On Thursday, one of my students--a film director--was talking about one of his characters, as well as the actress who is playing that role. He said several times that "Around her was fog." So I checked the concept to be sure what he wanted to say, and told him we can say, "She was in a fog." Meaning a sort of distraction, or numbness.
(I find it interesting, how students make mistakes, especially when they are reaching to say something they haven't previously learned--maybe more so when they are attempting a figurative usage.)
The next day, a different student--an economics professor--was talking about how the Czech government handled a banking crisis in the 90's, back before privatization had been fully implemented, so the government was also the bank. My student said, "They decided in fog." I checked the concept again, out of habit, and though I can't remember the exact correction I gave--something like 'secret', maybe I even taught him 'in the dark'--I found it interesting because he was close enough to using it correctly that I understood him perfectly, and yet as a teacher I felt compelled to tell him that his usage was incorrect.
This is sometimes a very strange problem for me.
Though I understood his usage, I can imagine that others might not be so generous with their comprehension. I actually believe that some people would outright refuse to understand him--if only because my student has a slight accent.
If someone told me, about my usage of English, No Michael, you can't say it like that, you have to say . . . . .
I would have to get my degree illuminated, apparently. :D
So, fog. Hmm. I'll have to think about this.
Otherwise, it's been a quiet winter. I've been working a lot with my dreams--it's been years since I really worked with them. I can't quite think of anything else like it, but there is a skill to dreaming that, once lost, must be entirely relearned, as if it had never been learned. You'd think, maybe it would be like a language: I haven't spoken Spanish in decades, but after a month in Barcelona, it'll all come back. That hasn't happened with dreams. First I had to build back up my ability to remember them, and now I'm sharpening up my awareness within the dreams.
Maybe I am actually physically changing my brain??? I can't think of why else I would have to go through a training phase for a skill I'd already developed in the past. I'll never forget how to play guitar, but of course my fingers could get slower.
Maybe that's a misleading metaphor.
--
a brief excerpt from the initial forwarded link, a brilliant parody of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations:
by Michael Frayn
(According to some sympathisers, the reason why drivers on the motorways failed to slow down in thick fog recently, and so crashed into each other in multiple collisions of up to thirty vehicles, was simply because the authorities had failed to provide illuminated signs explaining that the fog was fog. This is a situation on which Wittgenstein made one or two helpful remarks in a previously unpublished section of Philosophical Investigations.)
694. Someone says, with every sign of bewilderment (wrinkled forehead, widened eyes, an anxious set to the mouth): "I do not know there is fog on the road unless it is accompanied by an illuminated sign saying 'fog'."
When we hear this, we feel dizzy. We experience the sort of sensations that go with meeting an old friend one believed was dead. I want to say: "But this is the man philosophers are always telling us about! This is the man who does not understand--the man who goes on asking for explanations after everything has been explained!"
(A sort of Socratic Oliver Twist. Compare the feelings one would have on meeting Oliver Twist in the flesh. "And now I want you to meet Oliver Twist."--"But...!")
. . .
696. Imagine that the motorist said: "The trouble is, I can't see the fog for the fog." We might understand this as a request for practical information, and try to answer it by showing him the definition of "fog" in the dictionary. To this he might reply: "I can't see 'fog' for the fog." We respond by putting the dictionary an inch in front of his eyes. Now he says: "I can't see the fog for 'fog'."
. . .
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