The marriage of C.K. Ogden’s work with that of I.A. Richards yielded Basic English, an extreme narrowing of the English language whose principal aim was to eliminate misunderstanding due to clumsiness in manipulating the semiotic triangle. Reducing the dictionary to 850 words (with various ancillary vocabularies tailored to specific disciplines) would greatly reduce the possibility of perception error and, the couple claimed, so reduce the heretofore unmeasurable X-factor of inadvertent human miscommunication.
This draconian approach might be worthy of our consideration, but only if the admittedly difficult problem of human miscommunication can be pinpointed to the area of unclear definition of words. This view of the problem ignores the roles played by context, syntactic ordering, and most importantly by the human penchant for dissembling or outright treacherous deception. I hope to show that these obstacles cannot be overcome through the narrowing of vocabulary, that this minimalist approach cannot overcome deception, nor can it begin to address the contextual or ordering problems inherent in any meaningful language system.
Upon reading over the list of words Basic English would keep (in the order intended by its authors) I discovered hidden in the list two poems concerning Richards’ discovery of his wife’s infidelity with his friend and colleague, C. K. Ogden. I have entitled the first poem “Driving to Mt. Fuji,” and it deals with Richards’ reflections on betrayal.
Driving to Mt. Fuji
disgust –
distance;
dis-tri-bu-tion.
division…
doubt.
drink,
driving.
dust;
earth edge.
Having scaled the peak, the great mountaineer composes “Far Forward,” whose subject is his determination to affirm love and overcome the disappointment central to fallible human relationships.
Far Forward
This:
I, he, you.
and:
because, but, or, if, though, while…
HOW?
WHEN?…WHERE?
why again ever?
Far forward – hear? Near!
– Now out –
still…
Then:
There together; well…
Almost enough.
(“even,”
not “only”)
Quite so.
Very tomorrow, yesterday, northsoutheastwest;
please.
Can misunderstanding be removed and meaning fixed through denotation only, or is the skillful word worker a kind of rhetorical chameleon, eager to blend his color with that of his environment, whether it be hued in the protective coloration of context, sequence, connotation, denotation, or any other facile decoding device? Can clarity of meaning really exist outside of word order and rhetorical intent, outside of intentional deception? Or can misunderstanding survive and even flourish, despite misguided (if tenacious) efforts to eradicate it?
One feels like a bully, criticizing an idea which has already been so universally trounced, but we are here addressing an idea designed to transform the beautiful English language into a unidimensional system designed for utilization by chimps, computer programmers, and other visionaries of Twentieth Century life. The rejection of the basic principles of Richards’ and Ogden’s triflings represents an affirmation of our humanity, an approbation of the natural undecidability of human language, and a glorious reflection of the discomfort people are so accustomed to when trying, trying to communicate.
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Dan Todd read literature at Colorado College and law at UCLA before returning to Colorado to teach and play music. He taught at PPCC, his alma mater, from 1987 to 2018.
