Intermedation and Overshadowing of Life’s Experiences

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. On our Facebook group, Lucinda Kennedy said,

There’s a word I can’t for the life of me remember. It refers to focusing on the taking of pictures of significant events or situations, such as weddings or eclipses. Taking the picture becomes the focus, minimizing the event to the point that the event is missed. And boy, did that prompt a fascinating discussion. Some of it was about interesting or clever terms for missing out on an event because you’re too preoccupied with taking a picture or a video.

Jason said, when there’s a group of people who are together but completely focused on their phones, that’s divisillation, which I liked very much, divisillation. And Robert noted a growing use of the term uncaptured. People saying, I’m glad that was uncaptured. You know, like you don’t, you tell people, don’t bring phones to the wedding. Don’t use your phones while all of that’s going on.

Yeah, I just attended a wedding, a lovely wedding for my sister-in-law and my new brother-in-law. And they asked that people put their phones away during the ceremony. There were two professional photographers there, and they didn’t need the distraction. They wanted everybody to witness it with their own eyes.

Yeah, I think more and more people are leaning in that direction. We’ve just documented so much with our phones. As for words, I believe the word that is used in more professional context is intermediation. I know there’s nothing exciting about it, but it’s the word that you use where the device is intermediating between you and the subject matter.

Oh, yeah. And all the evidence shows that when your experience is intermediated, you lean too heavily upon the idea that you can go back later and re-experience it. But that re-experiencing isn’t the same as having witnessed it yourself. You process the memories differently.

Yes. The word that Lucinda eventually remembered when somebody reminded her was the word overshadowing, which I didn’t realize is used in a lot of fields to refer to the idea of a secondary thing becoming so important or so prominent that it partially eclipses, if you will, the main thing. You know, like a teacher who tells jokes in class and the students remember the jokes, but they don’t remember what the lesson was.

Apparently, this term is used in a lot of contexts, including language acquisition. I was really surprised.

That’s very interesting.

Yeah, I could see that. This reminds me of a problem that happens in language learning when it comes to looking at mistakes, where sometimes learning about the kinds of mistakes you make actually promotes making those mistakes more than if you didn’t learn about those kinds of mistakes at all. For example, if somebody says, don’t make this mistake, now that you know about it, you’re more likely to make it. So it’s better for them not to point it out unless you have already made it.

Oh, that’s fascinating.

So I guess that would be a case of overshadowing.

That’s a case of overshadowing. Absolutely.

Yeah. But when we go back to the devices and the words for that kind of experience, I think overshadowing is a great word for it. I would love to hear other people’s thoughts about this. You can call us at 877-929-9673 or send us an email. The address is words@waywordradio.org.