A note on language and background of a person.

(This conversation started in relation to people who call out to interrupt a presentation compared to people who raise their hands, and was a statement I made about raising your hand.)

I will likely have to paraphrase as I can't remember the exact wording....

"I got punished for raising my hand, I don't feel like going into presentations anymore." - J. Gray Rosenblum

"No, some people just don't know about raising their hands and nobody wanted to exclude/be mean to those people, the people probably forgot you raised your hand." - (Other person I was speaking to, left unnamed)

I later realized that regardless of the conversation I was trying to have, I didn't properly communicate the idea (I did actually get to correct this given situation though).

So, at least point I was very much thinking about a song called American English by Idlewild.

Link to song (for easy access):

(I don't really like music videos, I just am using this for easy reference to what I'm talking about).

Lyrics:

Songs when the truth are all dedicated to you

In this invisible world I choose to live in

And if you believe that now I understand

Why words mean so much to you, they’ll never be about you

Maybe you’re young without youth

Or maybe you’re old without knowing anything true

I think you’re young without youth

Then you contract the American dream, you never look up once

You’ve contracted American dreams,I require you to stop and look up

Sing a song about myself, keep singing the song about myself

Not some invisible world

Constantly searching to find something new

But what will you find when you think that nothing’s true?

Maybe it’s that nothing is new

So you let me hear songs that were written all about you

The good songs weren’t written for you, they’ll never be about you

Then you contract the American dream, you never look up once

You’ve contracted American dreams, you never look up once,

so don’t look up

Sing a song about myself, keep singing the song about myself

Not some invisible world

Sing a song about myself, keep singing a song about myself

Not some invisible world

And I won’t tell you what this means, ‘cause you’ll already know

And I won’t tell you what this means, ‘cause you already know

So sing a song about myself, keep singing the song about myself

Not some invisible world

And you came along and found the weak spot,

but you’ve always wanted

And let yourself be everything, that you’ve always wanted

It doesn’t have to be so decided, you’ve always wanted

And no need for explanations, that you’ve always wanted

You’ll find what you find when you find there’s nothing

And you’ll find what you find when you find there’s nothing

Words by Roddy Woomble. Music by Idlewild.

Published by Deceptive Music Ltd / EMI Music Publishing Ltd

So, in explanation of the conversation earlier I was very angry about this conversation, and later realized that (in my opinion) me and this other person were having different discussion because of multiple definitions of a given word.

The word I'm currently focusing on is "punishment".

The problem was likely this...

I'm using a definition for punishment that would be found in a psychology textbook, to phrase in general "An event that occurs after a behavior is displayed that reduces the change of the behavior presenting again."

I think this person met (now that I have a dictionary to find out):

(From Merriam Webster dictionary) either "suffering, pain, or loss that serves as retribution" or "a penalty inflicted on an offender through judicial procedure"

According to these definition my statement likely made no sense, as no one had an intent to be creating a penalty for raising a hand.

So, for the person to give me the definition they did made sense for their definition but at the time just made me angry as I felt that they didn't address what I said.

To use punishment to mean "An event that occurs after a behavior is displayed that reduces the change of the behavior presenting again." I would be correct for my interpretation.

I did raise my hand and never got to ask my question, so I am unlikely to raise my hand again to try to get to speak within this setting.

My frustration is that I cannot easily communicate some method to respectfully interrupt a conversation, and so I get angry. As I can't determine and ask the background knowledge of every person I know, I am likely to find a word that I can't figure out the context use of.