And this is where it gets a little tricky. Because even though linguists are fairly strict with their definition of code-switching, there are anthropologists and sociologists and philosophers and theorists who persuasively suggest that you can code-switch within a language depending on who you happen to be talking with, or your intention, based on relationships and personal and communal identities. Some recent sociolinguistic studies suggested that people have a few basic reasons for code-switching. For one thing, we want to fit in, so we often code-switch as a way of showing solidarity. We sometimes code-switch subconsciously in this kind of situation. I’d intuitively choose the word “try,” for instance, when I’m sitting on the Greyhound bus out of Salt Lake City, talking to the friendly trucker next to me who’s deadheading back from LA to Indianapolis. We talked for, like, two hours about how to make the perfect Bolognese, and disagreed only about whether or not the milk was really important. But I’d probably intuitively go with “attempt” if I were asking a question of a panelist at an academic conference. Well, depending on the panel. People code-switch for all kinds of contexts, including social class, age, race, and other kinds of origin. A lot of us have identities that belong to more than one discourse. Of course, the darker side of solidarity is less about belonging and more about hiding. Or perhaps more aptly, passing.

STET | Speaking in tongues

It’s better to make a mistake with the full force of your being than to timidly avoid mistakes with a trembling spirit. Responsibility means recognizing both pleasure and price, action and consequence, then making a choice.

The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, Dan Millman     (via modernhepburn)

We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?

Guy Montag, Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)

Patina of the Web

sabbatical:

I’m a big advocate of the value of aged goods. A good patina on an old bowl, a wooden handle worn smooth by years of use, corners rounded off the edges of old bricks. But when I build a website, a few years on, it doesn’t have patina. It doesn’t become better with age. It might start to break in places if not maintained, as browsers and server software march onward. But could those time-induced rough edges ever be seen as pleasant? Will we ever have a digital equivalent to patina?

She advocates limiting our device usage in “sacred spaces” like the dinner table, the places where phones and their enticements may impede intimacy and interaction. She wants us to look into each other’s eyes as we talk. She wants us to read each other’s movements. She wants us to have conversations that are supremely human.

Saving the art of conversation in the age of the smartphone - Quartz

bookmania:

Just Perfect (Photo by Leila)

I find my only real joy in solitude. Solitude is my castle. That’s where I have my chair, my table, my bed, my breeze and my sun.

Léolo (Jean-Claude Lauzon, 1992)