WILCOX WRITING

I apologize to those who have limited time or attention, but this post is going to be a longer one. I promise it is worth the read if you enjoy the more philosophical aspect of writing. As a trained philosopher, I can’t help but dig deeper into the philosophical aspect of writing.

What is writing? This is a legitimate question to ask. I might say that this is writing, and I am writing right now, but that isn’t a good answer to this question.

Writing is a practice that has been around for thousands of years, since our writing on clay tablets. The first documented writing system in human history is cuneiform, originating around 3200 BCE in ancient Mesopotamia. Cuneiform was used for the purpose of accounting and was very pragmatic, since one symbol referred to one real object in the world. For instance, one symbol might have represented one unit of oil, and three of that symbol represented three units of oil.

Since then, writing has evolved from practical accounting and direct symbol-object correlations to our writing symbols now representing abstract and complex topics, such as writing about writing. The freeing of writing from direct symbol-object correlation to symbols representing abstract concepts allows us to write about things that don’t exist directly and physically in the world. Our first documented philosophical writings are dated somewhere between 500 and 300 BCE, depending on the culture. Philosophy is about the most abstract you can get in writing, and so, it contrasts writing’s practical and realistic roots.

We still write in the modern age, and there is a strong emphasis on good writing skills in modernity. Most basic education involves writing and composition, no matter what language you learn in. Anyone who can’t write will not make it past the first grade.

When I say that this is writing, what do I mean by that? I mean that what I am doing now by putting together these letters and words constitutes the practice or act of writing. This whole medium and composition is what writing is.

But it can’t just be that simple, can it? It’s easy to understand that this post constitutes writing. The setting together of letters and words makes this writing.

But writing can’t just be the combination of letters and words. For example, take the following three ‘sentences’:

This is a sentence.

Blue fish round jump.

jtrlo.Pbi niHd kn;My

Are these three sets of letters and words considered writing? We could *technically* say yes. But then the question becomes, is this good writing?

I would say the first is good writing, while the second is not so good, and the third is just bad. What makes them good and bad, though?

Indeed, writing is constituted with proper grammar and syntax. Grammar is the ruleset for how words relate and which words to use, while syntax is the sentence’s structure. The first has both good grammar and syntax. The second has good syntax but bad grammar. And the last has no proper grammar or syntax. So, is good writing merely the proper use of grammar and syntax of a language?

Yes, that’s a big part of it. But good writing isn’t just good grammar and syntax. Take the following sentence as another example:

The jibby was trobbing athore hlimmly.

Wait . . . What am I talking about with “jibbies” that are “trobbing”? Have I gone mad? Curiously, this sentence has both proper grammar and syntax. To prove that it does, let’s take another sentence with the same structure, but I’ve replaced the nouns, adverb, and the verb with other words.

The jaguar was trotting along happily.

This sentence makes sense, and we would say it’s good writing. What was the problem with the previous sentence? The problem was that most of the words used in the first sentence had no reference. The words “jibby,” “trobbing,” “athore,” and “hlimmly” are not words in the English language. At least not words for which we have a known reference.

Although the strange words have proper syntax, they are not words we use in English. However, they could be. If history rewrote itself and we used the word “jibby” instead of “jaguar,” “trobbing” instead of “trotting,” “athore” instead of “along,” and “hlimmly” instead of “happily,” the second sentence would make sense and be good writing, while the second would not be good writing (assuming those words in the second example were never used in the English language).

So, we have writing as the collection of letters and words following rules of grammar and syntax of a language, and good writing as all that, plus the words having a proper known reference.

What is this “reference”? A reference is what comes along with the word. It is the link between the word and some object or concept. Every word has one or more references. These references give it part of its meaning. When I say “hammer” it refers to both the wooden and iron object hammer, and the act of hammering. But what reference it has specifically comes within the context of the sentence.

I will hammer the nails.

The hammer sits on the table.

“Hammer” in both sentences is the exact same combination of letters. However, they refer to different objects and concepts. So, the context of the sentence is part of its semantics. A reference is what a word refers to, or means. Words tend to have a public meaning or reference, and this is what the great thinker Ludwig Wittgenstein meant in Philosophical Investigations at §198-199 when he said that

… every interpretation hangs in the air together with what it interprets,
and cannot give it any support. Interpretations by themselves do not
determine meaning. […] It is not possible that there should have been only one occasion on
which only one person followed a rule. It is not possible that there should
have been only one occasion on which a report was made, an order given
or understood, and so on. To follow a rule, to make a report, to give
an order, to play a game of chess, are customs (usages, institutions).
To understand a sentence means to understand a language. To under
stand a language means to have mastered a technique.

Wittgenstein is basically saying here that a rule, like how to use word and what it means, is not something that can exist as something solitary. A word does not have meaning unless there is some rule determining its use, and a rule is not something that can possibly be made alone. To determine what a word means is to understand its use in context. Understanding a language is to understand a technique, a technique is determined by rules, and a rule is community-determined. A rule is merely a custom. How we use the word in practice and that word’s commonly assigned meaning determine its reference.

Sentences can have proper syntax, like our example “The jibby was trobbing athore hlimmly.” but fail to have any related semantics. Semantics is what the sentence means. It is the message communicated through the ordered set of words and letters. It has a message.

So, good writing has both a meaning and communicates a message. What is a meaning, to communicate, and a message? First, the meaning of a sentence is what sort of message comes across, or what it brings to mind when the reader reads that writing.

So, writing is meant to be read by others. When we write, it is with the hope that it will be read. But surely, that’s not the only purpose of writing. I might write in a journal and nobody, not even myself, might ever read it after it’s been written. In that case, writing can also be therapeutic or even assuage boredom. But I will mainly concern myself with writing that is meant to be read.

But what about writing brings to mind something to me? And why does it mean that specifically to me? Here’s another sentence:

The reddest red.

I’m sure that everyone can understand this sentence, and it means something to everyone. But what it means specifically will differ for each person reading the sentence. A person with colorblindness will not have it mean the same as someone who’s seen all the shades of red, nor will it be similar to someone who has color vision but has only seen muted or faded reds. So, meaning is subjective.

How is meaning subjective? When we read some writing, we access our memory banks. In those banks are the reference(s) to the word. In my example of the hammer, whether we reference the verb or noun form of “hammer” and the meaning of the sentence depends on where the word ‘hammer’ sits in relation to the other words. With our example of the reddest red, I have my experience to fall back on in determining what this means.

Despite all this headway on what good writing is, we have yet to determine the what and why of communication. As I’ve mentioned, good writing communicates a message. What does it communicate?

Writing communicates something the writer wants to pass on to the reader. By ordering the words and letters as the writer does, they can instill, or communicate, a message in the reader. This means that writing has a motivation, and the message is willed into existence through the medium of words and letters.

Further back, this ‘something’ that’s passed on is a thought or idea. A thought is a writing-less, and perhaps wordless, unit of meaning within the writer. A thought or idea exists in the metaphysical space. Nobody can see, touch, smell, taste, or hear a raw thought before it is distilled into a publicly communicated phenomenon. Through writing, the thinker attempts to pass on to the reader this unit of meaning that the writer possesses.

These ‘raw thoughts’ of the writer, devoid of writing and maybe even language and words, must be ‘squeezed’ into these words. Then, these words have to be ordered in the right combinations, according to proper grammar and syntax, so the reader can understand.

This makes the writer’s private thoughts public. Writing is a public affair, while thinking and thoughts are private. I have no access to anyone’s direct thoughts, but I do have access to another’s thoughts through their writing. Writing is a medium that passes on raw thoughts. It communicates some thought or idea.

Communicating ideas is more complicated than that, though. Simply ordering words and letters can communicate meaning and thoughts, but to communicate well is another matter.

Consider the following examples of sets of sentences:

The dog jumped, and the man hit the dog. The dog whined. Then the man ran away.

A rabid dog jumped at the unaware man, and he flinched. His fear led him to flail out and strike the dog squarely on the head. The dog yelped in pain and recoiled. Seeing this, the man took this momentary chance to flee and ran away to safety.

The first set of sentences and example is crude, but it does communicate something. What they communicate might make it seem like a bad man hit a dog. What reasonable human hits a dog? We feel for the dog. In the second example, it’s a lot more vivid and contextual. We understand that the dog was the aggressor and not the man. In fact, we feel for the man and probably not the dog.

Both have a different meaning. The message differs.

Our careful choice of words changes the interpreted meaning of a piece of writing. To have proper meaning is to think of how the sentence and words will be interpreted. This knowledge of how a writing will be interpreted involves knowing about the audience, who will be reading the writing. (See more about audience and purpose in our Writing Center’s document “Things to Consider Before Writing.”)

This is what philosophers do when they write. They painstakingly choose every word, and every word lends a specific meaning to their writing. Poets also painstakingly craft their sentences and words for a more artistic and poetic effect. Every word and movement in their writing means something. Most times it is very subtle, and sometimes only discernible to those with enough training.

Let us recap before this ends in me writing a book. Writing is a way for someone to publicly express thoughts and ideas. We translate those ideas into interpretable sets of symbols, since raw thoughts are mine and mine alone. These symbols encompass the semantics and syntax of a language through an ordering of words. Good writing has meaning, communicates, and has a message. The meaning and message are contextual. The context differs by culture and by the surrounding words.

Go out and write. Get those ideas flowing through the ordering of words. While having nice ideas is good for the one thinking them, by communicating them through writing, we can share those ideas with many others. Those ideas can be shared across space and time, and across human history.

Pride and Prejudice. To Kill a Mockingbird. The Outsiders. Lord of the Flies. The Great Gatsby. Great Expectations. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The Odyssey. Romeo and Juliet. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

The list goes on.

These are all timeless classic pieces of literature. Objectively, these classics are merely the ordering of words. Yet, how do they communicate and mean so much? That is a mysterious phenomenon of human life and experience. Objective and rule-based series of words come to mean so much more. Ideas inhabit them, and these ideas arise only through the context of each word. Together, those words are transformed and communicate an idea that stimulates, informs, enlightens, and entertains.

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