Aww being a little kid again. The good days of waking up and not having a stress in the world. Riding your skateboard around, playing in the park, and knowing that your the best bike rider in your neighborhood. A time where you're learning how to spell doctor and finding out who George Washington was. This is one of the most important events in a young persons schooling life is that of how language works. Language and images define how "things" will be perceived. From The republic of ABC article: "An idea is generally defined a representation of a thing in the mind; it is a representation of something that we have seen, felt, hear, &c or been conscious of." The very first ways we learn and how we learn them will forever be remembered, consciously and subconsciously.
When ever you think of a word you always have some kind of image in your head. Why is it this image? Well a lot of it has to do with what surrounds you and what culture you grew up in. People might not remember that much about being in kindergarten, but subconsciously, in america, it seems we associate A with Apple. This seems like a cliche example, but it works and it makes sense. Since A is also the first letter in the alphabet, it seems we associate it with education in general. Apple is the cliche gift you give to a teacher and has been associated with this concept for ages. In my personal experience a way of teaching language was through rhyme. I still remember how we used different good bye expressions, such as: bye bye butterfly; so along king kong; see you soon raccoon. This was important aspect of learning words and pictures. Pictures were always associated with learning new words. These rhymes and pictures are forever implanted in a child's head.
An example I want to talk about is the of god vs God, or even saying a god for the proper God. I think it is interesting when were writing a paper and we come across a point where we have to write god/God. What do we do? What is are natural instinct? It can basically come down to what religion you are affiliated with, but that is not the most important part of this discussion. People that view your paper are going to have an immediate opinion once you decide to use god or God. If your writing a paper: ...only a god can save us now"; compared to: ...only God can save us now"; it puts a different view into our heads and changes the meaning of the sentence. This just shows that even the capitalization of one letter can change the perspective of a whole sentence.
There are some minimal connections to the prompt and the questions asked, here; see the models in the wrap-up blog post for how this question was best answered.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting that you too connected the A with apple. It seems that almost everyone did and thus is an example within itself as to how our culture and generation was brought up learning the alphabet. It just makes me wonder that if another country or culture was being assigned the same question how would they perceive how idea of the alphabet? Maybe theirs is entirely about religion?
ReplyDeletenice post man,I like your connections. I remember when i was a kid, I always wished I was named with a A as the first letter of my name. So I could be first to get whatever, food, recess, recess, did I mention recess? You are right about the whole god/God thing. I sometimes think about it to when im writing about it. its wierd how long we have been stuck in the alphabetical stage of our existence right?
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