Thursday, June 17, 2010

Washroom? You mean "restroom?"

Have you ever been to an English speaking country that uses slightly different words here and there and the people from that country feel the need to "correct" your word usage? For example I asked, "Can you tell me where the washroom is?" The response was, "You mean 'restroom?' Yes, it's right over there." I said, "I'm from Canada, we say 'washroom.' "Well, you're not going to 'wash' in there are you?" "Well, I'm not going to 'rest' in there either." 

It seems a fairly common human trait to think our perspective is the right perspective, and therefore measure other perspectives against our own. When we do so we tend to not notice the ways in which our perspective is also askew. If we are correct we are alone in our correctness. If we are able, even falteringly, to move away from needing to be correct, and move toward seeing our perspective as one among many common to our humanity gains us a brotherhood of mutual difference. In that move we gain the whole world.

Maybe too much to get from a washroom? Such are my thoughts. 

Posted via email from The Broken Wing

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