Same words, different things

By Kristin Fehlauer

It’s no surprise that I am constantly learning new features about my foreign language (German). I didn’t start learning it until I was in college, so compared to the amount of exposure that native speakers get, I have a lot of catching up to do! But curiously, I am also constantly learning new things about my own native language (English) and how my fellow native speakers use it. It never ceases to amaze me that people who grow up in the same linguistic milieu can use the same words to mean relatively different things.

The first time I was truly cognizant of this discrepancy was during my college years. I had an internship at a music festival, where I witnessed a slight disagreement between the head of the festival and one of the local organizers. The festival head was very unhappy with some arrangements that had been made at one of the venues, saying, “No, no, no—this isn’t going to work.”

The next day, I was present as the organizer related the incident to someone else. She finished off with: “…and then he yelled at me.” I was taken aback; to my mind, he hadn’t yelled because he hadn’t raised his voice. “Yelled” to me implies “shouting,” a voice at increased volume. However, she used it simply to mean “scolding.” I was struck by the realization that, if I had been present only for the retelling and not at the original event, I would have come away with a somewhat different picture.

My list of fuzzy connotations goes on: to me, the word “mutter” always has a dark, slightly angry quality; similarly, my sister always thinks “incredulous” has a negative connotation. These impressions, correct or not, color the way we absorb content and also the way we relate it. One way or another, we native speakers get these ideas into our heads and apparently encounter little that causes us to question our assumptions.

All this leads me back to a fundamental issue I’ve grappled with for years: How do you learn to question assumptions? Most of my communication conflicts have arisen because both parties believed they were on the same page. In the face of that certainty, how do you train yourself to double-check? To ask the right questions that will lay bare any misapprehensions? I have no surefire answers here. It is something I continue to think about and work on, but I hope that being aware of this problem is an important first step.

What words or phrases do you quibble about with your fellow native speakers? What strategies do you use to recognize and challenge your own assumptions?