Every day language is not everyday.

On the occasion of this:

“Someone says “It’s snowing.

I mean what is “it” doing in that sentence? I know that it’s just functioning as the subject of an impersonal verb, but why do we need a subject of an impersonal verb and why should it be “it,” a pronoun? If it’s there because every verb has to have a subject, then it seems that the rules of grammar are eclipsing reference or at least placing a strange demand on the referential function of the sentence. To what can “it’ refer? Does it refer to anything other than its verb? It seems not to have a grammatical antecedent, nor does it have a referent outside the sentence. Is it possible to think of this as some kind of admission on the part of language? Does its code close? Are we operating strictly on a level akin to the analytic? What does the fact that we use the word “it” in this situation say about our language and how we use it? Does it say anything? How can it be that “It’s snowing” can mean much the same as “There is snow falling from the sky”? ”
Speakeasy – Mark Truscott in Filling Station no. 33
Pg. 057-058



Everyday language is not. Because it is not everyday. It is always something. And every day it is always something. But it is not every day the same thing every day. Because every time you say something, even if you say it every day, there is no way that’s “everyday” because there’s no way that you are every day saying it exactly the same way.

Maybe “everyday” means that it is common and informal. It might be common and informal but it is not the same thing every day. Maybe “informal” means you all agree that your language isn’t formal. But of course you know that’s incorrect. But it doesn’t matter because “informal” means you all agree. And that is why “informal” is polite. It is polite to be informal because everyone agrees and everyone’s the same, even though you know that’s not correct.

There are things that you can say and you can say them every day. Things like: Hello, Goodbye, Good Morning, Good Evening, Good afternoon, How’s it going?. What’s up?, Tea?, Coffee?, Drink? But even though they are the same thing that you say, you do not say them the same way, not exactly the same way, and no one hears them the same way, not exactly the same way, because any time there’s conversation, even simple conversation, which is simply gestural, even though they’re saying things, it isn’t just the things that they are saying that anybody pays attention to, it is the things that they are doing also, and the way that they are being, and the way that they are doing it, all of it, together.

Because it is informal, and they do agree, and so it is polite, and anyone is listening and looking beyond that.

Because everyday is not, it only is because you say it is, and so of course, it can be not. And if it can be not, then of course, it can be something else, and that means anyone can wonder what that something else could be.

So there can always be a lot of different things always going on, and a lot of different ways to decide on what it really means. Because it never really means anything you really know. Even though you can be sure in spite of never knowing.

You can be sure because certainly you feel it, even though you do not know it. Of course you are sure because you certainly do feel it even if you do not know it. If later you are proven to be right, you often then can say you knew it all along, but of course that isn’t really true.

That is all because language is a thing that is, and it is the way you speak. And the way you speak is not the same as how you write or think or feel. And there are formal ways and informal ways of saying things. And language can be said to be “everyday,” even though it’s not.

Think about the weather.

You might think it’s funny to say that it is raining if you think there is no “it” that can be doing that. But there always is an “it” for anything that does something, and weather is that way. Weather can be interesting because it’s always being something while it’s doing something too. Sometimes it seems more being than it’s doing or vice versa, but it still is always both.

For example, when it’s raining, it is doing that while it is being “wet and rainy,” or “damp and cold and miserable,” or “thank God it’s cooling off,” or “oh good, we really need it,” or “shit, not more god-damned rain,” or it is a punishment or it washing away something. All the while that it is being how it’s being, whether it’s agreeable or not, it is doing what it’s doing, naturally or not, whether it is wanted or is not.

Some say rain’s an act of nature, which of course means something else, because “nature” doesn’t act, because there’s no such thing as “nature,” although that has never stopped it from being what it is and doing what it does, because we say it’s so. Saying that it’s so makes it be as though it’s so, and that’s enough to make it be what it never really is. Because how things really are only really matters when it actually does not.

“Be” and “Is” are not the same in English, even though they might be inextricably bound together say in French, or in some other kind of language. In English they are not. Anything in English can be something even though isn’t that at all. And just because it is something doesn’t mean that it will be that thing. For instance you can be a boy or girl, even though you are not either one. And if you are a boy or girl, you may not be one or the other of those either.

This can be frustrating for anyone who wants anything in English to be the way they think that it should be. Because English is beyond them. It always is beyond them because it can be one thing and do another thing altogether different and it always works for someone, and not for someone else.

That is why “To be, or not to be?” is a question for someone. Because even though he or she may or may not be, he or she still is. At the very least, they are the one who asks the question.

Because you can be going somewhere even though you are not there. And because you can be somewhere and not going anywhere.

So when you say “it’s raining,” and someone asks you, “What is ‘it’?,” you know the answer is “the weather,” because it is always the condition of the day or night or afternoon, of how things are outside, and what it’s doing out there too. And it is not polite to ask, although it might be amusing, “What is ‘it’?”

And it is not really “everyday” language because language is everything always every day. It’s just a way of saying things, and it always is just that.