31.8.11

The "Shoft" Phenomenon


A simple Arabic verb in the past tense, often used by Egyptians to express the question "Have you seen?". The most common word to be used after saying hi to a friend.
Sorry to disappoint Egyptians & other Arabs using this word the same way we do, verb "Shaf" or "Shawafa" is not verb To See. According to the very famous & very old Arabic dictionaries like (لسان العرب، مقاييس اللغة، الصحاح في الالغة، الخ) this word has so many other meanings & none of them is related to the way we use it now. The only use that had something to do with the eyes, was to describe an animal that is making certain actions when it feels danger.
It is not a voluntary neural special sense action made by the eye, it is a complete hormonal involuntary action that is caused by the excess secretion of adrenalin when an animal smells danger, & the results to this hormonal action is stretching of the neck into a certain direction accompanied with a gaze in the eyes, a high heart rate, etc... 
A movement that expresses concern, fear & curiosity.


The funny thing is that Egyptians ignoring the actual meaning of the word, they usually use it to open a conversation, & always use it when they want to talk about anything that they have seen that interested them, as if they are being hunted by the things they see. It is funny & it is true. How many times in a day you are being hunted by ads, television, etc... 
the proof you are being hunted is that they make money... 
The other interesting thing, is that in the original language, "Shoft" is an involuntary action, which is true as well, living in our society the fact that you see media is involuntary, how many of us don't like Amr Diab however involuntarily we memorized every single video clip he did?


Egyptians have this characteristic of living in a dream. They are very naive & they would believe what they want to believe. If you give them fake good information & realistic bad information, they would stick to the unreal good ones, & that is not the only problem. The bigger problem is that they will build a whole life based on a good wrong idea, that is the medium in which all mass communication entities swim in our country. The Egyptian society is a very good medium that conducts rumors, & television bullshit faster than copper filaments conducting electricity. Again the proof is this linguistic discovery I made, the "Shoft" effect, & another on the ground proof, the number of new television channels & news papers opened after Hosni Mubarak was kicked out of power. I think we are the biggest medium in the region, even other countries are investing to build mass communication organizations in our country, only for the fertile medium we have. We are a very fast process, & according to the information technology theory GIGO (Garbage in garbage out), we can process very good feelings, information, goals, objectives, & make a wonderful revolution, or we can process all what we get from the media & end up doing what we are doing now... nothing...

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