Story of Your Life--Part 1

“One of the sailors pointed to the animals that hopped around with their young riding in pouches, and asked an aborigine what they were called. The aborigine replied, “Kanguru.” From then on Cook and his sailors referred to the animals by this word. It wasn’t until later that they learned it meant "What did you say?”" –(Chiang, 127)

This quote from Ted Chaing’s “Story of Your Life” has many meanings. Not only does it show that learning needs to be a careful process, but it also applies to the narrator’s life and assumptions. In this quote, the sailors assume that the aborigines understand that they want the name of the animal when they point to it ask what it is. However, it was this first assumption that lead to a vast lack in communication and most likely many jokes from the aborigines behind the backs of the foolish sailors calling animals “kanguru”, a phrase that would seem like an absurd name to the native speakers. The narrator most likely tells this story to her intro to linguistics class because it teaches the vital lesson of learning and communication: never assume that you and the other party’s ideas are synonymous because assumptions lead to foolish mistakes. Instead, linguistics and other of life’s practices must be carefully thought out and studied in order to obtain accurate communication and motion of ideas between peoples.

On the other hand, this quote demonstrating the need for caution in assumptions applies to the narrator’s life as she assumes at the beginning of the story that her daughter will live long enough to have children, a fair assumption and hope for a mother. However, unfortunately, this dream and assumption does not come true. In this manner the above quote cautions humans about the nature of uncertainty in life. This quote, when read in this way, ridicules assumption and shows how truly unknown the future is. This shows that humans should live each day as it comes and not assume anything about the future because they cannot be sure about or control anything beyond the present using assumptions that do not have to and often do not hold true.