A Theory About Language

I learned Taiwanese by ear, not with any sort of discipline or rigor, and my pitch has faltered over the years. As a result, in a conversation, I may have trouble discerning the word for "three" from the word from "clothing" from the word for "what." Likewise, I remember asking my mom after 25+ years why my cousin Annie, nickname Ann-Chang (term of endearment), has a nickname referencing the word "sausage" which had puzzled me my whole life.

When I think about the way that I creatively interpret in English what I can't quite fully hear other people saying, I have to wonder if the phonetics and sound of language has something to do with this inability to put together coherent sentences, cobbling together instead the most ridiculous of meanings.

This would then possibly account for my hearing problem, which would then become a problem of listening, vs. hearing.

After reading James Frey's book, it occurred to me that I might have had some severe hearing loss at some point in my life, perhaps early on, even. Though quite possible, given a sketchy medical background, early headphone use, and a plethora of loud concerts at a developing age (James, Moz, J&MC, Charlatans UK, Dylan, Cracker, and others), maybe the way my brain is wired to intake language has affected my "hearing."