The Paradigm Shift

Know it or not, you have a language paradigm. Ask nearly anyone on the street in America, likely globally, to define “noun” and “verb.” An immediate, almost robotic answer: “person, place, or thing,” and “action word” will follow. What nearly always follows is a questioning, “So what?” look.

Between the ages of 3-5, humans are language geniuses, often learning more than one language, but unquestionably the patterns of at least one. Why do we seem to lose touch with that instinctive genius? Regarding English, the word-focused Latinate school model, grammar, does not match how English-speakers think. Because English “works” by patterned word groups, theExact Word has captured something new under the sun in the patterns of English, not words.

You may have a moment or two in the learning where you’ll feel confused, or lost, or blank. The shift may unseat you for a moment and you might say something like: “Why didn’t you tell me this would happen?!!! Or, “The fuses blew;” “The lights went out;” “I fell off a cliff;” “Learning this is like blood-letting;” “You pulled the rug out from under me.” This kind of confusion, however, does not signal “something wrong.” Yet, you will be surprised at how quickly you pass through those moments. In fact, because of that frustration, your Ah Ha! moments occur.

To learn and practice every pattern of meaning in English, you will see a new process. You will see how “scrambled meaning,” ordering and re-ordering thought, presents English as an idea language. Guaranteed. You will see “scrambling” and reordering thought as a strategy. But a moment, sometimes short, sometimes longer, will occur when not seeing the “old” definition of language, nor the new one either, feels very uncomfortable. Yet thereby, somehow, new knowledge begins. Nor has it been otherwise, as two ancient texts tell us:

In Plato’s Dialogues, Socrates’ pupil, Theaetetus, complained, “But Socrates, I cannot shake this anxious feeling.” “My dear Theaetetus,” Socrates says, “you are bringing something to the birth in you.”

And the 5,000-year old Chinese text, the I Ching, says its texts touch the subconscious so a “… [necessary] … initial confusion triggers a sort of landslide of potential meaning. Being imaginatively open or versatile is the key to the interaction… [a]shen or awareness of spirit is excited....This is a living process.”

theExact Word will guide you through the shifting process to resolve any discomfort you might feel as you progress to the “Ah Ha” moments that always happen.
With theExact Word you will literally shift your paradigm as to how English really works. And it’s fun. You’ll see.