nothing to do with Walter

“If you are a responsible cat owner then you'll have them neutered” said my neighbour as she appraised the two little ginger bundles I'd just brought home for my children.

The reason why particular things people say remain with me can often stay a mystery for years. There was nothing monumental about what she'd said. It wasn't out of character and I don't have lengthy, in depth or important conversations with my neighbours either – so why would this sentence be something that I would repeat to myself over and over again, at different times, with a kind of passive but slightly enquiring wonder?

I don't know.

But I am going to see if I can find out.

Reading 'The Sirens Of Titan' by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. seems to have raised the currency of my neighbours comment – as I am repeating the phrase more often.

I'll begin with an analysis of the sentence from a structural, grammatical and semantic perspective:

If you are

Conditional from the start

a responsible cat owner

A category of moral worthiness with predisposition to the following action

you will have them neutered

-taken on it's own – a straightforward order. The action which is desirable (to her)

No doubt, if these words had been spoken to her husband, they would not have needed the conditional prefix. An order would have sufficed. I should then, possibly, be more acquiescent in the face of her tacit acceptance that I am not a man who she feels she can give orders to. However, her self assured certainty in the creation of a condition of which she alone is the jury and judge seems to me a little, no, a lot – autocratic. Even authoritarian. And moralistic. Particularly in that she was talking about cats which are, in fact mine and not hers.

The further function of her sentence was to notify me in advance of the class of persons I would be joining should I see fit to do anything other than that which she has deemed as 'responsible'. Such is my judgement pronounced in advance, no doubt justifying any further comment or action she might seek to take in the future.

At no point is any of her opinion held up as moot or open to modification or even question.

OK

Having established some clarity in the basic meaning and function of this sentence, I have decided to go in search of other – real life- examples of sentences spoken by other people. I hope that some examination of their context and speakers might enlighten me towards anticipating such behaviour at large and in general. I might then be able to formulate a better way of handling other such transactions with greater self awareness and self satisfaction. And to understand why this sentence has been so oft repeated by me to me....