Month: February 2013 | the Wakefield Doctrine - Part 2 Month: February 2013 | the Wakefield Doctrine - Part 2

“…cause I speak of the Pompatus of Love.” the Wakefield Doctrine and diversity of search terms, MommyBlogs and zombie hordes

February 21, 2013 By

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

The word pompatus (pron.: /ˈpɒmpɨtəs/), also spelled pompitous, is a neologism used in the lyrics of Steve Miller’s 1973 rock song “The Joker”.

Although Miller claims he invented the words “epismetology”… and “pompatus”, all of his song-writing demonstrates strong rhythm and blues influences, a 1954 song called “The Letter” by the Medallions had the lines:

Oh my darling, let me whisper
sweet words of pizmotality
and discuss the puppetutes of love.

The song was composed by Vernon Green as a description of his dream woman. “Pizmotality described words of such secrecy that they could only be spoken to the one you loved”, Green explained. He coined the term puppetutes “to mean a secret paper-doll fantasy figure who would be my everything and bear my children”.   ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompatus )

I was reading FOTD1 Amy’s blog, Adorable Chaos the other day. The Post was about the diversity in the terms Readers use to ‘find their way’ to her blog. Very interesting Post. ‘Chaos ‘is, I believe, considered a ‘Mommy Post’, which is a demographic of the blogosphere that has produced a fair number of the blogs on the Doctrine blogroll. (This includes one of the better MB’s, namely Janine’s blog ‘Mommyholic‘. Before you go and think, as I did initially, that the community of MB’s was a peaceful place, a source of gentle insight into the blessed work of raising families and young ‘uns and such, think again. Better yet, ever see the most excellent Russell Crowe movie, ‘Gladiator’? Like that, only not so pacifistic.
Go to Janine’s and look to the right of the page and vote for her wherever you see the chance. There will be a lot of chances to vote.  I won’t say zombie horde (with cute aprons and iPads and minivans), but our Janine is surrounded by talented women, all determined to write the sweetest chronicle of raising little children. And if you don’t get out of their way, you will regret it, lol  In any event, they have lots of Votes and Elections for the Best of the MBs. Vote for Janine wherever you see a chance.)

Back to Amy and her blog. She sort of falls into the M(ommy)B(log) category, but the Post I was reading spoke of never quite knowing what she might write about, on any given day. This was something I could identify with, as illustrated by this here Post here. (In my Comment to Amy), I mentioned the idea that even though there really is only one subject for the Wakefield Doctrine blog, there is an endless supply of topics for Posts.

Other Friends Of The Doctrine follow a similar pattern of seemingly being in one category, yet writing incredibly diverse Posts

  • Cyndi with photography in ‘the ‘tude’,
  • Melanie with effective workplace strategies (hey! the Doctrine probably should offer to contribute some helpful tips there) and her animal rights work, go read Scribbles n Smiles
  • Rich Rumple (not even going to categorize the blog, lets just say, ‘ya cain’t get no decaf there!’) and
  • Terrye who, if she were a person in real life, would come with a set of those warnings like on TV (…may produce… don’t worry…immediately consult…more than 4 hours… contact your Lawyer) excellent scottian female.

All in all, a hell of a bunch.

Back to Amy and her discovering that people have found her blog by searching, among other phrases:  what lipstick goes with everything,  introverts are funny and words are like eggs dropped from great heights.
Interesting bunch of Readers Amy has, no?

The other thing being discussed (In Amy’s Post) was word count, how there can be a tendency for count creep. I totally got that, as the average word count here at the Doctrine is somehow over 1000 per on average.

Anyway. The tie-in to the Wakefield Doctrine is this: all three personality types will see words in different ways, as having different values and even, different applications.

  • clarks see words both as serving as protective coloration and as a way to become part of,  clarks totally love  words, and given their natural creativity and near psychotic self-confidence in their intellects, do not hesitate to try to talk their way back to the company of man. Unfortunately, in the majority of cases, this serves to only further mark them as the Outsiders
  • scotts pretty much see words as lures, bait, enticements and kissing (without quite so much spit). scotts use the words at hand, in whatever manner they feel like, just because for a scott, to paraphrase an old advertising saying, ‘there ain’t no such thing as bad attention’  scotts hate being ignored
  • rogers use words, in a sense better than the other two. they are able to do this simply because rogers are ‘of the herd’ they represent the worldview of the majority, show me an author with 27 million seller books and I will show you a roger, they have a delightful talent for expressing ideas in comfortable, round-edged words…soothing, exciting comforting they invite you to join them in the experience that everyone knows and loves to hear about.

1) FOTD  Friends Of The Doctrine

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Of language and Laniappe(s), the Wakefield Doctrine…. lets get this thing going

February 19, 2013 By

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

As promised, today’s Post examines the (use of the) metaphor of ‘fluency’, in the context of developing the efficacy of the interpersonal tools that are inherent in the Wakefield Doctrine. Lets go to our little friends at Wikipedia for an outline of the commonly accepted meanings of this fairly cool word. (oh yeah, turns out this is Part I of what seems to be a much more involved topic than I originally imagined.)

Language fluency is used informally to denote broadly a high level of language proficiency, most typically foreign language or another learned language, and more narrowly to denote fluid language use, as opposed to slow, halting use. In this narrow sense, fluency is necessary but not sufficient for language proficiency: fluent language users (particularly uneducated native speakers) may have narrow vocabularies, limited discourse strategies, and inaccurate word use…

In the sense of proficiency, “fluency” encompasses a number of related but separable skills:

  • Reading: the ability to easily read and understand texts written in the language;
  • Writing: the ability to formulate written texts in the language;
  • Comprehension: the ability to follow and understand speech in the language;
  • Speaking: the ability to produce speech in the language and be understood by its speakers.
  • Reading Comprehension : the level of understanding of text/messages.

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluency )

So what is it we are trying to say? (ha, ha… a little linguistics joke. After all that serious rogerian time what with the Wikipedia and such, I went and implied that I was not sure:  a) what I was trying to say,  b) whether or not you were capable of understanding what I was saying or c) both of these statements.)

At first I thought it would be pretty straight forward. The goal of developing fluency (as used in this context) is, through understanding the language of all three personality types, to allow you to shape your message in such a manner, that the likelihood that the target of (your message) will comprehend it as you intended. That’s a goal that is both reasonable and ambitious and worthwhile (in terms of the effort necessary to accomplish it.) So how do we do this thing? It would be best to start with the basics.

The Wakefield Doctrine…all people are born with the capacity (and capability) to perceive the world in one of three characteristic ways and at an early, early age we all pick one of these three ways to relate to the world and this becomes our predominant worldview. All of us retain the capacity to access the worldview of the ‘other two’, non-predominant worldviews. These three worldviews are:

  1. the perspective of the Outsider, the clark personality type maintains a quality of separation from others, from the world around them, even from themselves
  2. the life of the Predator, the scottian personality type is the person who, ‘lives through action’, aggressive and impulsive, a scott stands out in a crowd like a Ferrari in a Kia car lot
  3. the roger who is emblematic of the (natural) drive of humans to associate, congregate, analyze and dramatize, rogers form the warp and weft of all human societies
Since each of the three personality types relate to the world around them in characteristically different ways, it is only reasonable that they will seek to communicate with that world in characteristically different ways.

clarks you know one of the funniest, weirdest things about clarks? (ok, a couple of funny weird things) it’s the percentage of time they will use the impersonal pronoun when talking about themselves!! damn! them people is strange… Interesting note: to the un-trained ear, both clarks and rogers will be characterized as having a ‘rambling conversational style’. But if you listen closely, you will hear that (the) clarks are rambling because they are discovering inferences and implications that were not apparent at the start of the conversation, that would enhance the understanding and appreciation of the topic.  A roger, on the other hand, will sound like they are rambling because they are attempting to add new information that they feel further supports the initial topic. (nothing new or original, simply more corroboration for the point they are trying to make).

scotts, as we all know are all about short, declarative sentences. Noun, verb, object. Thank you very much. And, of course, the archetypical Interjection: ‘Hey!’  is always good. Mostly it is whatever demands action. Recently I witnessed a person get complimented on a new ‘hairdo’ the scott approached, conveyed positive response to ‘the look’ and simply said, “Look at you!”

rogers, as befits the personality type that most exemplifies the interactions of members of the herd, speak in terms that carry information not limited to the immediate subject, rather they will expand upon the initial topic, “well, we were all at the Calypso Club last friend for Jimmie’s Birthday Party (he threw his own party, can you believe that?) and Ms. Delguidice was there…dancing with a girl! Well, she was kinda cute and she was telling me how much she admired how far I have come in the Company in such a short time. Who did you say you knew that I knew?”

While it may be easy enough to imitate the language of the three personality types, the path to true fluency entails finding a way to see the world as (they) see it. Only by doing this can we truly understand their language(s). And only by acquiring this level of understanding can we claim true fluency.

(to be cont’d…. Part II ‘What do you mean, it’s more than vocabulary??! Rosetta this…)

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‘…and a thousand telephones that will not ring’ the Wakefield Doctrine and the Myth of Reason

February 18, 2013 By

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

From Friend of the Doctrine Rich Rumple we have this Award.
To begin (and before the inevitable sarcasm kicks in) I will say that I am glad to have met Rich. I say this in the interest of self-interest. Being relatively new to the blog thing (at least in terms of writing skills) I have found that Rich provides me with a sense of encouragement and hope. His blog is always veering off into the metaphorical underbrush and that is what I find encouraging and his writing style is unpretentious and therefore allows me to hope that I can get that good at this writing gig. As an added plus, there isn’t an ounce of ‘hey! Look-at-Me!! to his writing. Simply good story telling and/or ‘so a priest, a rabbi and a horse walk into this bar’
In any event, Awards like this are sort of like going to a gym (as opposed to working out at home), you look around at peers, not-peers, never-be-that-good writers and you give it your best shot. I totally get the encouragement.
So here is what Rich has for Award Rules:
  • List 11 random facts about yourself.
  • Answer the questions the tagger has set for you, then create 11 new questions for the bloggers you pass the award to.
  • Choose 11 new bloggers (who have less than 200 followers) to pass the award to and link them in your post.
  • Go back to their page and tell them about the award.
  • No tag backs!!
First the 11 Random Facts about myself (those of you with any familiarity with me are totally all ‘yeah, right’ at this point.)
  1. I am one of the three people in the photo associated with the Wakefield Doctrine blog
  2. There actually are actual people to go along with the name.
  3. Were it not for a certain scottian female, the Wakefield Doctrine might have been subtitled: the theory of clarks, scotts and barrys
  4. Yeah, that would have been stupid
  5. I am a natural at the sport of bowling
  6. In my spare time I am attempting to write an actual book, a story
  7. My only goal (for the above mentioned book) is to complete it…
  8. I was a commercial fisherman at one time in my career
  9. I am encountering great difficulties trying to make this blogging thing a totally optional diversion (as opposed to not being able to not write)
  10. I nearly succeeded a couple of weeks ago
  11. At the age of 3 I made a deliberate and conscious decision to not be ticklish (though it took me at least 2 years) I was successful, I am not
(Lets check our little list…), next are the Questions!
(Our Mr. Rumple choose to reveal his inner most fears and hopes when he created the following List of 11 Questions):
  1. If Rosanne Barr married Tom Cruise, what would they name their puppy? Rich
  2. What television program displays the least amount of intelligence week after week?  A new reality series: Wide World of Warts with Jim McKay III and Howard Cossell IV
  3. If you had a house with all four sides facing South, and looked out the window, what color of bear would you see?   Pale white most of the year, decent tan doesn’t show until August…oh you meant bear!
  4. If you had your life to live over, what one thing would you do differently? Pay attention in all my English Comp classes.
  5. Did you ever want to be a fireman? No
  6. What did Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison have in common with Bill Clinton? They were all born in the 1940’s and they all had brooms to amuse themselves with.
  7. If the horse knew the way to carry the sleigh, why did he pull it? Because, given the anatomy of the horse, it is unable to pull off a proper Fireman’s Carry and that’s another reason I never wanted to be either a horse or a fireman.
  8. If you had a boat that could only go one direction, where would you end up at? The bottom of whatever body of water I was sitting in the boat on (or sitting on the boat in… either way).
  9. If Al Capone had been Hispanic, would Al Pacino still have been chosen for the movie Scarface? No they would have gotten either Mort Sahl or Arnold Stang
  10. What is your favorite 4 hour erection commercial?  Easy!! the Bob Dole one where he starts by saying, ‘down boy, down’  (I think there is a dog in the scene, but we know better than that.
  11. If you only had one wish, what would it be?  (*World Peace answer is void unless you’re a beauty contestant.) All candidates for high office would have to wrestle their opponents before assuming office. (Jello optional).
As required, following are my 11 Questions for the Recipients I will be naming at the end of this Post (if there is any end! My god, I have a business to run, it’s Monday morning and I am still at my computer!)
New 11 Questions:
  1. What was your best friend’s name in grade school (to be safe, lets say before 6th grade)
  2. Who was your best friend in High School
  3. What the hell happened to what’s-their-name?
  4. If you could write a blog that was guaranteed to be totally successful, but it would have nothing to do with your current blog, what would the subject be
  5. Easy one! A Simple Yes or No answer: Have I seem to have lost the proper balance of light-hearted, silly questions with this List?
  6. What is your favorite movie (must have watched at least 7 times, totally from beginning to end)
  7. If they, (whoever they are), would bring back any TV show (we’re assuming that you will pick your favorite, but this is not a requirement of the answer), what show would it be?
  8. How many of these ‘pass-it-along-drive-up-readership Awards’ have you received in the last 12 months?
  9. How many fingers am I holding up?
  10. What is you least favorite 4 hour erection commercial?
  11. How long did you need to: a) write your Post, b) decide to take up woodcarving and/or knitting as an alternative to blogging c) find Rich Rumple’s home phone number and set your alarm for 3:00 am every night this week?

Here is my List:

  1. Julie DeNeen,
  2. Denise,
  3. Jennifer,
  4. Molly,
  5. Roger (who doesn’t participate in the Facebook but writes a good, (at least rogerian) blog at Secessionist Rag,
  6. Steve Walters,
  7. Mel,
  8. Ronin,
  9. Cyndi (you shouldn’t have said anything lol),
  10. Melanie,
  11. Nell Rose
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‘If you want to know about the bishop and the actress…’ the Wakefield Doctrine ( don’t you just *love* the use of semi-obscure song lyrics in the Title?)

February 17, 2013 By

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

…short Post. Great Drive. working on brevity1 here ya go,  the Wakefield Doctrine Saturday Night Drive last night was:

  • attended by Denise and Molly
  • discussion of ‘Secret Project’ Project
  • discussed two areas of particular focus:  fluency and application
That last bullet? Expect to hear a lot more about those two concepts in the weeks ahead. Quick explication on fluency and application and then on to a Joe Jackson song (If you do not know the name Joe Jackson, you owe it to yourself to locate and listen to his first album, ‘Look Sharp’. Granted many of you might not have quite been born at the time this album was released, but the thing about his music was that he anticipated a lot of the styles that would make a come-back in the late 90’s early 2s)

Anyway…. here are two concepts that got brought into sharper focus, thanks to Molly* and Denise and ( in a sense during last week’s Drive) Cyndi:

fluency: the concept that, if you understand the characteristics of the worldviews of all three, then, when you find yourself trying to communicate with someone of a different worldview, you will be able to shape your message more effectively, which then increases the chances that they will get what you are trying to tell them. We are using the term ‘fluency’ in the linguistic sense. Learn a language (understanding the worldview) and eventually you will be in-distinguishable from ‘the natives’.

Example: you are a clark trying to talk to a scott.  (Lets set up a comparison situation in which), you are trying to tell the scott that he/she has a tarantula crawling up their back.
As a clark you might say : “ mumble mumble…excuse me I hate to bother you but I think I would like to bring to your attention that there is some sort of  spider-like bug on your shoulder, now if you like (spider-like) bugs this might not be important (to you), and, if that’s the case, let me apologise but I care, in my own weird manner about your well-being and so I will venture and try to communicate”
Or, being fluent in the scottian worldview you might opt to say  “Hey! What the fuck is that!?!

See the difference?
Now you try one!

You are a clark trying to tell a roger that their harsh, overly personal and entirely un-justified criticism of you is not a welcome addition to your day.
If you are not fluent in the rogerian you might say: .……….. (aka saying nothing. Thats the best we can come up with to imply that it will take you about 3 times too long to even notice you have been criticized, and then add another 2 minutes-to -2 years to get past the “gee, what did I do to deserve that?” reaction)
Or you might choose to say in response:

(Hey!  Free Wakefield Doctrine DocTee to the Comment that best completes the above Fluency Test!!)

Word Count creeping up! Remind me to explain the second concept later!

* not appropriate here, but I don’t want to forget something that Molly contributed last night. we were talking about being clarks, specifically very young clarks and Molly came up with ‘2 going on 20’ to describe herself as a tiny young clark. excellent!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5r1ub00btE

 

1)  the word count for most Posts in the last 3 or 4 months is edging over 1000, on average!  Not that there is not a lot to talk about, and I am so not ready to try and imitate OFOD (Original Friend of the Doctrine) Mel over at Spatula,  er  sorry, make that over at the ‘Mostly T’

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‘No sun comin’ through my windows’….the Wakefield Doctrine a real (personality)theory for real people (with personalitys)

February 16, 2013 By

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

Hey! Saturday Evening Post lives!! (for old, old people).

 

….and that Number is:  218-339-0422   access code: 512103

 

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