In the dystopian utopia of Louis Lowry’s The Giver, children are taught the importance of language. This may be the one thing that the creators of this utopian world got right. Precise language is harder to misinterpret, it eases efficiency, allows for quicker response, in theory it would expand one’s vocabulary; the list of benefits goes on and on. Every time I read The Giver, which is the book I’ve read the most in my life, I go on a kick about the precision of language. This post was not inspired by rereading that book but by a phrase I started thinking about:
“I don’t like that.”
Which, in theory, should be neutral and yet is not.
Like is positive, don’t is negative; the combination of the two should be neutral. And it’s not like we don’t have a word that is negative, we do: Dislike. But instead of saying, “I dislike that”, we’ve bastardized the meaning of “I like that” to become something negative. And because of that, we don’t have a phrase to say, “I’m neutral about that.” I mean, I guess you could just say, “I’m neutral about it.”
Okay, so it’s not that big a deal, but there are probably cases where precision of language matters more and we’re really bad at it. So just next time you are neutral on something, say I don’t like that. And please, please, never use “I don’t like that” to express negativity ever again.
I certainly pledge, as I hope all of you do, to make “I don’t like that” neutral again.
~DJ
I’d love to hear more of these ones. What was Lowry’s purpose in including that in the community? At what point might precision language become a problem, if ever?