b e h n d i n g

While teaching English in Hong Kong, I was often struck by the limitations of my students’ vocabulary.  Binary terms such as good/bad and sad/happy dominated our discussions and they expressed much frustration with their inability to precisely express anything outside of or in between those markers, words I view as just short of meaningless.  I would read 30 papers, all of which theorized that a poem‘s main purpose was to convey the sadness of death.  I am by no means mocking them, as I can easily recall my own days of second-language study and how pathetically limited my vocab was, how stifling it was to resort to the same handful of descriptors even when none of them really communicated what I was thinking, feeling like the best I could do was approximate, always hitting around the nail rather than whacking it squarely on the head. Each day I study for the GRE I am reminded that words are not just a vehicle for knowledge — how knowledge is communicated — they themselves are knowledge, both convey and constitute content.  In other words, the ability to express knowledge is knowledge, just as the inability to do so is a form of ignorance.  I openly concede that memorizing definitions is no way to spend the dwindling days of summer, but have found comfort in the fact that this seemingly mundane activity has provided me with more stimulation than boredom, more edification than inconvenience.  I only wish the same could be said of my sentiments toward my preparations for the quantitative section of the test.

sextant – n. navigation tool that determines latitude and longitude

sinecure – n. well-paying office job or office that requires little or no work

somniloquy – n. the act of talking in ones sleep