Noam was Wrong

I was on the El a few weeks ago and I was doing what tons of people on the El do, read what other people are reading. This particular person was studying for a psychology test and I found the study sheet she was reading fascinating because it wasn't an intro to Psych class, or maybe it was, but it seemed to be a Psych Communication class based on how people communicate and how the language translates differently for different people.

One of the items on the page was a theory by Noam Chomsky that a sentence in English could be gramatically correct; however, not make logical sense. I agree with that statement if, and only if, context meant nothing and we were taking language and communication not as a sequence of thoughts but as separate chunks.

If I came up to you and said "The error with the SQL delete statement has to do with a foreign key constraint in T_UDP" unless you were a developer you would have no idea what I was talking about and may think I was speaking gibberish.

My dad is a master at using his extensive knowledge of vocablary to obfuscate a meaningless sentence into something meaningful simply because the listener has no idea what he is saying and refuses to admit it.

I believe that this combination of opposite functions of the English language leads to the point where every gramatically correct sentence, given enough context will make sense. The example in the packet was something like "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." The first thought I had, and this is the one that has refused to leave me, is that the sentence makes perfect sense when contained within some context. Everything can be a metaphor, you just need the right base.

the El, or 'L' if you want to ANGER my wife,
is a place where everyone is an isolationist extrovert
crew cut leathery hispanic
blasting his white noise through earbuds
sitting next to
damenite yuppie starbucks fiend
blasting her white noise through earbuds
sitting across from
seventeen year old OG with a teardrop tatoo
concentrating deeply on looking confident
without making
his girlfriend/baby/darling
realize he told his buddy she's his bitch/ho/booty call
and figure out that OG doesn't mean Original Gangsta
but Ordinary Gentleman

the cta is a pile of manure
off of which mushrooms of thought proliferate
and the bacteria grows
with each stand clear of the closing doors
i recieve an invitation
'Messrs Clark and Lake request your presence
at a gala event attended by doctors, lawyers,
and those praying for a green card'
these thoughts must be put to bed
until they return to fertile soil
and my
colorless green ideas sleep furiously
while i attempt to work