The grammar of accountability

THE RUB

“The first rule of business is to assign blame.” A retired coworker of mine began many meetings with that line. I laughed the first couple of times I heard him say it. My reaction eventually evolved to an eye roll.

Over the years I’ve become obsessed with where and how accountability gets assigned. On one side of the spectrum, we have teflon people, where nothing sticks. They are skilled at framing others as lazy and incompetent.

On the velcro side of the spectrum are the willing owners who take responsibility for every action. They are the first to admit they could have done more and offer up solutions. I live in this neighborhood.

I started to reconsider my stance during a discussion with friends about a fender bender. “Never say ‘I’m sorry’ to the other driver. It’s an admission of guilt.” Everyone seemed to agree with that statement.

But what if I was truly at fault? “That will come out. But the settlement could be worse if you admit it upfront.” That seemed crazy to me, but then I heard Lera Boroditsky on What Now? with Trevor Noah.

THE FRAMEWORK

Boroditsky explained how agency isn’t a universal framework for humans. Different cultures assign blame with various linguistic maps.

For example, in English we would explain three different scenarios with the same sentence construction. Socrates drank the poison. Claudius ate the poison. Romeo drank the poison.

Our default structure is agent-verb-object.  This basic construction leaves out intent. Socrates was coerced, Claudius was unaware, and Romeo willingly took his own life.

Notice how when I added intent and context two of the three examples went from active voice to passive: Socrates was coerced, and Claudius was unaware.

To keep agency, I would write the Athenian jury sentenced Socrates to death, and Agrippina poisoned Claudius so her son Nero would inherit the throne.

I’ve always viewed active voice as the stronger writing style. It tells a better story. Now I see it also shapes how we assign accountability and even blame.

THE PRACTICE

I’m curious to explore this more. I’ll start close to home, mining examples in meetings and emails. I’ll have fun diagraming sentences and asking how they imply responsibility.

I’m eager to explore the research. Boroditsky co-authored two papers that I’ve downloaded to read: “Constructing Agency: The Role of Language” and “Who Dunnit? Cross-linguistic differences in eyewitness memory.”

I also ordered a copy of Guy Deutscher’s Through the Language Glass. Or should I say a copy of Guy Deutscher’s Through the Language Glass has been ordered? Nope.