Modal verbs. Who knew that such things existed? Certainly not me. Until September 2012 that is. Some may know that I am currently working as an English language assistant in a Spanish secondary school. I thought I would be the one teaching the vocabulary. But over the past months I have become acquainted with a whole range of concepts which apparently apply to my mother tongue but which have the dual effects of confusing me utterly and destroying any scrap of credibility as a language teacher which I might once have appeared to have. I arrive to my class, reassuringly and authoritatively urging them that, 'If you have any questions whatsoever, ask me. That's why I'm here. I love questions.' I give the smile of a native English speaker whose job is merely to talk in her own language. 'Can you use modal verbs in the second conditional and the present perfect or only in the present, past continuous and future?', is the reply. Honestly, if they had tried to explain the offside rule to me in Belarusian, I would have looked less clueless.
It turns out that modal verbs are a set of verbs used to communicate possibility (can, may, might, could), prohibition (must not), recommendations (should, ought to) and obligations (must, have to). I thought I knew all there was to know about these particular words - especially 'should', 'ought to', 'must', and 'have to'. Because these words have a unique knack of soliciting in me feelings of weighty duty, guilt, confusion and indecision.
Advice is everywhere, not least when it comes to food. Read a newspaper, the health section of the BBC News website, lifestyle magazines or even have a conversation with (particularly, it has to be said) women, and it is very difficult to avoid such phrases as 'we should be halving our salt intake', 'bread is so bad for you', 'I'm being naughty and having carbs', 'apparently, we ought to avoid red meat altogether', 'I really must stop having so much lactose'. Now, let's be clear. There is no doubt that health and nutrition are interlinked. And I am grateful to those scientists and specialists who have dedicated themselves to investigating how nutrition affects the many facets of our wellbeing. But at times I can feel overwhelmed by the plethora of advice. My head becomes full of half-remembered 'shoulds' and 'ought tos', of proud assertions of columnists who are 'avoiding dairy', of the 'Recommended Daily Allowances' of calcium, fat, sugar, potassium, Vitamin B12, omega 3 and beta-carotene.
My first response to these many recommendations is a feeling of compulsion to abide by every rule, to 'do nutrition' perfectly. I'm almost tempted to put '3 portions of dairy' and '4g of potassium' on my daily to-do list between 'Reply to last week's emails' and 'Do job application', lest in the maelstrom of life I should forget my nutritional duties. It might seem natural that we talk about what we 'should' be eating and how much of this nutrient we 'ought to' have. But these modal verbs have a rather cunning trap which I too often fall into. The logical extension of the idea that 'we should' be doing something is that, if we do not do it, we are doing what we 'shouldn't' do. If we don't do what we 'ought to' do, we are doing what we really 'ought not' to do. We fail. And it occurs to me in my saner moments that this is not only a rather disagreeable feeling, but it is absurd.
Presumably all these ideas of the right and wrong ways to nourish our bodies are ultimately aimed at increasing the quality and longevity of our lives. But this is where a lot of the advice begins to fall down. There has been increasing fuss made by some food writers in the UK over that illicit stuff, bread (which PEOPLE HAVE BEEN EATING FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS...just saying). And I've read and been told on several occasions that we should now be avoiding ham. However, here in Madrid, I am living in a country which has bread with every meal and which prescribes ham as a food to eat if you are ill. Ham is to the Spanish diet what Kate Middleton is to Now Magazine. The average Spaniard consumes 5 kg of ham every year.
In terms of life expectancy, the UK ranks at number 23, while Spain comes in at number 12.
The staple food of the country with the greatest life expectancy in the world - Japan - is white rice. White rice, which a well-intentioned US website denounced as a food 'we thought was good for us but is actually bad for us'. Centenarians who have won their fifteen minutes of fame for their longevity have attributed the latter variously to Guinness, Coca Cola and a daily cup of tea-and-whisky.
This is not to dismiss any scientific findings by any means. But what this does suggest, to me at least, is that, however many rules we try to make for ourselves, the human body is infinitely more complex than we can know. I may avoid ham and eat brown rice because the research says I should, but it doesn't mean I will live any longer. And it seems to me that what lurks behind the rules, the guidance, the modals, is a desire to make life seem much more within our control than it really is. I might like to think that I can control the direction, the quality, the length, the content of my life. But there is a limit. Scary as many might find it, there is a lot we don't know. It is even possible that there is a lot which we cannot know. And I can't help wondering if that is why we turn to these reassuring 'shoulds' which hold out an exaggerated possibility of power. In the face of the facts, however, it seems I'm not quite so omnipotent. It seems that following the many 'shoulds' of the media don't provide genuine reassurance. It seems that living a life of true purpose and listening to the demands of my body and common sense is going to improve my health more than following the many modals. And I for one find that quite a relief.
I'm so glad that I saw the link to your blog because it is a pleasure to be able to read, not just a little more about your life but, your wonderful writing.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read the word modal verbs I stared at it for a moment wondering if I'd read it wrong. It sounds like quite a strange position to be in, to be a native English speaker and yet to not know the ins and outs of the language terminology. I suppose it may be the same had a Spanish speaker been in your shoes? If it's not, then I wonder what we're doing wrong in our teaching that we don’t know of such things.
You pose a very interesting query about modal verbs and it's something I've actually realised in recent years myself. Though I tend to see it more as a 'I should be writing' than 'I should eat x y or z' (chocolate is just too tempting). The last couple of days, actually, I have purposefully thought to myself 'I will not say I MUST, I will say I WILL' because it feels a little better to assume something will happen than for it to need to.
You're very right that societal pressure over food is a little ridiculous in many ways because of various case studies. I think that one thing the world forgets when they're creating these lists of good and bad foods is that one reason people are less healthy now is not because they are eating things from nature, but things created outside of nature.
I'm sure farmers from days gone by were more than healthy enough eating potatoes they grew, lavishing bread (that they grew the ingredients for) with butter (from the cows that they milked), but they also had a different level of active lifestyles that many cannot afford what with sitting behind a computer all day.
Perhaps we should return to a simpler way of looking at our food (and the world) and things would feel that little better. Maybe then we'd find modal verbs a little redundant!
(Apparently the Google account I once used on blogspot isn't this one - it's Fiona :) )