it is not. The Humanities are not Math or Science. The Humanities are not based in quantitative methods. The Humanities are not [_____].

Ouch, y’all. When a thing is defined by exclusion, I get concerned.

Here are things that are Humanities: English, Literature, History, Art, Classics, Philosophy, Language, Law, Religion, etc. Sometimes the  social sciences: Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, etc.

Etcetera.

There is always an etcetera attached to definitions of the Humanities. It seems that we have a bit of a problem coming up with a comprehensive list of things that should be studied under this umbrella term. There is always an ellipsis at the end, hanging there, waiting for us to fill in the blank.

Here’s why: the Humanities are the study of things that are concerned with human nature. The word itself literally means “the multiple states of being human.” Humanities is all the different ways that people are people. The study of Humanities is the study of all of the places where people show up. That is a lot of things, y’all. The human condition is vast. The range of subjects that deal with humanity are… well, pretty much all of them, wouldn’t you say?

Except math and science. But don’t Math and Science deal with human nature? When we study these things, we’re arguably studying how they work in our human world. We’re humans, after all.

Here’s where the shading comes in. Because, yeah, everything that we study is tied to us. But not everything we study falls under the category of the Humanities. Presumably, when we study math and science, these things do not speak directly to the human experience. When we study molecules and numbers, we’re not studying how human beings interact with these things, necessarily, we’re studying the things themselves. When you interject human experience into something, what pops out?

Thought and emotion.

The texts that Humanists study were created with emotion by the brains of people.  Works of literature, paintings, historical records, religious documents, all filled with thought bubbles, attached to feelings. It may be a rudimentary distinction, but it’s the one hard-and-fast line I can draw between the things that are studied by Humanities scholars and the things that are studied by scientists. If we were looking at how Humanists and Scientists study, there would probably be a greater array of differences. But in what they study, in what this word means, that’s the clearest contrast. People feel and think, and then they document those things, and then Humanists come along to investigate what it all means. Simple, huh?

So although the perpetually attached “etcetera” gives the illusion of confusion to the definition of Humanities, it’s a lot more straightforward than it seems. The study of things, created by people, born of the very things that make us human in the first place: our hearts and minds.

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Mar

07

words mean things: digital

writing

DIG·IT·AL     [DIJ-I-DL]      N. or ADJ.

There are 19 definitions for the word digital in the OED.

There are 10 on Urban Dictionary.

When I type “define: digital” into Google, it gives me 15 definitions on 12 different sites.

For our purposes, most of the Urban Dictionary definitions can be thrown out. The digital I’m looking for doesn’t have anything to do with drugs, sex, or slang. It’s also not connected to the band Joy Division, as one Google entry suggests. So then, what is it?

The root of the word is digit: a finger, a toe, a number less than ten, a single unit of measurement. One thing, that can be used for counting.

This very simple word has come to represent an entire structure of things, a cultural phenomenon so ubiquitous that we barely think about it. Digital cameras, digital television, digital media, etc., etc., etc. When I look at the clock on my coffee pot to check the time, I don’t think: “that is a digital display.” I think, “clock,” or more accurately, “oh crap I’m late.” There is a clock in my coffee pot, y’all. And I don’t have to do anything to make it work save for setting the proper time initially. That’s a little strange, don’t you think? Except, no, it’s really not strange at all these days.

So, digit. Fingers → coffee pot. How did that happen? 1s and 0s, y’all. Behind most digital objects is a vast array of 1s and 0s, a web of information that is invisible to the majority of us. Strings of code that are made up of single numbers.

The digital aspect of a thing is what’s inside it, not what we see. When we look at “digital X,” the X is the thing. The digital is what’s inside of the thing, creating what we see. We call tangible things digital, but they’re not. I have a Kindle, for instance, a digital library. The Kindle itself isn’t digital, is it? It’s a physical object that I hold in my hand. I could throw it across the room, and if it shattered what would be laying on my floor would be bits of plastic, not piles of binary code. This label - digital - is naming something that is hidden from view, that exists within other things.

It’s a weird concept. We rely so heavily on digital objects, but we can’t actually see them. Not really, not unless we’re programmers and we know how to find what we’re looking for. The rest of us interact with our devices and take for granted that the stuff inside will work. Unless we know how to manipulate the digital goo, it’s inaccessible to us. Does that mean things are more digital to some people than to others? If I can make the goo do things, I am interacting on a greater digital level than if I am simply accessing the surface layer of it.

In his book Mechanisms (2008), Matthew Kirschenbaum writes that within new media studies, “the graphical user interface is often uncritically accepted as the ground zero of the user’s experience” (34). His point is a little different from mine – he’s talking in large part about the physical makeup of computers – but the basic concept is the same. We call objects digital and yet most users don’t ever see beyond the readout. We’re not actually interacting with the digital stuff, we’re interacting with the representation of the stuff.

So: Dig·it·al. 1s and 0s – invisible  and often inaccessible goo. Something most of us will never actually see, but which we nonetheless take for granted. Piles of code that make up the things on which most of us rely every single day. Not the thing – the stuff behind the thing.

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Mar

05

words mean things

writing

(via)

We use words all the time without stopping to think about what they mean. There’s nothing wrong with this; it’s a necessity of communication. If we analyzed every single word we used, we’d never actually get around to saying them out loud. We’d spend our days with dictionaries glued to our hands, furrowed brows, and very little verbal interaction.

But when we define things, when we label them, it’s a good idea to know what we’re saying. If we call a thing X, then we need to know what X is, how it relates to the object (or concept), and why we’ve decided that’s the best word out of all the other ones we could have chosen. Signifier, meet signified. Those of us that are charged with choosing the signifier (whether the charge is formal or informal, conscious or unconscious) should be aware of what our choice does to both the object and the label. There are consequences, both good and bad, of word choice.

When a label has been attached to a particular thing for a long time (“long” being subjective), we stop questioning where it came from. We take for granted that everyone knows what we’re talking about. We don’t stop to wonder if the context has changed, if the thing has changed, if the word’s popular meaning has changed. We just use what we’ve always used. For good reason, of course, because changing labels isn’t easy, and it’s certainly not always necessary. But knowing the limitations of our definitions is important.

So, a new and ongoing series here at geeksplore: “words mean things.” The dissection of word choice and labels that we use. The close reading of definitions that we don’t normally question. Where do these words come from? How have they been used historically? What are the consequences of that particular word over any other? What’s hiding there, in plain sight, that might help us know better what we’re saying?

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Feb

12

this is dh: interlude

photo / writing

[part 1, part 2.1, part 2.2, part 2.3]

Because I love Wordle, I present for your viewing pleasure a number* of highly scientific visual mashups of Loyola, UCL, and Alberta’s DH programs.

Course Descriptions:

Faculty:

Research:

(click to embiggen)

*3

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Jun

03

geek? or: words mean things

writing

It took me a while to settle on a tagline for my blog.  I’m a chronic over-thinker, so it felt like whatever I chose had to be just right. Since the name of my blog is, well, my name, it seemed important to come up with a tagline that represented me accurately. The problem is, I’m a lot of things. Most people are. All of those Things That I Am don’t fit nicely into one small line at the top of my virtual space, so I had to narrow it down.

I knew I wanted to focus this blog loosely around writing and technology, two of my great loves. “Exploration” seemed like the perfect word for this venture. I tend to look at most things in life as adventures – I’m always learning something new, always finding room to grow. As important as experts in any field are, I am wary of the title because I think it implies a certain level of understanding that resists the need to learn more. I hope never to be so sure of myself in any one area that I stop asking questions or being open-minded to fresh ideas. There is always something new to explore. So, “explorations.”

But, “geek?”

That’s a different story.

I am a lover of language, of linguistics, of dictionaries and thesauri. I get excited when I learn a new word and all of its meanings and uses. I’m a fan of grammars and punctuation, but I’m also a descriptivist by nature. I don’t believe in the All-Knowing Power of Standard Language, with the ten tons of privilege it implies. Yes, I get annoyed by the failure of some to recognize the difference between “they’re,” “there,” and “their,” and I’m a total sucker for the serial comma. But I try hard to check myself before I judge others for their own grammar/spelling/punctuation deviations. It’s just not that serious, y’all.

Above all, I am a big believer in the idea that Words Mean Things.

They do – they really, really do. They mean things. And yes, those meanings are culturally ascribed, they are inclined to change, they are sometimes silly or nonsensical. But they still mean things, and those meanings are important.

I can’t for instance, just walk around telling people the sky is orange when it’s a clear day with no storm in sight. Or rather, I could do that, but people would look at me funny. And rightly so, because the sky is not orange on a clear day, it’s blue. And blue means something very different than orange.

But that’s a simple example. A more consequential example would be using the word “gay” to mean stupid or worthless. There are awareness campaigns for just this thing, because word usage has such incredibly real consequences for the lives of many. For this reason, I am a fierce examiner of my own language and the language of those around me. I don’t always get it right, but I try.

So, geek.

I’ve long since called myself both a geek and a nerd, and those were the first words I thought of when trying to describe what I’m doing here in my little pixelated corner of the world. I love computers, I love Internet memes, I think programming is super cool. I use the term “super cool.” I am a total bookworm who, if properly engrossed in a good book, will not even set it down to use the restroom (oops! tmi). I LOLspeak at home often. I just asked Jake what makes me geeky, and he gave me the wide-eyed “duh” look and said, “Um, you’re blogging about writing and technology, right now.” So there’s that.

The honest-to-dog truth about how I chose between geek and nerd? This Chart. I figured I’m decently smart, with a good level of interest in nerdy things, and can hold my own fairly well in social settings. So geek it is! In light of my Words Mean Things rant, it’s a little embarrassing to admit that my path to Geek was so simple. But I went the descriptivist route and stuck with the masses, and here we are – “explorations of a geek.”

However! What does the word “geek” really mean? If you Google it, you’ll see that there are a plethora of current definitions. Back in the day, it started off its life as a synonym for “fool”, and eventually became the name for a sideshow performer – a person who did something especially bizarre and oftentimes creepy. They were the people on the very edge of the edges, the spectacles, the outcasts. They were certainly not the ones you wanted to be associated with. During my own back in the day of k-12, geek (and nerd, and dweeb, and dork) was certainly not a compliment. And yet, here I am, choosing that own label for myself, along with all the other self-imposed geeks of the world.

I don’t mind being associated with such a fringe crowd. I have my own experience on the fringes, and I’ve grown to love my inability to fit neatly inside any one box. I don’t want to fit in for the sake of fitting in, or scale myself back to appease the peanut gallery. I get to choose to step outside of the mainstream, where the circus performers of old may not have had much choice at all. But because of them, I’ve found a word I can relate to and feel comfortable in and wear with a tip of my hat to those that came before me. I get to tuck myself inside of this box, that isn’t really box-shaped at all.

I’m a lot of things, after all. And “geek” just happens to be one of them.

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