Happy Mother's Day

Following in the nascent Semantic Compositions tradition of irreverently commemorating notable calendar days (see Valentine's Day and Tax Day), some thoughts for Mother's Day.

A few days ago, your host had occasion to visit the local Hallmark store, as implied by our current topic. While there, he was suddenly struck by the realization that there is an authority competent to take charge of universal ontology development (which SC half-cheered for here) -- Hallmark.

This is only 95% insane. Here goes.

When one walks into a Hallmark store, it is very hard not to be impressed with the range of finely-grained distinctions which they make among seemingly atomic categories. Within the general heading of "mother", one can find Mother's Day cards for "mother", "mom", "mommy", "stepmother" and even "like a mother". Grandmother cards are finely segmented in "grandmother", "grandma", "ma-ma" (analogous, presumably, to the grandfatherly "pop-pop"), and the only ambiguously related-to-the-sender "nana". Whoever they're addressed to, they can be had from "me", "us", "both of us", "the two of us", "son and daughter-in-law", "daughter and son-in-law", and plenty of others SC won't even bother trying to list. It's hard to imagine breaking down such elementary categories into any finer level of detail, demonstrating clearly that if we're going to have a dictatorial power imposing a standard meaning on documents, it might as well be a dictator with Snoopy's face. Or Maxine's.

Truly, if there is a problem with this proposal, it's what we might call the "Hallmark Polysemy Problem", which is to say that nearly every card in the store can be read either literally, or with a viciously sarcastic double meaning. Just to give one example, when SC was shopping for cards, he saw one that started off with "From the Two of Us", and followed that with "For all the things you do to make life good for your family" (emphasis SC's). This could be interpreted to mean that the senders appreciate things that have been done by the recipient for them; but then, why not say "our family"? Alternatively, it could mean something much along the lines of the parable of the wicked son, read every year by Jews at Passover:

The wicked son asks, “What does this service mean to you?” By his tone of voice it is evident that the service has no significance for him, and so he has excluded himself from the people... (emphasis added)

Once you read the card that way, it's hard not to think it means "your family, which fortunately doesn't mean us". And once you have a hard time reading the cards with a straight face, it's time to walk out of the store.

Comments

[Prentiss Riddle]

Considering all the "niche" relationships they cover, it seems crazy that they won't acknowledge same-sex relationships. Consider the scandal that erupted not long ago when a customer tried to buy a same-sex couple of kissing bears.

Of course, there's a likely explanation: they're more worried about losing the cultural conservatives who form the bulk of their customer base than about gaining gay customers. And who knows, maybe they're aware that the customers who'd like to buy same-sex cards are also happy buying their traditional product to use it in "viciously sarcastic" mode.

P.S. A bit of Googling turned up this more nuanced article on gay matters at Hallmark.