My Signature English (The Burden of Non-Conformity)

[jimwell]

I have been honing my Signature English for the past few years. I place less importance on conventional English rules and intentionally use English in ways that I perceive as correct, consistent, and simplified. My English encompasses all aspects of the language, including word choice and word order. To romanticize it a bit: my Signature Style (including English) intentionally bends or breaks established norms in art, language, systems, or behavior to reject conformity, asserting that beauty, meaning, consistency, and sense can be forged outside tradition while still retaining clarity and intentionality.

One of the reasons I am able to do this is because I have good proficiency in English. In my 20s, I worked in Customer Support for Telstra and AT&T, which enabled me to speak with Australian and American customers almost every day. I was also an English teacher to Japanese students and even co‑started an English school in Japan. Using English for all forms of communication became so natural to me that I thought I had reached the highest level of mastery.

But in my early 30s, I realized that one of the primary reasons I was fluent in English was because I had been using it unconsciously. I simply observed how native speakers talked and imitated them without scrutinizing why they spoke that way. Eventually, I began to notice inconsistencies and senselessness in conventional English, particularly in the use of phrasal verbs such as "break down". If you really think about it, the opposite of "break down" (to lose control or stop working) should logically be "break up" (to gain control or start working). But no; "break up" means to end a relationship or to disintegrate into smaller pieces, which is completely different from the expected meaning. Other senseless phrasal verbs include "give up" and "turn down". My English rejects most phrasal verbs and instead favors straightforward words such as "quit", "surrender", and "reject".

My English also features consistent rules. If a noun can function as a verb in English, then “foundation” can become “foundation – foundationed – foundationed”. So it is sensible to say: My destiny or life path is foundationed by my divine mission. A sentence as heavy and important as this deserves something structural, unshakable, and permanent, hence “foundationed by.” “Rooted in” is not enough, because it suggests something botanical and flexible. “Rests on” is not enough, because it implies something light and fragile. "Founded on" is senseless because "founded" is the past tense of "find". “Foundationed by” is best.

Also, my English values simplicity. Conventional English has dozens of words that mean “remove”: “delete”, “erase”, “eliminate”, “terminate”, “expel”, “eject”, “exile”, “purge”, “extinguish”, “eradicate”, “exterminate”, “obliterate”, etc. What?  How am I supposed to remember each word and its nuance? I could invent another dozen words from scratch to mean “remove” and then make an excuse for nuance. But instead, I prefer just a few: “erase”, “eliminate”, “delete”, “expel”, “purge”, and “destroy” sound good. “Remove” is senseless because its literal meaning is “move again”, but to where?

I still have too many things to say about my Signature English, but I’ll end it here because I don’t have much time for this. I just want to demonstrate that being non‑conformist is difficult, laborious, and can wound survival. I plan to fully embody my Signature English and use it all the time, but I hesitate because doing so would make me unemployable. When my English was at a very good level in my 20s, I could easily pass TOEIC, TOEFL, and other established English exams. I could easily impress HR interviewers and obtain jobs that required English proficiency. Paradoxically, now that my English is at an even higher level, it is perceived as weird and broken by conventionalists. Passing an English exam and obtaining an English‑proficiency job would now be very difficult, if not impossible. So for now, I can only embody 50%, because I must survive. When I have gained 1 million USD and safe from any form of salary slavery, I will embody it 100%.

It’s best for me to stay on the safe side, at least for now.

 

[Thought Art]

@jimwell hmm, 

 

Well, as a native English speaker I could use Break Up and Break down in similar ways when taking about breaking something into smaller pieces. But they would be different contextually.
 

I break up a pizza by cutting it and sharing it with others. I break down a pizza by digesting it. 
 

A break up between two people is a very different phrase than a break down between two people. As an English speaker I see no problem with these phrases because I understand them. 

It’s not actually inherently or absolutely logical that break down or break up would be opposites of each other. Both have the root word being break, and like you said it’s a phrase not a directional use of the word up or down. Up and down are clear opposites but they are not phrases. 
 

 

I don’t see an issue with these words because we know what they mean. They have many different contexts they can be used in and everyone native in English basically knows how it use it, though largely implicitly.
 

Don’t you think it’s a bit odd to come to a new language and assume you have a better grasp than native speakers?

 

Conformity isn’t bad in an of itself. I think what Leo is teaching is consciousness which, if you are to live consciously you need to deconstruct how you have aspects of conformist cognition. 
 

Languages are inherently conformity because that’s what separates one language from another. A language is a construct and a conformity of symbols, sounds, meaning, context, syntax, etc. 
 

It comes odd ti me you want to create your own… dialect of English and are annoyed with the constraints that would put on you. Isn’t it arbitrary what you are doing? Isn’t it also question begging you as a none native have a better grasp than natives?

Edited 10 hours ago by Thought Art

[Thought Art]

@jimwell

Why say “foundationed” when in English you might say “founded in”.  “Foundationed” is also, in a way implying a past tense in my opinion. So you aren’t really getting away from anything. A country is founded on principles. A mission can be founded on or in values. When you started the mission you did so because of values. That is kind of past tense isn’t it? How is that wrong to say? Rooted, to an English speaker does not imply something botanical inherently. Rests on does not imply lightness. Those are particular interpretations you have yourself. 
 

The word Remove, actually has remained essentially the same in its Latin and French move and is consistent. All of those negating words you listed also have meaning and context that is important to English. I don’t get why you would want to limit them. You simply don’t want to actually speak full and real, fluent and flexible English?

You may do whatever you want, and I think it’s interesting you are doing this. I’m not saying not to do it. But, as a native speaker I don’t see issues with the things you do. 

 

 

Edited 10 hours ago by Thought Art

[Thought Art]

You know, In a way Break Up and Break Down are actually contextual opposites. 
 

When I break up a pizza I am cutting it into slices. And when I break down a pizza I am digesting it into its fundamentals. Interesting.

Edited 10 hours ago by Thought Art