Of Words and Meaning

It interests me that the destruction of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 by terrorists trained by Al Qaeda is usually referred to as nine-eleven (9/11), but the insurrection that took place at the United States Capitol by native terrorists is never called one-six (1/6) but is always spoken as January 6. This practice pertains to all spoken and written references to the events. Both events were horrific and I have wondered why they should be referred to differently. The abbreviation of the former (9/11) couldn’t be the result of a verbal laziness: both September and January contain almost the same number of syllables: the earlier event six and the latter five. The vocalization 9/11 does elide sonorously where that of 1/6 does not do so. To my ear the reference 1/6 has no resonance: it is  hard and harsh vocalization. In my memory no other event other than September 11, 2001 is referred to simply by the number month and date; Independence Day, for example, is always called July 4, the bombing of Pearl Harbor is dated December 7, and D-Day is always June 6.  Flag Day is June 14. Christmas day is December 25 and not 12/25. The question then remains as to why it is that only the events of September 11, 2001 are referred to simply as numbers. I have heard it said that Al Qaeda chose the date, 9/11, as a reference to the emergency number 911. I suppose it is as plausible an explanation for the day being chosen for the attack as any other, but then wouldn’t we have taken to referring to that day as “nine one-one” and not as nine-eleven. 
            Finally, however, even the number reference 9/11 is referred to by words and are voiced as is the 6^th of January or any other holiday or event, and so it is words, perhaps, about which I am wondering. I know that words are used to communicate, but I wonder what is communicated in our differing references to 9/11 and January 6. There is meaning that here remains opaque. I can speculate and find theory to explain, but even to do that requires words and that is where the trouble begins. Fernando Passoa, the Portuguese poet who is a ghostly presence in Jose Saramajo’s novel, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, says to Ricardo Reis, “We have never lied to each other, when the need arose, we confined ourselves to using words that lied.” All words lie, I think. Inside every word is an entire context that remains unspoken. And what the word is intended to mean cannot then be realized because the context of the spoken word cannot be fully known by the hearer. I think this may have been Wittgenstein’s idea when he spoke of language games. Wittgenstein argued that a word or sentence only has meaning depending on the "rule" of the "game" being played. That “rule” is the context in which the word is used! For example, “Roll that stone away” has different meanings for African-Americans who were seeking freedom, Sisyphus pushing his burden up the mountain, and a person working to cultivate a flower garden. Preparing the garden might seem a Sisyphysian struggle but it is not equivalent to the torment of Sisyphus.  And I have been thinking that Henry David Thoreau might have preceded Wittgenstein. Thoreau knew the inadequacy of words. He argued, “If we are merely loquacious and loud talkers, then we can afford to stand very near together, cheek by jowl, and feel each other’s breath; but if we speak reservedly and thoughtfully, we want to be farther apart . . . If we would enjoy the most intimate society with that in each of us which is without, or above, being spoken to, we must not only be silent, but commonly so far apart bodily that we cannot possibly hear each other’s voice in any case. By this standard, speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout.” Words require other words to make understanding possible, but the need for that increase would leave then no time to think. The poet Passoa says, “If we do not say all words, however absurd, we will never say the essential words.” But we can never say all words, absurd though they be, and thus all communication remains incomplete, as it were, and lacks truth. The narrator of Saramajo’s The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis says, “Words hover in the air, waiting for someone to pay attention . . . he could be telling the truth, he could be telling a lie, such is the inadequacy, the built-in duplicity of words. A word lies, with the same word one can speak the truth, we are not what we say, we are true only if others believe us.” What we say then becomes not a lie but the meaning of the words depends on their reception and not by the speaker’s intent. We have no control over words and meaning.
            So it seems to me that the various voicings of the date of the events of September 11, 2001 and January 6, 2020 demands some knowledge of the “rule” in which the words have meaning. And I don’t seem to know the game!