I’d like to report on a weekend after-dinner conversation that reminded me how critical the structure of language actually is. Too often I write off those late school nights I spent with Foucault and Saussure as irrelevant to my day-to-day work as a marketing content developer - but no more!

This renewed passion for structuralism even promises to put myself in a more natural dialogue with my fellow computer scientists. Needless to say, I’m a sucker for intersections and interrelations, and I hope the paraphrased pseudo-transcript below serves to open up a new nexus or two for its readers! Note: names have been changed to protect those involved in the inevitable event that I’m misquoting them!

Christy: Did you hear that scientists proved the human brain is programmed to process language according to structural patterns (“cat” is either the sound made when someone says the word or when someone signs the word) and semantics (“cat” is a furry creature that says meow)?

Mike: They also located the specific areas of the brain where those functions occur, too. So fascinating! Before, it was believed that the capability to recognize structural patterns was developed over time but not innate to the human brain.

Mandy: So, you’re saying that structural patterns are necessary to a human’s experience of verbalized or sign language?

Christy & Mike: Yes!

Mandy: Wow. I wonder if I could use this to support an idea I had about punctuation and standardized usage rules affecting an individual’s experience of language – reading or hearing it.

Christy: I’ve always thought that punctuation and usage rules DETERMINE how one reads language – aloud or in one’s head from a page – so, I think that could work. What do you mean about “experience” though?

Mandy: Well, even though someone may not realize a comma is in the wrong place or that the word “your” is used incorrectly for the conjunction of “you” and “are” (which should be “you’re), I suspect – or would like to believe – that their brain recognizes the error to some degree and experiences the error on a level somewhere between subconscious and conscious. Like with html code, if the bracket is missing before “b>”, the output will not be the intended bolded text.

And, if this is true, then I also suspect that a company or product that defines itself with language rife with errors contributes to individuals’ experiences of that company or product – experiences that ultimately shape conscious belief or actions – being impacted by those errors or conflicted in some way at the very least.

Mike: I think it’s bigger than that, actually. I think usage and punctuation errors impact the explicit meaning, even if it’s not as blatant as the Oracle at Delphi’s story when the Oracle told its questioner, “You will go you will return not in the battle you will perish.” If you put the comma before “not,” the individual will live. If you put the comma after “not,” the individual will die in battle.

Mandy: Hmm. So even if the stakes aren’t as high as death, meaning is sacrificed when punctuation and standardized usage rules are ignored. Guess we’ve just provided job security for proofreaders everywhere.

Jake: Well, let’s just keep this between us until I sell all my Derrida books on eBay. Cool?