Yikes, I seem to be posting a lot on this board. If I'm being annoying, tell me to stop!
I just keep getting ideas to talk about, and everyone here tends to have good replies.
Anyway, every so often, on this or that subject, someone mentions how they don't like labels. Particularly artists of any stripe--"I don't think my art can be labeled", "I don't think I fit in this category". They don't like people using words for what they do. There seems to generally speaking be antipathy about someone else daring to describe something of theirs.
And I CAN see why that happens. When you have a word for something, you stop thinking about it, and just apply the word, along with your own pre-defined notions and thoughts about it, to the next thing it fits, and boom! The artist or person or whoever it is applied to is seemingly stuck in a box--which is suicide for any artist.
But on the flip side...how do you talk about something if you do not have a word for it? Are you supposed to tiptoe around things, and get confused when you are in a discussion about it because people aren't agreeing on the jargon? Should artists of any stripe expect other artists and fans to behave in this way? Even though it's the nature of language to exchange ideas, which means you need to have words to stand for those ideas?
As someone who writes, I like words for things. I especially like new words for things that need a word for them, or need a better way to say them. My favorite example is "frex". A lot of my friends on Livejournal have started to pick this one up, because it's better and easier to type in a blog entry then "For example" and "IE" (which are the two I used before then). And of course when I write about some fantasy or alien thing, I need a new word because there isn't one. It becomes second nature for anyone working with SFF to creature new words. So on a personal level, I don't understand completely, or perhaps I just don't agree with, the antipathy towards labels.
Of course, I also understand (as someone into SFF) the malleability (sp?) of words. Language changes. And even though the written language is usually a step behind spoken language, it changes too. "Live with it!" So perhaps my outlook is different because I feel as if I have a possible influence on the language just by sitting here typing things that other people will read and perhaps, if they like how I write something, pick up. Someone else might see words as cold, rigid, something they can't change, and with that outlook I could see labels as being much more problematic for them, because they'd feel powerless in changing them.
So I suppose I see both sides, but ultimately feel that labels are needed if anyone else is able to discuss something and exchange ideas as people are wont to do. Tiptoing around it and refusing to pin down the right jargon for something just complicates understanding between people.
Anyway...my thoughts on labels. What are your thoughts?
