If you listen carefully, the language changes in March. In winter, we said, “I’m freezing,” “cancelled,” “I wish it were warmer soon,” “it’s dark again.” Now something else is sprouting in speech: “exhale”, “stick your nose out”, “finally”, “the sun, can you imagine?”
Even the parasitic phrases fade into the shadows. Instead of “like last year” — “do you remember last year it was the same?” — and this is not a complaint, but an attempt to catch a recurring miracle.
Linguists call this pragmatics — how context changes the meaning of words. But it’s simple as a human being: when the snow melts, we start talking differently. Hopefully. With a lot of exclamation marks in the voice. And it seems to be the most universal language that does not need to be translated.
