The Lingust and the Speaker

Reflections on what it means to be able to communicate

Brett and I wrote 500* word essays to describe what we see as verbal/linguistic intelligence for our Syllojism challenge. What’s interesting is how divergent our thinking starts out, but how we end up at the same conclusions. Really bizarre shit, but by now this audience should expect nothing less.

I won’t label who’s is whose, but you should be able to tell:

Essay 1 (*Word count 549)

Subtle impulses of selfhood traverse myriad miles of myelinated nerves, networked to microscopic synaptic junctions, electrochemically exploding effusively along the tracery of prefabricated geometric clusters, that recount and recapitulate, and yet burn the self and the world anew, all the while yearning to leap from mouth, to ear, to touch the mind of another. To belong, to resonate, to create the crucible, the connectomic cradle, of civilization.

Linguistic intelligence is foundational to selfhood and species.  We emerge with an innate capacity for language acquisition, which is first teased into function by low frequency vibrations transmitted amniotically. Some is speech. Some is music. Some is our mother’s beating heart. We discover patterns, cadences, timing, rhythmicity, warmth and communion while we evolve, slumberously, preconsciously, afloat in a warm and loving sea.

We emerge speechless; crude utterances tell of undifferentiated discomfort, perhaps hunger, perhaps newly discovered autonomic sensations that bewilder and bemuse. Perhaps also the joy of a warm touch and a smile or the soothing sonnets of maternal speech, spoken in high tones with a musicality that separates mother from mere gestation.

Language acquisition happens effortlessly but socially, as those around us chatter incomprehensibly, with sounds that have meanings we cannot discover alone. It is love that teaches us language; The love of our parents, our desire to enter a world they inhabit, waiting for us to join them. We unify, expand, adapt, influence. We learn our history, and imagine our future.

In this way, language captures and transforms time itself, extending self into culture without temporal constraints as collective histories, transmitted orally, expand selfhood into civilization far beyond the enucleated walls of the family. With words, we become super-organismic.

Linguistic intelligence is both self and society. Using It allows near instantaneous estimation of the verbal acuity of another and in so doing, it does something more: It stratifies. Here, language differentiates, becomes a tool of divisiveness, tribalism, judgment and damnation. The most insidious form of social stratigraphy is intellectual class signified by vocabulary. As language is the most universal and immediate tool of abstraction, we can know immediately the strength of the mind behind any gaze and the lesser quickly become chattle.

What then is language? Language is equivalent to the body as an immediate tool. Language takes us from the universal to specificity and the greater the specificity, the more technical the individual. A collection of technical individuals is a society and society is a Technium. Here we see the interconvertibility, the isomorphism of language, tools and man.

While it may be tempting to conceive of linguistic intelligence in gaussian terms, with technical complexity at the far right, there is something more; Adaptability, specifically to gradations of interlocutors. As a social species, the greater the numbers with which one can communicate, the greater the world to which you can belong, the more influence you can have and the more by whom you can be beloved. At the apex of human expression, the linguistic genius, approaching the maximum capability to wield the most essential human tool, finds the imaginal as his only companion and paradoxically, he is exiled. The linguistic genius must beware the Icarian impulse.

Speak then to many, to multitudes, in their language. The genius of speech, available to all, is the genius of humankind: Adaptation, communion, love.

Essay 2 (*Word count: 500)

Being “verbally intelligent” is about how well you can maneuver inside various frameworks. A true word-cel is far more into the shit behind the words than the words themselves. They pay closer attention to the context of the language and audience, they are goal-directed, they’re concise, they’re adept at leveraging emotion, and can adapt in an instant. Linguistics isn’t about words, but what surrounds them.

Context is King. Our buddy, Language Simp, knows he’s talking to people who are fluent in internet speak. They’re irony-pilled SigmaGigaChads, and LS is the mirror. He talks about speaking Rouske in the majority of his videos and mocks the standard YouTuber, understanding that terminally online, non-wokies hate thinking of themselves as average consoomers – even though they are. A clear visualization of who your words are meant to reach, is requisite to ensuring that the other components of your verbal intelligence aren’t wasted on an audience that doesn’t fucking get you.

Wordcels are #Goals.  Verbally intelligent people get what they want because they can articulate it. If LS’s goal is to keep learning languages and making videos, he's nailed it.  He understands that controversy creates engagement, engagement increases views, views increase dollars, and dollars buy time that he can use to do whatever the fuck he wants.  A verbal midwit might have an innate propensity for language, and the general intelligence to acquire the proper mechanics of speech. Shit, they might even have the courage to use colloquialisms and dysphemisms with intent, but without a clear understanding of what they hope to achieve, well, they’re shit out of luck.

Concision is key.  No matter who your audience is or what your goals are, you are speaking to people who have a shrinking attention span. The object of the game is to say what you gotta say, make it punchy, melodic, salient, and precise, then gtfo people’s faces, so you can linger in their mind.

Leveraging emotion through stories. I’ve been with my husband since we were 12, and he’s always loved to tell stories and make comics. His stories provoke disgust, suspense, awe, joy, and sometimes indignation. You’d think after all this time, I’d have heard them all, but he tell stories with such enthusiasm and conviction, that I forget I’ve heard them a thousand times. I feel his genuine emotions when he tells the story, and his humor is impeccable.  I’ll never forget the one about how his bestie stuck his hand in human excrement while they were dumpster diving. That shit lingers.

Adaptation is for the evolved.  It’s not enough to provoke emotion, a verbally intelligent person adapts instantly to their own words. They zig and zag through emotion, context, and concision on the path to their goal.  They can look back to understand where they’ve been while keeping an eye on path ahead, juggling the past, present, and future with captivating skill. Skilled word-cels are also word-rotaters, context-developers, and emotion-provkers. Verbal intelligence isn’t really about the words, but how you use them.