Hi. I'm Frank Lee MeiDere.
Seriously? You expect me to come when called? (Image from aka Kath, Flikr)
Suppose I have a cat in the next room and I say, “Come here!” What do I expect it to do?
Okay, it’s a cat, so I don’t expect it to do anything.
So let’s say I have a dog in the next room and I say, “Come here!”
Normally, I would be expecting it to come right to where I’m standing.
In other words, “here” is exactly where I am.
But now suppose there’s a person in the next room, and I say, “Come here!” In this case, I would probably consider that he had obeyed the request if he simply came to the door and said, “What?”
In this case, “here” is simply within my field of vision.
I bring this up because while I was staying with Flo this week, my daughter called. Flo always uses the speaker phone, which I seem incapable of dealing with, so outside of calling out a quck “Hello!” I really didn’t say much. It turns out that my daughter, who lives in Texas, was arranging to drop in on Flo at some point in the next few days. When the call was over I asked, “So when is she coming?” Flo said, “Oh, she’s already here.”
Well, obviously, she wasn’t “here” in the sense of being either right where we were, nor was she “here” in the sense of being anywhere within our field of vision. In reality, she was with her mother in Dunnville, about 80 miles away.
So when, exactly, does “here” become “there”?
I’ve been puzzling over this and haven’t been able to come to a definite conclusion on the matter, but it seems related to our personal space as it pertains to our intention at that particular moment. For instance, if I ask someone to “throw that book over here,” I mean that I want them to throw it directly to me. But if I ask someone to “put the vase here,” then I expect them to put it where my hand is tapping the table beside me.
Baba Ram Dass dealt with “here” in an even more direct fashion. In his book, Remember, Be Here Now, the “here” to which he was referring was not only within our bodies and minds, but within a particular unit of time as well. It was entreating us to be within the very centre of ourselves at that particular moment.
And just as “here” can sometimes be miles away, “there” can sometimes be intimately close. If the doctor asks, “Where does it hurt,” we may point to a part of our own body and say, “Right there.”
Of course, we may equally say, “Right here.”
It all depends. But on what, I’m not sure. Are we identifying less with the pain when we say “there”? Or is it just a vocabulary tick?
I have no idea.
As I said, I’ve come to no conclusion on this, but I have found it to be an interesting thing to think about.
Which probably tells you how interesting the rest of my life has been lately.
____________________________________
I want to thank all of you who dropped in on Tuesday, and the following days, to read Imogen’s, post on the silent film star, Mary Louise Brooks — a woman who truly didn’t give a damn. I felt bad about Imogen wasting such a good article on a blog with such a low readership, but you all came through like troopers.
In fact, very much like troopers — you left muddy footprints all over the place and ate all my salmon squares.
Still, it was a great turnout. Here’s a screen shot of the statistics over the past few weeks.
That’s what I call a real spike.
And it’s all because you came here, rather than there.
So thanks for being here.
• Before Morning Breaks
• In Jaynes World
• Knucklehead
• Laura's Unlikely Explanations
• Mental Poo
• Mitch-communication
• Murrmurrs
• My Mind Wandered: And Never Came Back
• Nonamedufus
• The Good, The Bad, The Worse
• The Skeptical Theurgist
• Too Many Mornings
• We Work for Cheese
• When I Reach
• Ziva's Inferno
• Hyperbole and a Half
• The Comics Curmudgeon
• XKCD
• Avril Lavigne's Official Blog
Okay, I’m a little confused. Is Flo your cat? Is Flo your daughter’s cat? Is Flo your daughter? Are you “there” in Texas?
Ah. Flo is my mother. I stay at her apartment in Toronto during the work week rather than making the long trek back and forth to my home in St. Catharines. As for whether I’m here or there — most of the time I have little idea.
Living in Mexico, I have to grapple with Spanish every day. Spanish uses the word “aqui” for here. Except when it uses “aca,” which means the same thing. For there, it uses “alli,” and also “alla,” which means a more distant there than “alli.”
And you think you have Schrodingerian problems…
Actually, I kind of like the “alli” and “alla” distinction. It acknowledges the gradations involved in the here/there scale. Not that I want to have to learn another language to deal with it, though.
Of course, the dentist could say to the patient, “Now, please tell me as exactly as you can, within one or two millimeters, just where the pain occurs within the tooth that I am going to drill until I am able to put in a filling after ending the pain by giving you a shot of ethodermal fluid rendering your jaw free from pain until the middle of the afternoon.
Now proceed to describe the exact location of the pain or an approximation and I will start the procedure.” It just saves us a lot of pain to assume that he knows that the pain is located in a tooth and if your pointing finger (or tongue) can approximate the location that, as we used to say, “:That’s close enough for highway work!” But, enough of being a smart ass, I find the ambiguities of our language as interesting as you do,
When I was a teen I got an impacted wisdom tooth. The dentist was nervous about the procedure because he was afraid it would shatter while being pulled. When he finished he held up the intact tooth and said, “That went much better than I thought.” Then he looked in my mouth again and said, “Oh, no wonder. I pulled the wrong tooth.”
He was just kidding. I liked him.
I know. That’s neither here nor there, but your comment reminded me of it somehow.
You must be doing something wrong, my cat always comes to me when I say “Come here!”
Great article, Frank!
There are cats, and then there are cats. Our two cats died a couple of years ago, but one of them often crossed the boundaries between cat and dog behaviour. This was especially apparent with his particular take on the game of fetch. We’d roll up a piece of paper for him and throw it. He’d chase after it, then bat it around in the most remarkable display of agility and coordination. After a few minutes, he’d then bring it back and drop in in your lap so you could throw it again. This would go on for about ten throws, after which he’d decide that it was dead. He’d then come back and sit in front of you waiting for you to make a new ball of paper and throw it.
He tried teaching our other cat, Random, how to do it, but Random never quite caught on. He’d bring the ball back the first time, but the next time he’d stop and drop it a few feet away from you. Then the time after that, a few feet further away.
Thinking about it now, I guess he had some conceptual problems with “here” and “there.” (Huh. And I didn’t think this response was going to relate to the post at all.)
One of my cats does that with hair bands. I keep my hair bands in a drawer and he’ll hear me opening that particlar drawer from any room in apartment, and he’ll come running. I’ll throw the hair band, he’ll play with it, then bring it back for me to throw again. He’ll also stand only on his back legs for a treat.
And listening to myself, I suddenly know exactly why Mike finds cat owners so annoying….
That said, I really think you need to take in a new cat, or two. They do wonders for your spirit. :)
Insightful as always.
Swedish makes it more complicated of course.
We have här and där for “being” here and there, and then hitt and ditt for “moving to” here or there.
As with the Spanish “alli” and “alla” mentioned by skepth (above), I like this. I’ve always liked distinctions in language.
When I was a teen (second response here involving my teenage years), I was very precise when talking about records. The actual vinyl disc was the “record.” The cardboard holder was the “cover.” The paper insert (which was present in some cases, and not in others) was the “sleeve.” And the entire thing together was the “album.”
I also used to have a problem with fast food places. I’d give my order at the counter, and the person would ask, “Is that for here, or to go?” Well, I certainly didn’t want to eat it at the counter, but neither did I want to take it away. I wanted to “go” to a table. So in general my first response would be, “To go.” But then I’d catch myself and say, “To a table. I want it to go. To a table.”
I learned to anticipate the question and prepare the proper response before being asked. Eventually it became second nature, so I seldom think about it any more. Also, I think they started asking, “Is that to go or to stay?” And that one’s less confusing. At least to me.
Right here? Why then can we not be “left” here? Why can’t we be here here…or over there here? “Here we go. merrily, merilly, merrily down the stream,,,” or my favorite, “Here there be dragons!” I am also partial to “herein” as in “Comen zie herein, schattze!” My best.