© 2026 Robert Sickles
Now and then my comments to Linda devolve to guttural snorts and mutters. Maybe I point a finger or aim my eyes to help clarify my meaning. Come on, when I would like her to pass the salt, why shouldn’t she get what I mean when I grunt and gesture with gorilla fingers? She often says, “Use your words, Bob.” In those instances, any idea of an advanced civilization where every person is either eloquent or psychic seems hopeless.
I understand there are people who would give their right arm for a proper conversation with their spouse, employer or child. That’s where one person’s reluctance to communicate is the crux of a serious relationship problem—but that’s different from what I’m thinking about. I’m just saying languages are sometimes confusing, tongues twisted, brains muddled, and ears out of order. Could we do better?
Isn’t a bonus of a long relationship having the ability to communicate sometimes without words or complete sentences? I think it’s kind of cute when Linda says “Umm, I had a thought…” and I already know she’s going to ask me to help clean out the flower beds. She says, “I can’t find my…” and I immediately go look for her glasses. What if we could expand on that rather than suppress it?
Well, I do use words, a lot of them, in writing at least. I’m not that fond of speaking, so it’s kind of a relief sometimes to revert to something less verbal. I say “revert” because it strikes me as a form of communication that includes body language, intuition, and instinct like the most ancient humans might have used before they started getting fancy with languages. I would like to defend the non-use of spoken language, first with some great examples of the economical use of words:
- Victor Hugo (or some say it was Oscar Wilde) was curious about how his new book was being received on the other side of the Atlantic, and wired his publisher the shortest telegram ever sent, simply, “?” The publisher replied just as briefly, “!”
- E. B. White, responding to the appalling trend by magazines like Reader’s Digest to reduce great novels to less than 20 or 30 pages, wrote Irtnog. It was a humorous dystopian short story about a future time when the public is unable to keep up with the huge amount of new reading material. Even the speediest readers are overwhelmed. With the increased demand for condensed literature, it gets to the point when an editor can reduce an entire manuscript to one nonsensical key word, such as “irtnog,” that somehow communicates the gist of the whole story with just a few syllables.
- An old joke: Every night, prisoners are calling out seemingly random numbers to each other across the cell block, and everyone responds in laughter. Confused new guy finally asks what the heck is going on. Old inmate tells him that the prison library has only one joke book and everyone has read it so often they have the jokes memorized by their numbers, one through 500.
Humans are lonely for someone to talk to. We are hoping to find another species, terrestrial or otherwise, to share conversations. I saw an episode of Hunting for Bigfoot where these guys go out in the forest and scream and howl to attract Sasquatch. They never find one, and I beieve it's because they're yelling the Sasquatch words for “Hide eveyone, stupid people are here!”
I saw an episode of NOVA where some scientists set out to determine if dogs can not only understand our language but use it like we do. Every dog owner would probably say it’s bleedin’ obvious that they can, but from linguistic and neurological points of view, it wasn’t clear if dogs understand the concepts of words and can actually use them creatively, or if they are merely conditioned to respond to their humans’ cues. It was tricky to test that distinction. They evaluate use of language by measuring sophisticated skills that a human child develops, like inventing words, understanding metaphors and double-meanings, using past & future tense. Really? Grammar? Dogs are praised for being so much “in the now,” so why would they need past or future tense?
A lengthy study was devised that followed thousands of dogs and their owners, and employed electronic devices that emitted recorded human words when the dogs press buttons with their paws. So far, the scientists said it remains uncertain, and the study will have to continue. Among all the hit-and-miss gibberish, there was one dog that pressed the “Ouch” button, then “Paw.” The owner found a seed bur between the dog’s toes. Another dog kept pressing the “walk” and “beach” buttons, then seemed thrilled when the woman asked “do you want to go for a walk on the beach?” The researchers marked them as interesting but possibly random.
Besides the delight in being able to have a chit-chat with our pet, I think the underlying motivation for this kind of study is the hope that dogs would be so grateful to have a way, at last, to communicate to us and each other, and to be more like us. They will take language and run with it like it’s a new chew toy. What fun for us, listening in on a mother dog teaching her puppy a new word! Gary Larson’s Far Side translation of “Arf! Arf! Arf!” was “Hey! Hey! Hey!” Let’s hope there’s more on their minds than that.
There is no question that animals communicate with each other in all kinds of ways. But why narrow the research to whether dogs can use English? It seems like a more interesting study would be to find out if people can speak Dog. I’ve tried to learn Dog but it didn’t go over so well with my furry friend, Max. He rolled his eyes and made a low sigh that sounded like the deep pffmm of a bassoon; maybe he was fed up with what he misunderstood as my mocking tone. He was a very sensitive fellow and short on patience.
Now there is another thing for scientists to investigate… whether dog owners can really read their pets’ facial and vocal expressions, or are we projecting just a little into that, and training each other to perform tricks for treats? “Aww, look at those eyes, such a sad puppy. Do you want a cookie? Yeah? Oh, you’re good dog! Look at that waggy tail! Now, there’s a happy boy!”
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