QA 33. May 2012. It’s only words, and words are all I have…

  • Posted by Helen Douglas
  • On May 4, 2012
It is often forgotten that (dictionaries) are artificial repositories, put together well after the languages they define. The roots of language are irrational and of a magical nature. Jorge Luis Borges The hard drive of my laptop crashed two days before I was to leave on a residential writing retreat. I took it philosophically (of […]
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QA 13. (April 09) Tug of war, tug of words

  • Posted by Helen Douglas
  • On May 5, 2009
Michael the teacher was talking about what he says to new classes to disarm them. To disarm them? An ambiguous phrase. Did he mean to charm the children or to take away their weapons? Which reminded me of the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas’s view that discourse (conversation, dialogue) is the way we can engage with each […]
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