Thinking Like Shakespeare

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. I want to share a passage from a new book that I really love.

It’s by a college professor who’s describing bringing his children for a visit to campus.

He writes,

On the ground floor of my office building, I’m pointing out the details of a wall map to my children.

The bell rings. Class is let out. I mutter an easy prediction.

Watch this. Everyone will stare at their phones.

Students amble into the hallway.

One meanders towards us, bumps into me, recalibrates her trajectory without looking up, and continues her Roomba-like text walking.

I love that Roomba-like text walking. I’ve seen that. I’ve been there.

Both the little robot vacuum and the people walking around looking at their phones and just kind of like gently bumping into walls and people and furniture.

You know, it’s all very careful, but still divided attention.

Right, right.

I was going to say, sort of oblivious yet aware at the same time.

But before the phones, you know, it was not uncommon to see people doing this.

I mean, I remember living in New York before cell phones, newspapers and books.

People would walk down the street reading.

And there was something kind of charming about it, as long as they didn’t bump into you too hard.

Right.

Well, and now we have a term to describe it, Roomba-like text walking.

I love that.

Roombas. Yeah, the Roombas. Just shorten it. They’re all Roombas.

But if they could pick up a little trash as they go, that’d be great.

Well, that’s from a new book called How to Think Like Shakespeare, Lessons from a Renaissance education. It’s by Scott Newstock. And I’m really crazy about this book, so I want to talk about it later in the show.

And I know we’re both looking forward to talking to our listeners about language.

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