Language

 from "Old Collection"

by Robert MacNeil:

It fascinates me how differently we all speak in different circumstances. There are very formal occasions, often requiring written English: the job application or the letter to the editor - the dark-suit, serious-tie language, with everything pressed and the lint brushed off. There is our less formal out-in-the-world language - a more comfortable suit, but still respectable. There is language for close friends on weekends - blue-jeans and sweat-shirt language. There is family language, even more relaxed, full of grammatical shortcuts, family slang, echoes of old jokes that have become ultimate shorthand - the language of pajamas and uncombed hair. Finally, there is the language with no clothes on, the talk of couples - murmurs, sighs - open and vulnerable language, at its least self-conscious.