“Don't look at me in that tone of voice”

I spoke in my last blog of the beauty of language, of the way it embodies a culture and allows it an expression that makes it come to life. As a linguist I had always (perhaps slightly arrogantly) assumed that words were the most important part of human interaction. You can imagine my surprise, therefore, when I discovered that the words we use account for no more than 7% of the meaning in conversation.

I do not feel that this revelation detracts from the beauty of language. That the words we use are little more than a thin coat of paint on a much bigger object does not alter the fact that it is the quality of the artwork that we tend to notice first and admire the most. In the same way that, when we look at an individual we notice the face, the eyes, the physique and any distinguishing features (the uglier the better, for there is nothing more human than criticism) and think little of the heart that works tirelessly within, the intestines slowly grumbling over that slightly off tuna sandwich, the liver quietly plotting its revenge for making it work overtime on the subsequent food poisoning, or the eternally evil appendix waiting to unleash its cruelty at any moment, so it is with words. They are the sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly, and more often than not unfathomable exterior of human communication that tends to hold our attention.

Yet to ignore the other 93% that humbly works away in the background whilst the cocky words pirouette in the limelight would be arrogant and injust and so, in my usual, slightly bumbling and overly verbiose way, please welcome to the stage the unsung heroes of social interaction!

First to step into the fore is tone and intonation. This makes up 38% of our communication, and, spending its life in the chorus of conversation, it does not go entirely unnoticed. A well timed dance move is hailed with a "Don't take that tone with me!" from an angry mother whose nine year old son has committed the heinous crime of asking what he has done and why this warranted a sharp blow to the rear of his thigh; a fluttering of the eyelashes marks the difference between a 'friend' and a 'friend' as a tribunal of teenage girls interrogate their contemporary on her relationship with a boy she was caught (heaven forfend!) smiling at in Chemistry.

In some languages, tone plays a far greater role than in our own. In Mandarin Chinese the tone used to pronounce the humble "ma" can determine whether you are talking about your mother or a horse (not a mistake you want to make unless you happen to be an aristocrat). In Russian, changing where one places the stress in the word "piisat' can make the difference between saying one reads a book and implying that one is passing a literary kidney stone.

In English our use is more crude, stressing the word to which we attach most importance, but can offer a remarkable flexibility of meaning. The simple question "Are you going?" can be interpreted in a myriad of ways; "Are you going?" inquiring only as to whether you will go, "Are you going?" expressing a certain amount of doubt or incredulity as to whether you actually will and "Are you going?" suggesting that we'd really rather you didn't if it's all the same with you. Sometimes the tone you use could make the difference between life and death. Where "Don't kill me!" implies you'd simply rather not die (a pretty reasonable request in most situations), "Don't kill me!" suggests another action might be preferable (perhaps just a light maiming?) and "Don't kill me!" suggests you have someone else in mind as the object of your assailant's aggression. Possibly the Mother who smacked you at the age of nine.

Yet the largest portion of human communication has yet to be named and so we welcome the timid, humble yet ever present body language. Body language accounts for 55% of conveyed meaning, yet it is the form of communication that we perhaps notice the least. It busies itself backstage, preferring to set the scene for its more showy counterparts than to step into the spotlight itself, yet when it does so it tends to offer a far deeper, more meaningful performance than its shallow rivals.

Researching for this blog, I discovered that many forms of body language were somewhat obvious. If you haven't worked out that a clenched fist implies aggression, anger or irritation then I can't help but feel that that fist was destined to both teach you a lesson and to remove you from the human gene pool in order to prevent such obliviousness from spreading, and if a machine in 'i, Robot' learnt that a wink implied a shared moment or secret then you certainly should have worked it out by now as well. Yet we use many forms of body language completely without knowing we're doing so; disbelief can be unconsciously expressed by an averted gaze, touching the ear or scratching a face, where deceit can be conveyed by both the absence or excess of blinking. Many forms can give different messages depending on the context. Folded arms can express hostility, opposition or deep thought depending on the situation.

Since nonverbal communication plays such a fundamental, underlying role in our social interaction, it is unsurprising that much of our most intimate conversation now takes place online. When only 7% of meaning is expressed through the actual words we use, face-to-face encounters force us both to withstand the full onslaught of another's verbal and nonverbal communication and to harness this theatrical trio in an attempt to give as convincing a performance as possible; a feat that any thespian will tell you is not easy when dealing with such drama-queens. Far easier, therefore, to communicate openly and frankly via a medium that allows us to use the stage-hogging words to their maximum effect; after all, this is probably the element over which we have the most control.

Whether or not I am in favour of this I cannot say; if it easier to speak the harsh truth online, it must also be easier to tell the most carefully thought out lie. Yet, since the majority of our social interaction continues to take place in person, it is reassuring to know that our tone and body language will always be there to rein in their unruly, stage-struck companion

"Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing."

For those of you who don't know me I am a linguist. A linguist who has changed his degree programme so many times that even I'm unsure of what I study these days and have taken to wandering into random classrooms hoping I'll be able to understand something. This doesn't always end well, especially since I often accidentally end up in physics lectures; a subject which frankly seems more foreign than Swahili to my tiny brain. But the reason I have changed so many times is not entirely down to indecisiveness, nor is it down to a masochistic desire to torture myself grammatically. It is largely due to a love of the beauty of languages, and this can be best demonstrated by those words that are so unique to a particular culture that they are difficult to translate into other tongues.

English, as the most widely spoken language worldwide, is often imported into other cultures' vocabularies; a fact lamented by many and France even have a government body that tries (and fails) to counteract the trend. Some imports are more amusing than others. The Czechs have borrowed the word 'party'; a fact that conjures up amusing images of groups prior to its introduction sitting around, twiddling their thumbs and looking anxiously at their watches, all the while thinking, "there's got to be something more exciting we could be doing with a Friday evening".

And English, as a language influenced by hundreds of languages throughout its history, has similarly adopted many words from foreign cultures. The French term "l'esprit d'escalier" describes the feeling one gets after a conversation when thinking of all the things one should have said; a moment infamously exemplified by poor Gordon Brown, recorded whilst kicking himself for not having thought of the insult "bigoted woman" whilst still on stage. We also use the German word "Schadenfreude" to talk about the pleasure experienced when seeing another's misfortune. How the British didn't come up with a word of their own is anyone's guess when the nation's favorite past-time seems to be slowing down to stare sadistically at road traffic accidents.

But many foreign words are very difficult to translate into English, and it is these that say so much about the culture in which they originate. Only the French could take being unemployed and make it into the active verb "chomer", thereby making it a noble choice as opposed to state of misfortune (no wonder they have so much time to burn cars). In a similar vein, surely every Frenchman is a "flaneur" when this describes a "deliberately aimless pedestrian, unencumbered by any obligation or sense of urgency, who, being French and therefore frugal, wastes nothing, including his time which he spends with the leisurely discrimination of a gourmet, savoring the multiple flavors of his city"? The Scottish culture is also only truly reflected in its idiosyncrasies; I can only assume that the Gaelic term "Sgriob", describing a pleasant itch in the upper lip just before a sip of whiskey, led to the creation of the verb "to tartle" meaning to hesitate during an introduction because you suddenly forget the name of the person you are introducing. The latter is far more likely to take place in an inebriated state and when the individual being introduced could be one of many 'Mac's.

I can go on for hours on this one. The Jews have the word "shlimazl" to describe someone who is chronically unlucky; somewhat important I should imagine for a race that has endured centuries of persecution. "Mafan" is probably used on an almost daily basis in the Communist State of China, being used to complain of trouble relating to government beaurocracy. And only a nation like Finland that spends the majority of its year laden with snow would need to describe a snowless patch of ground as a "pavli". It wouldn't surprise me if they did a ceremonial dance around it.

There are many words I think that we should import. We all know someone who tells jokes that are so badly told and unfunny that it is impossible not to laugh; if only we used the Indonesian term "jayus" to describe such appalling quips. You only have to watch X factor to feel the emotion of "pena ajena" used by the Mexicans to describe the embarrassment felt when witnessing someone else's humiliation, and many a woman could find use for the Filipino word "gheegle" meaning to find something so cute one immediately wants to squeeze it.

Many words, however, do seem somewhat pointless. I don't know anyone who pretend-bites, but if you do why not recommend the Japanese word "Amagami" as a handy way of expressing this action? Some just seem far too specific; the fact that a "kaelling" in Danish describes a woman who stands on her doorstep hurling obscenities at her children suggests that this is something of a problematic trend in Denmark which requires urgent attention before the next generation grows up scarred, emotionally deprived and fond of rap music. And I appreciate sitting in an igloo for hours on end can't be the most exciting way to pass time, but do the Inuits really need the verb "iktsuarpok" to describe going out to see if anyone's coming? Is it worth it for a start with all the snow, polar bears and vindictive seals who've witnessed family members clubbed to death and are hoping to catch them unawares?

It's been a brief, speedy and somewhat shallow delve into the wonderful world of words, but I hope you found it as amusing as I do. If I didn't have that to get me through hours of painful grammar I think I would have a constant feeling of "l'appel du vide"; a desire to jump from a very high place.

Trust the French to come up with that one.

"It's hard for me to get used to these changing times. I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty."

Well! I leave the blog for a month and the whole world seems to have gone mad. There's uprisings throughout the Middle East, a tsunami in Japan and Blue are to represent Britain in the Eurovision song contest. God help us.

What may surprise you then is that I have not chosen any of these important events as the topic of this evening's blog. All are too serious, too profound, too weighty matters for me to discuss. Yes, I do mean Blue. The folly of their candidature is beyond mockery; someone needs to find the people who made that decision and lock them safely away from society in a padded room. They should be forced to endure several weeks of 'All Rise' on loop and then look us in the eye and tell us that they made the right choice.

Instead I have decided to have a muse and a chuckle on the topic of 'Lent'.

Lent is an odd period of the year. It is a religious festival that tends to prove what little willpower the average human possesses. It's commencement is somewhat akin to that of a New Year. For some strange reason it manages to make us feel guiltier than any other time of the year simply by the fact that it traditionally requires something to be given up. In fact, the only way in which it truly differs from this other moment of attempted self-denial is that a New Year usually begins with a huge party and a brief instant of sublime hedonism. Lent will never offer the joy of a drunken younger brother aiming to pour water into his mouth but in fact pouring it all over himself, all the while muttering "I hate my life". Nor will it bring the delight that is 'Auld Lang Syne'; a song whose very title suggests that Robert Burns himself was drunk at an 18th Century New Year's Eve party when he wrote it due to it's appalling spelling and incomprehensibility.

Lent instead brings with it a sense of misery. This isn't a self-denial that looks to improvement through the breaking of habits; it is a self-denial that serves as an atonement for sins committed in an attempt to make us feel better about ourselves. It was originally intended to shadow the sufferings of Jesus as he spent forty days wandering the wilderness with neither food nor water, although on this occasion, I have to admit, I wouldn't say Jesus is a particularly good role model. Not eating or drinking for forty days and nights is not a healthy way to lose those pounds you put on after Christmas, and you have to remember that Jesus came before the days of McDonalds, ready meals and Jamie Oliver telling us in that oh-so-grating cockney accent that we should be eating more healthily. His mother probably just gave him a good breakfast before sending him off to dice with the devil. And this is the son of God we're talking about here! Christ, if he can reanimate his own corpse after 3 days he can sure as hell pull off a David Blaine!

Lent has, however, for many lost its religious sentiment and retains from it only the conviction that by making our lives a little bit worse we are somehow better people. I concede that there are some habits that are best broken, and if a date such as Ash Wednesday is the impetus someone needs to do so then the best of luck to them. But the rest of the world seems to go mad, finding vice in even the most harmless of diversions. Terrible evils are repented of. The demon that is alcohol tops the list, followed swiftly by other such dastardly pleasures as sugar, sex and that vile modern demon; Facebook. I see you shudder from the pulpit my friends, and why should you not? Are these not all cardinal vices for which one must spend a thousand years in the fiery pits of hell being tortured by Lucifer himself to the eternal soundtrack of the 'Best of Blue' compilation?

Or are these things just simple pleasures, the simple pleasures that make the mundane that little bit more enjoyable? Giving them up doesn't make us in any way better people; we just end up trading the virtue of pleasure for the vice of self-righteousness. What's worse is that so few people manage to go the full forty days. Instead of admiring their achievement, they become more repentant than an axe murderer on death row, as if by enjoying a small square of Dairy Milk they were damning their immortal souls. Surely this isn't the best way to do things?

I appreciate Ash Wednesday has passed, but if you (like myself) missed it as it sailed you by, I suggest that instead of giving something up you take the opportunity to do something new. Sign up to something. Read a book in the thirty-six days you have left. Or instead of giving up alcohol, just decide to drink one less pint on a night out. For the love of all things good though, don't give up enjoying things. Life is for living it up, not giving it up.