A similar French expression refers to saying something at deuxième degré (literally, "the second degree"). I may say one thing explicitly-my first-degree message but the statement may have an unspoken subtext which is the second-degree meaning.
The use of second-degree messages is a feature of French litera-ture. Consider the seventeenth-century writer Jean de La Fontaine.
At the first degree, he wrote simple children's tales, but if you understand the contemporary context within which the stories were written, you may pick up his second degree of meaning a political message for adults. For example, La Fontaine's famous fable of the grasshopper and the ant conveys a straightforward moral that most children understand: It's important to economize to prepare for difficult times. But only sophisticated adult readers of his own day recognized La Fontaine's second-degree message-that King Louis XIV should stop spending so much money on rerouting the Eure River to supply water to the Versailles fountains.
In France, a good business communicator will use second-de-gree communication in everyday life. While giving a presenta-tion, a manager may say one thing that has an explicit meaning everyone understands.
Miss Clara was gasping with gratitude. Through tears,she kept saying, "this is too much, Helen,way too much,please stop. I don't deserve this."
But Gigi wasn't having it. She held both of Clara's hands , gently shaking them to get Clara to look into her eyes.
"Jesus loves you,and so do I." , Gigi said. That was the end of the discussion.
Gigi didn't make a distinction between your burdens and her own. She truly believed the message of Gospel. She saw loving and serving others not as a responsibility but as an honor. I never heard her gripe about working the graveyard shift. Never heard her say a negative word about my father,even though he had beaten her daughter. With her Bible in hand, her arms were open not only for us but for everyone.
Gigi was the moral compass that has guided my entire life.
Reklam
•moral message•Edebiyat
Chorus:
“Faustus is gone: regard his fellish fall,
Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise
Only to wonder at unlawful things,
Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits
To practise more than heavenly power permits.”
