What’s the meaning of this?
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I’m taking a chance and wearing my “Lorem ipsum” shirt today, but usually I save it for days when I know I’m not going out, so I won’t have to answer the question: What does that mean?
It’s a natural thing to ask. I would ask it too, if I saw someone wearing a shirt that had a couple hundred words of Latin on it — lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit …. But the short answer – “I don’t know what it means” — isn’t satisfying. And the medium answer — “It’s not really supposed to mean anything; that’s the point.” — is even more confusing.
But both those things are the truth. The shirt always ends up making me think about the meaning of … meaning. I might as well share my thoughts, because what else is a blog good for?
The answer to the first riddle is that the words on the shirt are a kind of inside joke for graphic artists. For as long as anyone can remember, we have needed to find “greek” copy — fake copy to put into our designs to just show what the piece will look like when the real copy goes in (because until recently, adding copy was such a big deal that it was best to work out the kinks in the design first). And for as long as anyone can remember, this lengthy Latin quote, referred to commonly as “Lorem ipsum” is the copy we used. You don’t want a client to waste time trying to read things when you want to direct his focus to how the piece looks, and just hitting random keys on a keyboard is distractingly unrealistic.
So what did the Latin mean? No one seemed to know — until recently. Then someone doing a Google search discovered that the entire thing had been lifted almost verbatim from a 1st century book by Cicero — full story HERE. The interesting part (at least to me) is that in all the time it had been repeated by people who didn’t understand what it meant, there was almost none of the degradation you would expect. It was a surprisingly faithful duplication of the original text.
So here’s my question — does Lorem ipsum mean something or not? These were words that were employed specifically not to be read (no offense to Cicero), but here I am with a shirt two thousand years later.
And besides the utilitarian side of the quote, graphic artists have developed a kind of fondness for the lengthy gibberish. These days, there are plug-ins in programs that will generate as much greek copy as a body could want, but we kind of got attached to the old words, and so they acquired another layer of import, for us at least. We could think back on many projects and our old friends that kicked them off for us – “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet …”
That could just be about me, but I kind of hope it’s not. I think it’s interesting how we add meaning into things. Certainly, that’s the main reason to have words and try to be precise about their meaning. But there’s also a kind of ghost of our human quest for wisdom and truth there — I don’t think we can help it. You can start out with sounds or phrases that may not actually mean anything, but repetition and context can change them completely.
And then there are those three little words of wisdom from the London underground: Mind the gap.
Mind the what?
If you take the underground railway in London, you’ll hear repeated announcements at the stations. At Piccadilly Circus and other stations where the space between the train and the platform is larger than usual, a recorded woman’s voice will keep telling you to “mind the gap.” Makes sense, right? The thing is, it gets into your head. When I first heard it, I didn’t understand it. When I heard it a few times more, I understood it, but my response was just touristy delight over the Britishness of it all — so courteous, so concerned about my welfare!
But after that wore off — here’s the weird part — it started to sound like more than just a safety announcment about subway platforms. As it started to become part of my regular experience, I found myself thinking, “What gap are we talking about anyway? The gap between reality and fantasy? The physical world and the spiritual realm?” etc. etc. Not to mention, “When you say to ‘mind’ the gap, do you mean to pay heed to it, or to watch out for it, or to do obeisance to it, or what?”I’m not saying that I wasn’t just having fun and doing some mental exercises with a bit of down time. But it also seemed like a natural thing that “mind the gap” started to seem like something to think about. I was tickled to find stickers and fridge magnets that said “mind the gap.” I would’ve been even more surprised to have known that the phrase has not only been the name of two albums, but also a film, a movie company, a theater company, a board game and more — a list HERE.
In other words, it wasn’t just me. (Which is always a relief.) But why is that? The phrase is obviously just a quick safety reminder, so why does it start to take on meaning? Repetition certainly has a lot to do with it — a fact that advertisers exploit with annoying success. But I think it’s also just the way we’re hard-wired. God gave us creation and the minds and hands to shape it into civilization. We’ve been at it so long that the results should be a perfect fit, and yet, we keep going. We want more. We’re always aware of the God-shaped hole in us, and so we’re hungry for those times when our environment hands us a much-needed hint. Here’s something that means something. Shh. It’s just for you, but you need to spread the word.
Sooo …
So what’s the point? Beats me. Maybe nothing, in which case these words don’t have any meaning either. Or else, given what I’m saying, maybe the words that seem empty get more full because we invest meaning into them. The words that used to seem like the most important have gotten devalued for people because of repetition, while others that really ought to be forgettable take their place because you always want something to have in the Words of Wisdom place. (Isn’t it irritating that you can recall all the words to commercial jingles from 1978 but can’t quote the Gettysburg Address?)
Isn’t it interesting how God made us? And aren’t we dying to find out what it all means?
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Isn't that funny. I THOUGHT some of it looked familiar. But Cicero is in third year Latin in high school which was, um, 45 years ago. I am one of the weird students who also took Latin in college, but I quit after I completed the requirement of 2 years for graduation. See this article: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4343795?uid…
My aunts used to always use the term "mind the _______" when I was growing up. I find that I use it more now that I am older than I used to. "Mind" meaning "pay attention to" seems to make more sense to me than "look out for."
I would argue (well, state) that words have meaning, but only in context. For instance, what does the word "ground" mean? You can't even say that it is a noun, a verb, or an adjective until you use it. How could you know what it means without knowing how it is used?
All interesting stuff to think about. Thanks!
I need to brush up on that old Latin!
The culture has shifted to connotation over denotation. Is there anything denotated anymore?
Holy moley! You were actually familiar with that Cicero quote? I'm impressed. I should go back to Wikipedia and read up on what it means, but as I recall, it didn't make much sense to me.
Mind the gap: I agree that the meaning of the phrase is most reasonably "Pay attention to the space." I was just throwing in the other possibilities as a bit of fun. But I think that the fact that the phrase has gotten lifted into so many other usages (in most of which it makes zero sense) shows that it was eliciting a kind of strange fascination to others as well.
I remember hearing a linguist say that that's one way in which the language is evolving MORE sophisticated instead of less. Even though people's vocabularies are much smaller than they used to be in generations past, one word can have many different meanings based on inflection. And as long as the meaning is commonly understood, it's all good.
The bad part comes when we don't agree and one side claims that we all have to go strictly by denotation while ignoring our own connotation. (So my tone of voice isn't a factor, while I insist that you be completely literal in your meaning.) That one gets us into trouble all the way from spats around the house to great public discord. I think C. S. Lewis might have had something about it in The Screwtape Letters, too, so I suppose it's nothing new.