Recently Frank Report posted a help wanted ad for Rainbow Cultural Garden nannies. One of the requirements for a nanny is that she must be able to speak her native language “fluidly.”
One of our readers wrote a simple one line comment:
“Stupid announcement from Rainbow that kids can learn to speak ‘fluidly’ instead of fluently!!”
This is an interesting choice of words. Whether it was accidental, or deliberate, remains to be seen.
Talking is a sequence of sounds, syllables, words, phrases, and sentences together.
“Fluency” is getting words out smoothly. It is an ability to utter meaningful sounds, syllables, words, phrases. Fluency is continuous meaningful speech.
But is “fluency” the same as “fluidity”. Some might say it is merely semantics.
Fluent
– easy and graceful in shape
– expressing yourself readily, clearly, effectivelyfluid
– characteristic of a fluid; capable of flowing and easily changing shape
– subject to change; variable
– affording change (especially in social status)
– in cash or easily convertible to cash
You can be fluent in a language, but can you be fluid in it? Fluency includes being able to express with ease.
Fluidity then could be how smoothly you speak.
Fluency is your competency with the language.
Fluidity might be how smoothly you deliver it – even if everything you say is word salad that means nothing.
One thing for sure, when you hear someone talking to you, your understanding them has nothing to do with fluidity, only fluency/competency.
Fluency
Abe Lincoln was a man who Keith Raniere once remarked would be one who no one would consider objecting to were his initials to appear branded on a woman’s pubic area – the marking of her as a slave despite the fact that he perhaps inadvertently was the man credited with freeing the American slaves. Whether his initials should appear on women’s pubic region in lieu of say some more fluid speaker is open to debate. But he is widely regarded as a fluent speaker.
Here is an example:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
Fluidity
He speaks very fluidly.
On the other hand, the man who chose to have his own initials branded on women – to mark them as his slaves – Keith ‘The Vanguard” Raniere – is a man who is decidedly fluid in speech. His words shape shift with great skill as he tosses them about and then adds dressing to his word salad.
Here is an example of his fluidity:
Consciousness consists of superpositions of possibilities of a flowering of the mythic. We exist as pulses. You and I, seekers of integration. But we can no longer afford to live with disintegrations. Where there is yearning, guidance cannot thrive. You must take a stand against pain. It is a sign of things to come. Reality has always been beaming with those whose essences are opened by faith. Humankind has nothing to lose. For a kinder, more sustainable, ethical world. With unique tools that facilitate internally and externally to realize the potential. Our conversations with others led to an ennobling of hyper consciousness to create a more noble civilization. But peace requires exploration. To go along the journey is to become one with it. The universe is beaming with electromagnetic forces.
