Learning the Language

One of my sections of composition is comprised by 23 medical career majors.  So I decided to change their assignments over to all medical topics so they'd be interested in what they were writing about.  Their first article is called "Learning the Language" and it is written by a first year med school student who talks about all the words and acronyms she has to memorize, but when she finally accomplishes the task, she feels like she belongs.

When our friends were here from Miami, one brother read a little vignette from the days of party lines on the phone, and it was someone who was listening in on witness conversations and then telling a friend how dangerous we were.  We were always talking about a ransom for one thing, great crowds, etc.

Isn't it cool how we have our own pure language?  One of the acronyms the doctors used was CTD, which stood for circling the drain.  As in about to die, just lingering.  That's pretty callous, and of course now I have to hope I never overhear a doctor or nurse saying it about me or someone I love.  Medical people have to keep some professional distance.  Otherwise they couldn't stand their job.  Ultimately, they lose all their patients.

Language works so that you "grow" new words when you need them.  Like the Inuit who have seven words for snow - something we never needed in Oklahoma but I wonder about this place.  And we recognize the different Greek words for love, but the secular use of it is always just love, and you have to add words to it to modify it into the kind of love you want to express. 

Jennifer is very pregnant right now with Jordyn but I hope Jordyn holds off a few days because her mommy has a sinus infection and so does her dad and brother.  Get well soon!  I want to be in Arkansas this week helping my little Ruth move (long but happy story about a cluster of four siblings all going home to Texas) and helping Jennifer till the baby arrives.  Jennifer is a medical transcriptionist and knows medical terms and the pure language too. 

Every group has their own words.  You hear a few brothers in the corner it doesn't take long to figure out if they are talking about fishing or cars or football.  Sisters, well we know plenty of great words when it comes to cooking or shopping, and I don't mean to limit us by gender.  I know a lot of car words and I know a few guys who understand the difference between tbsp and tsp.

And even when someone falls out of the truth, or jumps out of it or walks away from it, often that person retains the language of it.  It reminds me of Bryan's poem about the subconscious jukebox in his head that still played Kingdom songs sometimes even though he forgot half the verse to "We Thank You, Jehovah."

Here is my new word of the week.  I got it from a book title called "Walking the Wrack Line".  Guess what a wrack line is?  It's the line where the tide comes in an deposits stuff from the ocean on the beach.  Who knew they had a word for that line?  Maybe you did, but Okie girl did not know.  And I'm fascinated by that lovely word.

Tonight I am thankful for new words, for knowing that if I am blessed with eternal life, I will never get tired of the pure language.