My only language is English, which is a serious deficiency for one who fancies himself an intellectual. A buddy of mine used to joke, “I’m a legend in my own mind” (the phrase parodied is ….in my own time) So, how can I really be wise, someone who has insights on the world, when I’ve seen very little of it, and has only a single language to express my thoughts to others. I do have an extended vocabulary, maybe because my childhood home didn’t have a dictionary until I was thirteen when I got one as a Bar Mitzvah present— and started to devour it.
In me, you have a living example of one raised in lower class intellectual setting, who managed to get within reach of a doctorate in social psychology from an Ivy League university. “Close, but no cigar” Getting as close as a research paper away from being Professor, I went back to my previous occupation, planing the most efficient tools for a given printing project. I was an early user of the personal computer, buying my first TRS-80, when Radio Shack was competing with the Apple 1 around the mid 1980s. I learned basic, and the early programmable spreadsheet called Visicalc, and created a professional level production management program, that my employer bought, and led to my selling a handful to the small printing companies in N.Y.C.
No rags to riches story here, but maybe a rags to resentment tale for not achieving riches, or status, or some of the good things that are all around me. As an extreme example see the film “Happy Go Lucky” where I would be the more mild version of the angry cab driver character, the one who is the nemesis of the eponymous delightful main character.
With this brief bio, I’ll get to how Facebook’s invention of use of “friend” as a verb was the reason I never got involved, although I do have a dormant account. By not embracing this medium, I have lost out on this way of connection that has affected so much of interpersonal relationships. (and maybe Facebook and Tweeter is a way to get more readership for these so often dormant diaries) Linguistics is fascinating academically, but it is also the medium of our interaction with both intimates and the larger public. In it’s most simple articulation, nouns are things and verbs are actions- and we build in complexity from this.
Let’s see what can be an action done to another person— insult, compliment, admire, enjoy, condemn, deride, castigate, insult, praise, deride or even love- even though unrequited…...the list goes on. Before Facebook, I could “befriend” a person, one of the meanings being extend an offer of friendship, that the person may or may not accept, but as I’ve just confirmed from my 1963 Merriam-Webster dictionary, “Friend” was only a noun*-
There are a spate of articles on the political and societal effect of Facebook, but this dailykos essay is a personal story of how this word, and the new meaning, has affected me. To the readers here, I am Arodb, not an actual person except to what I happened to divulge in my many diaries, the odd word for essays used on this website.
I also comment frequently on N.Y. Times articles which are limited to 1500 characters, about 300 words. They have recs and replies, and I usually get a few. The one time I got the most of any, was when the subject was pets, and I described my dog and how at the moment I was typing my comment, he slowly came downstairs one step at a time, as he was nearing death; and I added, “I’m concerned about my well being when he goes.” Rather than my usual attempt at demonstrating my superior intelligence, I was one human being, who would be profoundly hurt by the impending death of his friend, who happened to be a dog.
I’m going to wrap this up, since reader’s here have their own agenda, and all I’m offering is a thought, how the expansion of a single word, “friend,” can, because of the internet, transform not only a word, but a concept. To me, friend, is not something that can be imposed, or happen when one joins an association, but a personal relationship of two people that is both sacred and intimate, one that transcends the vicissitudes of each partner to encompass sharing and acceptance.
When it becomes as easy as hitting a button on a Facebook screen, something that’s already fragile becomes more so
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Essay by Robert Putnam on his book “Bowling alone” that provides a macro analysis of this subject
*This dictionary did include single line without any examples, as v.t, only to say it could be used as befriend. I could find no other examples of this usage prior to Facebook.
