Here is a face that says gidday if ever I've seen one (and obviously I've seen lots around here). I snapped this gentleman in the Blue Mountains a few weeks ago. He was quite amiable about the first photo but when I moved tad closer he turned his face and dropped his smile. I admired his communication skills.Today I had to talk to our finance guy. I'm sure you have a finance guy too, the senior management guy in the company who runs all the corporate affairs. I dreaded this call because I never feel that I can make myself understood in our conversations. I don't think he enjoys the calls any more than I do but today we struck a happy medium and the conversation was crystal clear: He had shortened some text I needed for a document and explained this edit as producing an "eloquent sufficiency".
I was mightily impressed.
Later this afternoon I had call to email a brave friend some Mary Oliver -
clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
and he understood exactly what was meant.
It interesting how we can make ourselves understood, I thought tonight as I pounded away on the treadmill, sweating away the last traces of poisonous cottage cheese. We wrinkle up our nose, use single syllable words, adopt an accent - all kinds of things to get our message across. Clothes are language, I decided. Suits are full sentences, skirts are verbs, blouses are adjectives and these, part of my staples for the Spring I'm assured will be here any minute, are my semi colon:
And this, an old friend with lovely manners...
is an a-line Tara Jarmon dress that I've cropped to emphasis the buttons, which must be fullstops.Do you have any language in your wardrobe? Are your earrings apostrophes? Do you have a full palette of exclamation marks? Tell me - I'd love to improve my language skills!
What a fun and lively metaphor!
ReplyDeleteYes, clothes are a means of communication so you can definitely call them a language. And my, those are beautiful brown semi-colons!
My favorite wardrobe item are leggings. I think of them as elipses.
Shybiker, I love leggings ... they are ... ! I should qualify here and add that my favourite leggings are American leggings; I bought some fantastic pairs when I visited in March. In fact, you've just made up my mind for me - I'm wearing some tomorrow. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteMy boots (you know that ones) are exclamation points. I usually wear them with dark neutrals so they can exclaim without contest. I recently walked into a meeting late and one of my colleagues exclaimed over my boots and then asked if she could pet them (she could). Note to self: exclamation points are not the best way to go when arriving late to a meeting.
ReplyDelete"the ones". Urf.
ReplyDeleteThat is a handsome dog and I like his use of neutrals. Yours too. I'm dreaming of the semi-colons and in my dream they don't pinch my toes.
Eloquent sufficiency. Now, that is a fine phrase.
ReplyDeleteLanguage in my wardrobe? Yes, it's an entire tongue in itself, sometimes akin to something untranslatable, sometimes understandable in any venue. I'll have to think more about that. Interesting idea!