Incomprehensible

Have you ever noticed how the most important information is almost always communicated in the least comprehensible manner?

I was in NYC, recently, trying to navigate the subway systems. Thus, every time there was an announcement as to which stop was next or which stops would be skipped, I definitely needed to know what they were saying! Now, you would think that, because I am in an English-speaking country this time (unlike many of my prior experiences trying to navigate the transportation systems of a city), I would be at an advantage. Not so; those NYC metro intercom announcements were usually made in a voice sounding something like the teacher from the Peanuts cartoon (i.e. a weird alien dialect comprised of vowels and static, spoken through a mouthful of mushy peas). In short, without prior advice and a good map, I would have been as good as lost.

Another, less mechanically inhibited example of incomprehensible language is the type of language used in the medical field. A good doctor will use the medical term for the condition you have and then explain what it “really mean” and how you are going to treat it, but honestly, if I were a doctor, I don’t know if I would have the patience for all that. Would most of my patients even want to know the “real term?” (For instance, if your baby cries for hours at a time “no matter what you do,” he or she has colic. Who cares what it is called? Just make the kid stop crying!) In effect, I would have to dumb it down for them, but then what was the point of having a term in the first place? Why must we put labels on everything? To sound smart? To feel prestigious? To make sure no one can have access to our “higher knowledge” unless we want to them to? This is a topic I struggle with quite frequently (and therefore spawned last semester’s research paper “The Case of the Missing Agent: and Other Issues of Passive Voice in Scientific Writing”).

Speaking of important yet inaccessible terms, I take serious issue with restaurants that place foreign items on their menus and then fail to explain to the predominantly English-speaking population of America exactly what these food items are. How am I expected to know what an empanada is, or Tzatziki, or how about Orecchiette con Cima di Rape? (In case you are wondering, the first is a savory Spanish/South American pastry, the second is a Greek appetizer dip, and the third is an Italian pasta dish.) As a self-acknowledged picky eater, I want to know what I am spending my money on before it arrives at my plate—much less in my mouth—thank you.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and in all three of these cases, I believe this could be true. In the first instance on the NYC metro, I never had a problem navigating when I had the rare opportunity to ride on one of the newer train cars that had marquis above the doorways announcing “Next Stop is….” as well as stop schedules that showed a glowing yellow light beside each stop the train had already passed. I might gripe about technology in many cases (such as what an inconsiderate culture cell phones are making us and who in the world needs over 500 television channels), but I will never claim that it does not have its useful purposes. On these “techno-trains,” I never once missed my stop.

In the second and third instances, also, I also feel that visual aids could do a great deal of good. If I were a doctor, instead of speaking a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo to my patients, I would simply show them a picture, a flash card of sorts, of what will happen to them if they do not follow my instructions to take care of their condition. This way, if my diagnosis is wrong and the treatment does not work, at least the patient will know what symptoms to look for. And if a flash card would not be sufficient, a short two-minute video would work. Likewise, if there were just pictures of every food item on a menu, I would never have to worry about what each thing was called—I could see it! Granted, seeing the dish does not necessarily mean I would know every ingredient used to make it, but what restaurant lists all of that information in its descriptions, anyway? Pictures would simply make life easier.

Maybe I should have been a photographer.