Abbetor. Crabb's English Synonymes

It's the conversation, stupid!

At times I reflect on the digital humanities. A transformation is afoot. I ask myself "Just what is it that's going on here?" I don't know. But I get hints. I follow others who find the relatively new world called "digital humanities" a world of interest. We explore and talk to one another. Most of my talk is via Twitter. Some of it is marginalia scribbled in comment boxes of blogs. I listen to others via all of the media available, including digital media.

We digital humanities folks take pride in impressive accomplishments in finding and receiving content in new ways, via new tools.

What occurs to me is that the digital humanities movement is at a moment of conversation. As we converse, we discover. Our communications are pointers. We discover new paths. And we share maps of our journeys.

Is This Use Or Misuse of Media in Art History?

High School PE Taught Me How To Conjugate Verbs. Sort of.

Eleventh grade. A tough one. Acne. So on. Eleventh grade: English and PE classes and other classes I don't remember at the moment. English class was into verb conjugation. PE class was not into exercise because it was my turn for locker room duty--caged room with baskets to hold student stuff.

So. Back to English. We had a book with lots of examples of conjugations. Each example was presented in two columns, one singulars and one plurals. Hour after hour I stared at all the examples and tried to learn the conjugations. Memorizing all the examples was tough. I would stare, close my eyes and try to remember what the conjugations looked like, and then open my eyes to check. I wrote the examples over and over. I was making progress.

But. Test. An English test over these conjugations was coming up. In fact, on the particular day I am remembering the test was later that day.

While protecting the PE baskets I kept pouring over the illustrations and I knew that I was making progress but I also knew that there was no way I was going to get all of those things perfectly remembered.

I decided to stare at the illustrations, close my eyes and try to say the things. I knew that I would have to write the examples on the test, but I was grasping for anything that might help me remember.

Then I experienced one of those moments of enlightenment, one of those moments that comes close to proving that God exists and that God is just. Sort of. As I said the examples I suddenly realized that what I was saying sounded familiar.

I shout
You shout
He shouts

We shout
Y'all shout*
We shout

Damn. This conjugation thing is just a fancy word for how I talk. Everyday. All the time. I tried it out with other verbs. It worked. I looked at the examples in the book. I said the first person singular (another fancy thing) and then I was able to complete the whole example.

Why did nobody tell me that these things, these conjugated words, were nothing more than everyday chat? I had never heard of Molière, but I must have been as astounded and delighted as Jourdain. Without knowing what I was doing I had been conjugating as far back as I could remember. Amazing.

Gym ends. Returned stuff to students. Ate lunch. Took test. Aced it.

*I was reared in the southern United States. We had the advantage of having a regularly used, distinctive second-person plural pronoun.