Las diferentes expresiones de Jean Jaures, 1910
I am referring to that other spelling and punctuation marks that have nothing to do with written language.
The following reflection came to me while reading a mystery novel, “The Silent Patient” by Alex Michaelides.
I must say that I devoured it, something that does not happen to me often.
It is a psychological novel about a psychotherapist, an expert in non-verbal language, and his relationship with a patient, an artist, who refuses to speak after committing a crime.
The book made me reflect on that other silent language that we all use intuitively and/or consciously.
In my life, work and now retirement experience, as much as I have tried to put on what they call “poker face,” every cell of my being gives me away. On the other hand, those other silent punctuation marks within our reach, well used, can captivate an interlocutor or an audience.
For better or worse, some examples of this peculiar spelling language could be:
– Nodding: “I hear you, I agree”, attitude of openness.
– Shrugging: grave accent in indifference.
– Clenched jaw: acute accent in impatience.
– Deep inhalation without eye contact: I don’t believe anything you say!
– Crossing arms: “Don’t mess with me”, defensive attitude.
– Yawning: perhaps what I produce while you read these lines.
In short, it is a whole art of mastering unwritten spelling, and as my daughter would say, sometimes we both don’t need the words because subtitles come out.
Leonor Henríquez (Caracas, Venezuela) Civil Engineer by training (UCAB 1985), writer and apprentice poet by vocation. From her time in engineering emerged her Office Stories (1997), another way of seeing the corporate world. Her latest publications include reflections on grief, Hopecrumbs (2020) (www.hopecrumbs.com) and “The Adventures of Chispita” (2021) (www.chispita.ca) an allegory of life inside Mom’s belly.
Today she shares her “impulsive meditations” from Calgary, Canada, where she lives.
leonorcanada@gmail.com