from Oregon Statesman-Journal.com Editorial Blog
dateline 26 January 2007

Once again I’ve felt the frustration of being able to speak only about 1.2 languages (I know enough Spanish to have simple conversations with patient people.) A deaf writer came in to the office to have her photo taken for a guest opinion that will run this weekend. She’s fluent in American Sign Language; I once learned a few signs, but I’d hesitate to use them.

I needed to ask her about one word in her piece that was unclear to me: “audist” attitudes toward children. It wasn’t in my dictionary, I wrote on a pad; did she have other suggestions?

A flurry of signs; she wrote down “audism.” No help. “Look at google,” she wrote. “Obession?”

It was clear there was a perfect sign for the word: a flat hand slapping a fist. She just wasn’t sure of the spelling in spoken English because she had never heard the word. “Opession?” she wrote. “Too much control!”

Ah! Oppression!

Just a momentary encounter between two people who might have had a lot more to say to each other, if only we could speak the other’s language more easily…

posted by Barbara Curtin

Blogger: Barbara Curtin is Editor of Opinion Page.
I’m looking forward to see the guest opinions (it’s all about OSD – Mulholland – protests)