Saturday, October 06, 2007

Grammar/Gramática

Verbs mean to me action and results. And vice versa. I trust them. I am their devotee.

Adjectives remind me to take care...

I tend to distrust adjectives when I read or hear them. Whoever chooses them for the occasion expresses their set of values in life. But it´s so hard to stop at adjectives in a phrase or prose or poem or newspaper, that I usually give up and read forwardly taking them for truths.
Well... almost.
I belong to a generation that was not influenced in their youth by video clips and the span of my attention was not shortened much. That always gives me a the second opportunity. When I finish a reading there´s something in the back of my mind that alerts me. It´s my distrust on adjectives.
I have a relationship of love-hate with adjectives.
Under Latino cultures we are taught that superlatives and gestures are required. To stress meanings. To make them clear. So, we turn our passion into movements of hands and bodies, we touch each other, we dance. We might also end up jumping into hyperbolisms that can be taken as overreactions. (Good luck to the others in understanding the magic in our realism)
We tend to dye with our colors (this is not an exclusivity of Latinos).
Ah... the rainbows! They are tricky...

Nouns. I like nouns. Nouns are like lambs. Creatures that trigger sympathy. They are easy and calming. They evoke and picture and decode in concepts. They show themselves and leave the rest to the imagination. They do as much as they can to stay in our memories.And then the adjectives come and reshape them.Prepositions, the soul of the language as my darling says. Connections and pushes. They are capricious and stubborn like winds. They herd nouns and adjectives towards who knows what direction and then they curl and tied them together.

But then the rest is again up to the verbs.

Being all of the precedent personal and being "second" the only adjective I used on purpose, my post today is first to honor the commitment that verbs bring to us.
And then, to enhance the value of "second" thoughts. Especially when reading adjectives as: ignorant, xenophobic, foreign, stupid, black, white, etc. They come from the painter.

Said so, I´m going to go out and shout out loud a couple of dirty words with a lot of adjectives, so that my neighbors remind me to shut my mouth up...


Los verbos significan acción y resultados para mí. Y viceversa. Confío en ellos. Soy su devota.

Los adjetivos me recuerdan que tenga cuidado...

Tiendo a desconfiar de los adjetivos cuando los leo o escucho. Quienquiera que los elija para la ocasión expresa sus propios valores. Pero es tan difícil detenerse en los adjetivos en frases o escritos o poemas o diarios, que generalmente me rindo y leo de corrido dándolos por verdades.
Bueno... casi.
Pertenezco a una generación que no fue influida en su niñez por video clips y mi abanico de atención no se achicó. Eso me da una segunda oportunidad. Cuando termino de leer siempre algo en el fondo de la cabeza me alerta. Es mi desconfianza en los adjetivos.
Tengo una relación de amor-odio con los adjetivos.

En las culturas latinas nos enseñan que los superlativos y los gestos son necesarios. Para enfatizar. Para poner en claro. Entonces, llevamos nuestra pasión a movimientos de manos y cuerpos, nos tocamos, bailamos. O podemos terminar haciendo hiperbolismos que pueden ser interpretados como exageraciones (suerte a los demás en tratar de entender la magia en nuestro realismo) Solemos teñir con nuestros colores (y esto no es exclusividad de los latinos).
Ah... los arco iris! Son mañosos...

Los sustantivos. Me gustan los sustantivos. Los sustantivos son como corderos. Criaturas que desatan simpatía. Son mansos y calmos. Evocan, dibujan y se decodifican en conceptos. Se muestran a sí mismos y dejan el resto a la imaginación. Hacen todo lo que pueden para quedarse en nuestra memoria.Y luego vienen los adjetivos y les dan forma.
Las preposiciones, el alma de un idioma como dice mi amor. Conexiones y tironeos. Las preposiciones son caprichosas y tercas como los vientos. Arrean a las palabras y a los adjetivos hacia vaya uno a saber qué dirección y luego los enrulan y acomodan juntos.

Pero al final todo se trata de los verbos.

Siendo todo lo anterior personal y siendo "segundo" el único adjetivo que escribí a propósito, mi nota hoy es primero para honrar el compromiso que los verbos nos traen.
Y luego para resaltar el valor de los "segundos" pensamientos. Especialmente cuando al leer nos encontremos con adjetivos como: ignorante, xenófobo, extranjero, estúpido, negr
o, blanco, etc. Estos vienen con el pintor.

Dicho lo cual voy salir y a gritar unas cuantas malas palabras con montones de adjetivos, de manera que mis vecinos me recuerden que me calle la boca...





11 comments:

Anonymous said...

My English teacher said I would never be a writer because I refused to memorize what an adjective and adverb and noun etc., were. I told her I thought it was senseless. Anyway, since those days, I have written dozens of books, a television series and on and on. I was surprised to see and read this post. Don't know if surprised is the right word. You just don't see these kinds of blogs or at least I haven't until today.

Nice work. I hope it works out and you get lots of visitors.

99 said...

Hi Abe! Yeah, I get a bunch. Except that for some reason they email me instead of commenting... Who knows what I trigger when I open my big mouth?
Sometime ago I wrote about bloggers and why we blog.

Your writings are superb (I think I told you that half a dozen times, sorry). I´ve seen your works and I have a couple of adjectives for you: "impeccable" and "prolific". It would be an honor for me if you allow me to translate a page or two for you into Spanish. -I´m part of the American Translators Association so I have some credit on the matter ;-)

Anyway, thanks for your input on teachers. I might write about mine in the future.

See you at Sendai-Shi.

Unknown said...

99,

You are full of surprises. I liked this very much. I also noticed that you get few comments while at the same time, I see you linked in many places.

I can tell you that as for me, many times I just don´t feel that I can add anything to your very complete posts.

I will have to, once in a while, just chime in and say "yeah! I agree." or simply tell you that I liked it, like this one. And if I ever disagree I hope to be able to tell you why. Especially since you seem to have no trouble disagreeing with me. ;-)

99 said...

Chime in whenever you want Frank!
I like it when we disagree it makes the conversation more interesting. I´m just like my man ;-)
Nos vemos.

Unknown said...

As of yet, I would have a hard time finding anything in your blog to disagree with. I will be on the lookout though.

99 said...

Great! now you can be a watcher/un guacho too.
(Me la re-banco)

Nikon said...

I find this post very cerebral & entertaining.
Your intelligence is showing :)

99 said...

Wow Nikon! This compliment coming from a Hemingway's fan is too much...
I was only trying to express my disgust for discrimination.
Thanks anyway.
(BTW, you inspired me)

Nikon said...

You're welcome!
I love your art work, too, very humorous & "cute."
Thanks for your compliment, too :)

Troy Camplin said...

I'll be talking about parts of speech later, and their relationships to verbs.

In a mathematical sense, adjectives are topology.

99 said...

I´m excited about your next talk about speech.
I understand the topology comparison and I agree, adjectives are the shaping tool of any literary space.