The Humpty Dumpty Syndrome -- #Language #Communication #Publishing

https://victorianweb.org/art/illustration/tenniel/lookingglass/6.1.html

Humpty Dumpty took the book, and looked at it carefully. “That seems to be done right—” he began.

“You’re holding it upside down!” Alice interrupted.

“To be sure I was!” Humpty Dumpty said gaily, as she turned it round for him. “I thought it looked a little queer. As I was saying, that seems to be done right—though I haven’t time to look it over thoroughly just now—and that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents—”

“Certainly,” said Alice.

“And only one for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’” Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’”

“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’” Alice objected.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”

“Would you tell me, please,” said Alice “what that means?”

“Now you talk like a reasonable child,” said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. “I meant by ‘impenetrability’ that we’ve had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you’d mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don’t mean to stop here all the rest of your life.”

“That’s a great deal to make one word mean,” Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

“When I make a word do a lot of work like that,” said Humpty Dumpty, “I always pay it extra.”

~ from Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll

Ever since I was young, I’ve had a larger than average vocabulary (not unusual in an author). The conversation above, from one of my childhood favorite books, has always amused me due to its absurdity. If people could completely control the meaning of words – making them mean whatever they chose – communication would rapidly become impossible (as the above passage clearly illustrates). Words are not always precise, but a language community must be able to agree on their basic definitions or we end up with the Tower of Babel.

Unfortunately, not everyone realizes this.

I’ve been trying to get my 25^th anniversary edition of Raw Silk accepted by Smashwords for their Premium Distribution. This option makes a book published on the Smashwords package available on Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Apple and other third party platforms, which obviously increases sales potential. The third party stores are not required to carry the book, of course. Some of them (particularly Apple) refuse most of mine because of the explicit content.

Anyway, I got an email yesterday from Smashwords telling me that Raw Silk wasn’t eligible and needed modifications. When I went to investigate, their message indicated that I needed to check the incest/pseudo-incest box in their questionnaire about specific sexual content (which also includes things like dubious consent, sexual slavery, age play, etc.)

What the heck were they talking about? Raw Silk includes a very wide range of sexual themes and activities, but there’s not any hint of incest or incest fantasies. I scratched my head, trying to figure out what they found objectionable. Then I found the following information:

Note that relatives of any sort merely thinking about or witnessing one another engage in sexual acts is considered incestuous by our partners.

I was floored. I might as well have run into Humpty Dumpty, asserting that words mean what he chooses them to mean. This is not the accepted meaning of incest!

Incest: sexual activity involving people who are closely related and not legally allowed to marry (Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary and Thesaurus)

Incest: sexual intercourse between persons so closely related that they are forbidden by law to marry. Also : the statutory crime of such a relationship (Merriam Webster online dictionary)

Incest: noun

1. sexual intercourse between closely related persons.

2. the crime of sexual intercourse, cohabitation, or marriage between persons within the degrees of consanguinity or affinity wherein marriage is legally forbidden.

(Dictionary.com)

There is no incest in Raw Silk. The book does feature a pair of half-siblings (Gregory Marshall and his half-Thai sister Noi), but there is not the slightest hint of any sort of desire in their relationship.

However, the two characters participate in a scene where both engage in sexual acts (separately) with my heroine Kate O’Neill. The fact that they are related is totally irrelevant to the erotic aspects of the scene.

I know it’s futile to protest about this. With a deep sigh, I went back and checked the “incest” box in the Smashwords settings. I can’t afford to get upset about the sales I might lose. I’m not sure I want my books to be sold on these Humpty Dumpty platforms.

It does make me wonder, though, about the direction in which society is moving. Groups seem to feel perfectly justified redefining words in ways that do violence to the original meaning. So objecting to the actions of a specific world leader is now anti-Semitism. An assault rifle is a birthday present.

And little by little our ability to communicate with one another erodes.

Humpty Dumpty would be smugly pleased.