WEEK 1 RELATING

The Bird and the Tree: Relates

According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word “relate” can be (or has been) used as an adjective, verb, and noun. As a verb the word carries its most common uses—“to recount, narrate, give an account of.” “To refer to.” “To be important or of interest to or unto a person.” “To have some connection with..” “To understand or have empathy for; to identify or feel a connection with.”

But it can also be used as an adjective meaning related or connected, or the usage I find most interesting, as a noun used to refer to “relatum” meaning “Each of two or more terms, objects, or events, between which a relation exists.”

I like the idea of using the term “relate” to discuss the objects that might have a relationship. The bird is a relate of the tree. (Or perhaps the tree and bird are relates). This allows the sentence to communicate that the bird has a connection with the tree (it’s physically connected when it perches and connected by its use of the tree as protection and a nesting site) but the sentence also suggests that the bird might also understand or identify with the tree, and in the sentence in parenthesis the suggestion is that this understanding is mutual. It doesn’t have to mean that, but the possibility perches there in the sentence.



Reference: "relate" Oxford English Dictionary online. 2009. Oxford University Press. Accessed: 8/3/2010. dictionary.oed.com