Random Musings with Neil Hogan - #14

I was perusing Craig’s list last week when I came across an unusual listing in the ads. It said, “lessons acoustic guitar”. This got me off on a tangent that had me wondering how we decide to order words in a sentence, particularly in English, which happens to be the closest thing I have to a native language. While I’m sure that “lessons acoustic guitar” makes sense in some other languages, it just didn’t seem to sit right with my limited experience in English.

It started to occur to me that this type of term was maybe what someone would type into a search engine to help them locate some information on teachers in the area or possibly lessons that were available online.

I guess if I were working on a web site for my teaching studio I might try to work the phrase “lessons acoustic guitar” into some of the pages I was developing. This led me to the somewhat related question of the hierarchy we apply to any group of related items. In this particular case it seemed more logical to break it down in the order of what you’re looking for, then the instrument, then the style. This would get us something like what we wee looking for. I’m not sure that that phrase is any easier to use in a sentence but if something occurs to you, please let me know.

As this endeavor gets clumsier and clumsier I start thinking that there are probably many better things I could be doing with my time. This would apply to you as well. I think we all need to get back to practicing right now!

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