Foxglove
03-11-2012, 01:32 PM
Hi, Guys and Girls!
One upon a time I read a short passage from Helen Keller’s autobiography where she was talking about her acquisition of language and what it meant to her. I think these few sentences from the Wikipedia article about her explain the process clearly enough.
Anne Sullivan arrived at Keller's house in March 1887, and immediately began to teach Helen to communicate by spelling words into her hand, beginning with "d-o-l-l" for the doll that she had brought Keller as a present. Keller was frustrated, at first, because she did not understand that every object had a word uniquely identifying it. In fact, when Sullivan was trying to teach Keller the word for "mug", Keller became so frustrated she broke the doll. Keller's big breakthrough in communication came the next month, when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on the palm of her hand, while running cool water over her other hand, symbolized the idea of "water"; she then nearly exhausted Sullivan demanding the names of all the other familiar objects in her world.
What she explained in her autobiography was the significance of language for her. Before, she would of course have known what a doll or water was. But once she realized that each thing had a name, everything changed. She said that the world became clearer for her, as if she were emerging from a fog. Once she knew the name of a thing, she perceived it differently. If she lost a doll, e.g., she would feel the loss more keenly. (And if anyone’s interested in the question, “What is human language?”, I think Keller is giving us an important clue here.)
Recently, I wanted to apply for membership to a Transgender organization here in Ireland. I got the application form off their website, but then was unable to complete it. What stumped me was that I was going to have to sign my name at the bottom of the form. And I couldn’t do that. This may sound silly, but firstly, I’d never before actually written down “Annabelle Larousse”. And secondly, it’s a genetic thing in my family: men can’t even come close to writing legibly. I long ago gave up trying to write in what’s called “cursive writing” in some parts and “joined writing” in others. My dad also gave up cursive writing a long time ago, and my son never even attempted it. We stick to printing.
But if I’m going to sign my real name on a document, I don’t want it to look like some chicken-scratched scribble-scrawl. Normally, I think, a woman’s handwriting is better than a man’s, and my efforts were simply embarrassing. What kind of girl would they think I was? Or should I just sign it with a big, fat “X” and ask a friend to witness my signature?
So I gave it up. I sent them the membership fee through the mail in cash as a donation, and gave them my name (typed) and e-mail address. They acknowledged receipt of the money, and I noted that they had enrolled me as a member after all, so everything was OK.
However, I did want to remedy the situation. If I worked at it, maybe next year I could actually fill in a form and send it to them. So the last few days, I’ve been practicing. I typed my name on a document and then looked at it in different scripts and chose the one I liked best. I’ve been trying my best to see how well I can imitate it. I’m going for cursive writing, as difficult as it is, because it looks so much nicer—but I’ve found that if I go at it very slowly, I do a lot better.
The capital “A” and the capital “L” are the most difficult—though this morning I did three “L’s” in a row that were spot on, exactly what I wanted. The double “s” was also a bit of problem, though I got that sorted out very quickly, and the “r” is giving me some trouble as well, though that’s coming along now. Some of the time I get a result that actually looks like a decent signature.
The odd thing was that as I was writing “Annabelle” and “Larousse” over and over and over, I began to get sucked into it. (In case anybody’s curious, “Larousse” means “the red-head”, and that’s me.) It became something of a spiritual exercise. I found some feelings becoming focused around the name.
Basically, for the first time in my life, I began to get a feel for some things long buried within me, for a part of me that’s long been hidden. Things were taking shape inside me, and it put me in touch with what might have been. I was getting a glimpse of the girl I might have been, had circumstances been different. I began to get a feel for a certain personality, or part of one, that might have been expressed, had it ever been given the chance. Am I one of those multiple-personality people?
As some people know, I’m often all over the place—up, down, jolly, moody, angry from one moment to the next, take your pick. So maybe I‘m bi-polar instead, except that “bi” very much understates the case. “There are more poles in my heaven and hell, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your psychiatry.” But had I been what I was intended to be, I think I would have been more settled, less frenetic, perhaps even less nasty and raging. It would be nice to believe that I’d have been a nicer and gentler person.
I don’t blame my folks for naming me what they did. Given my physical configuration at birth, they could hardly have done otherwise. No, the name they gave me was fine, and had I ever been a man (and I’ve never been much of one), it’s a name one could be proud of. And I don’t suppose it would be any better to be a boy named “Annabelle” than a boy named “Sue”. Nonetheless, I wasn’t named accurately—and I now understand why I like the name I’ve chosen for myself, and why I’d like to use it in all my dealings with others.
A lot of people on this forum are constantly bemoaning the use of “labels”, and I understand why. But labels (and a name is a label) can be very good things, provided that they’re accurate and that nobody’s abusing them. For me, “Annabelle” is a very accurate name and label. It becomes the focus of a lot of things that otherwise would remain vague and unknown. It sharpens my world for me and helps me to feel certain things more keenly as they begin to emerge from the fog within me. What’s in a name? As I’ve seen, a name can contain and express a lot of things.
Best wishes, Annabelle
One upon a time I read a short passage from Helen Keller’s autobiography where she was talking about her acquisition of language and what it meant to her. I think these few sentences from the Wikipedia article about her explain the process clearly enough.
Anne Sullivan arrived at Keller's house in March 1887, and immediately began to teach Helen to communicate by spelling words into her hand, beginning with "d-o-l-l" for the doll that she had brought Keller as a present. Keller was frustrated, at first, because she did not understand that every object had a word uniquely identifying it. In fact, when Sullivan was trying to teach Keller the word for "mug", Keller became so frustrated she broke the doll. Keller's big breakthrough in communication came the next month, when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on the palm of her hand, while running cool water over her other hand, symbolized the idea of "water"; she then nearly exhausted Sullivan demanding the names of all the other familiar objects in her world.
What she explained in her autobiography was the significance of language for her. Before, she would of course have known what a doll or water was. But once she realized that each thing had a name, everything changed. She said that the world became clearer for her, as if she were emerging from a fog. Once she knew the name of a thing, she perceived it differently. If she lost a doll, e.g., she would feel the loss more keenly. (And if anyone’s interested in the question, “What is human language?”, I think Keller is giving us an important clue here.)
Recently, I wanted to apply for membership to a Transgender organization here in Ireland. I got the application form off their website, but then was unable to complete it. What stumped me was that I was going to have to sign my name at the bottom of the form. And I couldn’t do that. This may sound silly, but firstly, I’d never before actually written down “Annabelle Larousse”. And secondly, it’s a genetic thing in my family: men can’t even come close to writing legibly. I long ago gave up trying to write in what’s called “cursive writing” in some parts and “joined writing” in others. My dad also gave up cursive writing a long time ago, and my son never even attempted it. We stick to printing.
But if I’m going to sign my real name on a document, I don’t want it to look like some chicken-scratched scribble-scrawl. Normally, I think, a woman’s handwriting is better than a man’s, and my efforts were simply embarrassing. What kind of girl would they think I was? Or should I just sign it with a big, fat “X” and ask a friend to witness my signature?
So I gave it up. I sent them the membership fee through the mail in cash as a donation, and gave them my name (typed) and e-mail address. They acknowledged receipt of the money, and I noted that they had enrolled me as a member after all, so everything was OK.
However, I did want to remedy the situation. If I worked at it, maybe next year I could actually fill in a form and send it to them. So the last few days, I’ve been practicing. I typed my name on a document and then looked at it in different scripts and chose the one I liked best. I’ve been trying my best to see how well I can imitate it. I’m going for cursive writing, as difficult as it is, because it looks so much nicer—but I’ve found that if I go at it very slowly, I do a lot better.
The capital “A” and the capital “L” are the most difficult—though this morning I did three “L’s” in a row that were spot on, exactly what I wanted. The double “s” was also a bit of problem, though I got that sorted out very quickly, and the “r” is giving me some trouble as well, though that’s coming along now. Some of the time I get a result that actually looks like a decent signature.
The odd thing was that as I was writing “Annabelle” and “Larousse” over and over and over, I began to get sucked into it. (In case anybody’s curious, “Larousse” means “the red-head”, and that’s me.) It became something of a spiritual exercise. I found some feelings becoming focused around the name.
Basically, for the first time in my life, I began to get a feel for some things long buried within me, for a part of me that’s long been hidden. Things were taking shape inside me, and it put me in touch with what might have been. I was getting a glimpse of the girl I might have been, had circumstances been different. I began to get a feel for a certain personality, or part of one, that might have been expressed, had it ever been given the chance. Am I one of those multiple-personality people?
As some people know, I’m often all over the place—up, down, jolly, moody, angry from one moment to the next, take your pick. So maybe I‘m bi-polar instead, except that “bi” very much understates the case. “There are more poles in my heaven and hell, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your psychiatry.” But had I been what I was intended to be, I think I would have been more settled, less frenetic, perhaps even less nasty and raging. It would be nice to believe that I’d have been a nicer and gentler person.
I don’t blame my folks for naming me what they did. Given my physical configuration at birth, they could hardly have done otherwise. No, the name they gave me was fine, and had I ever been a man (and I’ve never been much of one), it’s a name one could be proud of. And I don’t suppose it would be any better to be a boy named “Annabelle” than a boy named “Sue”. Nonetheless, I wasn’t named accurately—and I now understand why I like the name I’ve chosen for myself, and why I’d like to use it in all my dealings with others.
A lot of people on this forum are constantly bemoaning the use of “labels”, and I understand why. But labels (and a name is a label) can be very good things, provided that they’re accurate and that nobody’s abusing them. For me, “Annabelle” is a very accurate name and label. It becomes the focus of a lot of things that otherwise would remain vague and unknown. It sharpens my world for me and helps me to feel certain things more keenly as they begin to emerge from the fog within me. What’s in a name? As I’ve seen, a name can contain and express a lot of things.
Best wishes, Annabelle