Have you ever had a feeling that you did n’t have a word for ? If you have n’t , do you recollect that such flavor do n’t exist ? One anthropologist ’s work seems to hint that not having a Son for a genuine feeling can happen — and that it can really make love up both a person and a culture .
Robert Levy and Hypocognition
In the early 1960s , Robert Levy , an anthropologist , spent two years in the Society Islands in Tahiti . Ten years later he came out with a book that coin the word “ hypocognition ” , which was all about a society ’s inability to coin an appropriate word . Hypocognition is the deficiency of a necessary , or at least helpful , word to evince an experience . In the fount of the Tahitians that Levy meditate , the missing watchword was “ heartache . ” In the Society Islands , just like everywhere else , hoi polloi lost loved ones and felt that red ink , but they described themselves as feeling “ sick ” or “ strange ” afterwards . They did n’t seem to have tidings like “ heartache ” and “ sorrow . ”
Hypocognition , Levy argued , was not just a personal job . It is n’t like have a intelligence stick on the tip of the tongue . It marked a ethnical deficit that wound citizenry . Without terms for grief and sorrow , people did n’t come up with many ritual to palliate them . Levy found that the islands had a high suicide charge per unit , and believed that the lack of power to give tongue to grief might have been a reason for it .
take up Words and Changing Minds
While hypocognition ’s orbit and power are disputable , there ’s no deny the fact that the great unwashed are voracious when it comes to utilitarian words . There are few finish that do n’t borrow words from their neighbors , when those words are useful in expressing specific feelings . English is pelt with alien wrangle that aid us express what we experience . I know I have a massive amount of schadenfreude while I was imbibe my apéritif and ensure a woman who fancied herself an aficionado mispronounce “ je ne sais quoi . ”
press out new concepts does more than add a shiver to conversation ; it opens up our minds to an completely new surface area of enquiry . The lack of an appropriate concept can check us from even thinking about something . One paper claimed that hypocognition might make doc to ignore evidence when give aesculapian decisions . If a bailiwick show that a discussion is helpful , but does n’t supply a framework that set aside doctors to empathise why it might be helpful , or how to further inquire or develop the intervention , it could easily be brush aside . number alone do n’t convince people when they ’re not put in context . If a linguistic context does n’t exist , enquiry and recitation does n’t move forward until a context is create .
The Lighter Side of Hypocognition
Not all corrections to hypocognition have to be heavy stuff , like grief and scientific advance . One of my best-loved author essay to give everything a word . Douglas Adams , author of the Hitchhiker ’s Guide to the Galaxy series , put out a Holy Writ with John Lloyd called , The Meaning of Liff . It started as a slightly - bibulous company game , during which Adams and his acquaintance blame out the name of English towns and pretended the names were give-and-take that they had to define . As they were coming up with different definitions , they realized that , as humankind , they all share usual experiences that do n’t have names .
My preferred word of the Quran is “ shoeburyness , ” which is define as “ the dim uncomfortable tactile sensation you get when sitting on a stern which is still quick from somebody else ’s bottom . ” Everyone has felt that . One author I understand die to a strict college at which military personnel were forbidden to baby-sit in a seat straight after a adult female renounce it , because he would feel her residual consistency heat and the dean of women considered that too intimate . But no one came up with a word for it . Once there is a watchword for it , people can lead off to concern to it . What concept do you think involve a intelligence ? I nominate “ splincing ” — when you ’re altogether in the wrong , and detest it , and you daydream about someone wronging you so you could finger righteously aggrieve about something .
[ ViaHypocognition – a “ sensory faculty of the Uncanny”,Hypocognition and Evidence - base Medicine , Issues in Family Medicine ]
Science
Daily Newsletter
Get the best technical school , science , and culture tidings in your inbox day by day .
newsworthiness from the future , pitch to your present .
Please select your desired newssheet and subject your e-mail to upgrade your inbox .
You May Also Like
