A Million

“Do you have enough space back there? I have like a million leg room”.

You know how sometimes you just develop your own language, and your friends know the language, so it just becomes so normal that you forget it’s not real language? I went on a road trip with some new work friends on the weekend (which is why this blog is late). I said the above sentence and the three people in the car laughed like it was a joke.

“A million leg room haha.”

“A million undetermined units of legroom, hahahaha.”

It wasn’t a joke. That’s just how I speak sometimes.

I’m a bit of a show off, and an orator. I love to tell a story, love to have people listen to me, to laugh at my jokes (to read my blog). But sometimes, new people laugh at things I wasn’t intending to be funny. It’s not a bad thing; it’s just a strange realisation to have in the passenger seat at 100Km per hour on a country road.

It’s one of the things I miss most about my Brisbane friends. Having and developing a language of our own is one of the best ways I’ve ever felt close with people. I love words, I feel in many ways they are almost holy, but I also love to mess with them. Years of living and working and studying with friends have produced a special lingo over which we all subconsciously bond. Meanwhile, Boyfriend and I shorten everything. We’re not seeing a movie, we’re “going to the moves”, we don’t eat dinner we have “the dins”. These aren’t even particularly sickening, coupley things, we’re just quite lazy (or “laze”).

And it’s not as if my new friends don’t do it too. The phrase “legit strat” was used over the weekend, and we all laughed and discussed how it would be silly to say “legitimate strategy” (especially when I think we were discussing sand castles). But of course the speaker was just using a turn of phrase, not trying to make a joke. I wonder if he felt like it was a bit weird we all laughed and dissected his words. Maybe he says “legit strat” every day. We just don’t all speak the same language yet.

I’m reading Paper Towns by John Green at the moment (shh I haven’t finished yet, no spoilers). One of the major themes is about how we see others. Do we see them through a window, something of their creation that allows us to see certain aspects of their personality? Or do we see them through a mirror, as variations of ourselves? The main character hasn’t quite decided yet, but I think it’s a combination of both. Language is one of the most subtle ways we can portray ourselves, yet is the most present, we use language almost every moment of every day. It is also one of the more obvious tools we use to create our conceptions of others. Do they speak like me? Do they use words I understand? Are they gentle, abrupt, silly, loud, intelligent, crass or rude?

So maybe it’s not about windows vs. mirrors, maybe it’s about megaphones vs. sounding boards.