How to say

For us, the language is primarily words.

Yes, of course, everyone knows that much can depend on intonation. But rather, at the level of jokes. Well, there, about the vowel, for example: why did you call Petrov a fool? Say immediately that he is not a fool, and apologize. Well, the resourceful Vovochka says: Petroov is not a fool? !!! Evini-Eta !!! But it is clear that in fact , say that Petrov is not a fool suggest that it is necessary to say not with questioning inonation, but with the affirmative. And with an apology, too, everything is clear.

Meanwhile, sometimes there really are misunderstandings due to intonation. Here is somehow on one of the television shows, where players answer questions, competing in erudition, such a case occurred. In the final, they were invited to continue the statement of Bernard show: "There are 50 ways to say and there are no 500 ways to say, but only one way." The players thought out.

I, sitting at the TV, also wondered that, however, I did not surprise me-I’m not erudite. But still: what could be opposed to agreement or refusal? Neither yes nor no? But this is absurd - who would say that there is only one way to say neither yes nor no? Rather, on the contrary, there are an endless amount of such methods. Then what? Silence? But in such a statement there is also not very much meaning, and there is no point inherent in Bernard at all.

But the time has expired, the hypotheses of the players coincided with mine and turned out to be wrong, which, however, did not affect the outcome of the game, and the correct answer was announced: "... but only one way to write it." The players shook their hands in bewilderment. It also seemed to me that there was something incorrect in the task. Indeed, in the statement of the show, oral speech is opposed to its endless number of phonetic, intonational and other options and written speech with more or less unified spelling. But then the logical emphasis, or rather, the stress, which the linguists call contrast, should say in words and write: there are many ways to say yes or no and only one way to write it. The presenter read the beginning of the phrase without taking into account the subsequent contrast, according to the general rule for the Russian language, putting automatic stress on the last word in each fragment: there are 50 ways to say and 500 ways to say no. Therefore, the players had to think that it could be opposed to agreement and refusal.

Of course, if the host had to emphasize the right thing , everyone would immediately guess what was being discussed, but, without doing this, he distorted the meaning. The organizers of the game had one way out: it was necessary to show the beginning of the phrase in writing. After all, it was possible to write it only in one way, and it was different, and based on this, the players would have to guess the continuation. It is remarkable that this is a misunderstanding with Bernard’s statement about the difference in oral and written speech arose exactly due to the fault of this very difference!

In my favorite book by Mikhail Bezrodny, “The End of Quote” has a wonderful episode: “In the lobby of the hotel, a table for tennis was sometimes installed, passing by which and hearing in a pause between the series of the stupid rod“ eight -two ”, it was already possible by the way these words were pronounced -with a slightly deliberate impassiveness and with an emphasis on“ eight ”, it is easy to understand that they belonged to them It was the winner, and not his opponent or one of the spectators, and that this was preceded by the “Seven-Two” account, and not “eight-one”.

Arbitrary setting of logical stress can pretty much distort the meaning. This is especially noticeable in acting of poems. Since childhood, I remember such a case. One artist performed the poems of Blok. And now the thing came to “What did you look in the embarrassment” - this, who does not remember, is about his wife, who was gone to another, but then returned. Lines: “I not only have no right, / I can’t blame you / for your painful, for the evil one, / many women a judgment” - the actor has lambered with a big feeling, even with a tear, and with such an emphasis: “I not only have the right, / I can’t blame you.” No comments.

However, a similar situation is in written speech - with punctuation. Here, too, not only to execute cannot be pardoned. I recall one of my favorite story.

Somehow in the State Duma there was a discussion on the issue of selling land in private property. The communists, whose position on this issue is obvious, in the morning a huge, pre -prepared poster was deployed right in the meeting room. The text was like this: selling land, it means to sell the homeland. It is easy to imagine how the deputies at night, perhaps, led by actress Elena Drapeko, carefully loomed and painted on the beams. That's just there was no letter there, which would prompted that punctuation marks are placed slightly incorrectly. The authors had in mind that the sale of land is identical to selling the homeland. The subject and predicate here are expressed by an indefinite form of the verb, and between them the word means. In this case, it is necessary to put a dash before this. Instead, the authors were allocated instead of commas, as if it were an introductory word, as in such phrases: it means ... And you, therefore, work here. But then you need to read the poster not at all with the intonation as it was planned, but as if thinking: selling land, means. Selling your homeland. Well, it seems like to be or not to be - that’s the question.

This scene and poster were then shown many times on TV. True, no one seems to have noticed anything.