I read the TV Guide poll on “What’s really happening on Lost?” a while ago and even then was sorely disappointed with their answers. It was obvious that the survey staff had chosen the responses themselves and then had participants choose, because people in the fandom have come up with much better explanations than “they’re all dead.”

So today, while looking for translations of the Korean parts of the script, I happened upon a bunch of message boards with posts containing riffs on the “Shore Leave” theory. And they got me thinking about not just polar bears, but also a lot of other things that don’t fit on the island. As I see it, the things we need to explain are: the survival of the castaways, the existence of Ethan and Company, the locked door, the power source, what made the French expedition crazy and/or dead, and the monster (which I call the Beastie). Here we go, and comment me if I don’t make sense….. Continue reading →

As a linguist, I’m highly disappointed in the castaways of “Lost.” In the time they’ve been on the island, not one of them has truly attempted to either 1) learn a few words of Korean or 2) see if Sun or Jin is open to being taught a few words of English. Instead, in painfully true-to-life (but rapidly aging) fashion, they’re relying on the highly effective (*snort*) method of talking really loudly and slowly. Mostly we see this with the English speakers, but last episode it was great to see Jin doing it right back in Korean.

What really disappointed me was that, from what I’ve seen, last week’s episode should have included less crosstalking comedy and more communication, simply due to Jin’s counterpart being Hurley. He’s not a linguist as far as we know, but he is the Guy Who Gets Things Done ™. He has a hefty dose of common sense and “aha” ability, and the wherewithal to act on what he perceives. If any of the major characters were to try to compile some sort of papyrus dictionary, it would be him. And considering that the need to communicate with the Koreans has actually been articulated, unlike the need to take a census or build a golf course, if this weren’t TV, by now he’d probably have either been doing it or found someone else to. Admittedly, though, if he had, we may not have gotten to see that, on the island, the Talk Really Loud method of intercultural communication is universal. Which is comforting, in an odd way: we may not understand each other, but there’s at least something in our communication mechanisms that’s the same.

We re-watched Pirates of the Caribbean a few nights ago, and noticed that Jack Sparrow also has a compass that doesn’t point north, just like Locke on Lost.

Clearly, Locke’s compass points to the Isla de Muerta! It’s in the wrong ocean, but they were off-course…