language fun
I have been reading The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature, by Steven Pinker, and the first thing that struck me was the whimsical ambiguity of language. Here’s a great example:
“During the final days at Denver’s Stapleton airport, a crowded United flight was canceled. A single agent was re-booking a long line of inconvenienced travelers. Suddenly an angry passenger pushed his way to the desk and slapped his ticket down on the counter, saying, ” I HAVE to be on this flight, and it HAS to be first class.” The agent replied, “I’m sorry sir. I’ll be happy to try to help you, but I’ve got to help these folks first, and I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out.” The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so that the passengers behind him could hear, “Do you have any idea who I am?” Without hesitating, the gate agent smiled and grabbed her public address microphone. “May I have your attention please?” she began, her voice bellowing through the terminal. “We have a passenger here at the gate WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him find his identity, please come to the gate.” With the folks behind him in line laughing hysterically, the man glared at the agent, gritted his teeth and swore, “****you!” Without flinching, she smiled and said, “I’m sorry sir, but you’ll have to stand in line for that too.”
What’s wonderful about this story is the many levels of language play there are to look at. The mismatch between “Do you have any idea who I am?” and asking his identity is great, because it uses a literal interpretation of the sentence for the joke. The next level is the use of the same exchange by the crowd in line, knowing that he really meant to point out his famous status and they get to laugh at him, and last the reader gets to see that the exchange was a tactic to reverse the dominance relation between the gate agent and the passenger. This use of one sentence to convey so many meanings is wonderful and highlights how complex language can be.
Of course the final zinger at the end is priceless for just the same reasons 