hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr0734.txt

Episode: 734
Title: HPR0734: The Language Frontier Episode 4.5
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0734/hpr0734.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-08 01:40:41

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Laughter is a form of communication that is the same no matter what language is being spoken.
Hi, welcome to the language frontier.
I've got some listener emails today and then we'll get into just how all this language stuff
that governs our lives actually works.
And yeah, it's been great getting some feedback.
The listener comments have been totally diverse.
Please keep them coming to the language frontier at Yahoo.com.
Okay, so, dear language frontier, you put forth some intriguing ideas that I've been thinking about a lot,
especially the idea that language defines physical reality.
I would like to hear more examples of this and that's from Neil H.
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Dear language frontier, your show is great.
Thank you.
And it's got some pretty bold statements.
Some of them I agree with.
Some of them I'm not so sure about.
When you say that language defines physical reality,
aren't you just saying that the way we express our perception of the world is defined by the way we are able to vocalize it?
It doesn't seem like language defines our reality,
but that our reality is expressed with the vocabulary and the language we happen to know.
And that's from Robert N. in Columbia.
Robert, thanks for the feedback.
And I think you make a good point.
But I think we're saying different things.
I agree with you that the language we are born into colors the way that we express our perception of the world.
But there is evidence that we are directly affected by language.
And Neil, this is for you.
One of the most powerful ways that language can be used to shape and define reality is with law or legal writing.
Let's look at a couple of examples that demonstrate just how tricky legal definitions can be.
This article references the case of exempt funds.
As in social security and veterans benefits, dead collectors cannot collect out of these sources.
They are exempt according to federal law.
Probably because millions of people depend on them to live.
Federal law in the United States says, quote,
Creditors can't take social securities and veterans benefits to pay debts and quote.
However, the practice is widespread because there is no established process for enforcing the federal prohibition
and federal law does not state who should tell the recipients of social security and veterans money about this exemption.
This illustrates two main points of the nature of the language of law.
One, language can be used to bury information and backlog and overwhelm what could,
and oftentimes should be a simple process and two, the power of definitions or wording work around.
It says here that many recipients don't know their funds or exempt on the social security administration.
The administration's website, it doesn't say that these funds are exempt.
Basically, the only way for these senior citizens to know about the exemption is by seeking legal aid.
The banks say it is not their job to tell recipients about the exempt status of their social security checks.
Or check whether an account contains cash from these exempt sources and the dead collectors say it's not their job.
To find out if they account they are issuing a garnishing order against contains money from social security or veterans benefits.
So it's up to the oldsters and the disabled people to find out for themselves.
But where is this information written down? It's actually in the state codes.
But how many people know where to go? Look for that. Look it up. Read about it.
Let's look even closer at how language in the form of paperwork can be used as a tool to achieve a goal, namely to collect money.
Interestingly enough, even though this money is legally exempt from the outset, seniors and the disabled are made to file paperwork proving that their benefit is exempt.
I'm not sure of the difficulty in identifying social security payments is just that. According to this article in the Wall Street Journal,
the banks see the deposit on this computer screen as automated, credit, US treasury, sock, sack. That seems fairly intuitive.
What some debt collectors do, according to legal aid offices, is automatically deny exemption claims and just drag out the process.
Repeatedly filing garnishment orders to the banks who often go ahead and freeze these seniors accounts and subsequently collect fees for doing it.
As far as definitions go, banks are able to take funds out of the social security and disability checks too, but they do it in a much more word-based and therefore direct way.
Banks say the federal ban on taking social security benefits to repay debts does not apply to them because they aren't really collecting debts.
Banks cite the doctrine of set off, which says banks can collect money that customers owe them by taking it directly out of the customer's account.
This is supposed to work to expedite things like a routine fee or a monthly charge, but banks apply it broadly to other money customers owe them.
Banks argue that when they take cash out of a customer's account, including cash from social security checks, they aren't collecting a debt, just setting off what's owed them.
Banks will cite the deposit agreements they have with their customers that say the bank can use money in customer's accounts to set off debts to the bank.
As whether the bank believes its set off right makes it legal to seize from these exempt funds, this particular bank said in a statement,
in cases when we offset accounts for dealing with loans, we as a matter of policy exclude exempt funds.
They say that, but then they do what they say they aren't going to do.
A Georgia State college law professor said of this quote,
It's an abuse of the right to set off to use it to take money from social security funds.
Banks are flouting in federal policy and, quote, and they're flouting it with language.
In another case,
they will only have bank of America.
Of a pending California lawsuit brought on behalf of retired and disabled social security benefits recipients against Bank of America,
B of A said in a statement,
quote,
It isn't collecting debts, but balancing accounts out of new deposits and, quote,
My point is, this is all language.
Language and this broad interpretation of language allows banks and collectors to illegally seize money.
Powerful stuff language.
Thank you for listening to Haftler Public Radio.
HPR is sponsored by Carol.net, so head on over to C-A-R-O dot N-E-T for all of her students.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.