Doina Ruşti		Patru bărbaţi plus Aurelius	Cămaşa în carouri	Lizoanca	Fantoma din moară	Zogru	Omuleţul roşu

A poor old man, father of three sons, was concerned about their fate. That is why, one day, according to the story, he ordered them to go to a master, and not any master, but precisely to the Red Man. The boys fulfilled their dad’s order and the task seemed easy: they had nothing to do but to say some words, different ones for each of them, from sunrise to sunset. Obviously, besides that, they were not permitted to use other words during all this time. The master did not submit them to impossible tests and did not want to deceive them, but he made them repeat some words for three years and at the end he paid them fairly with the right amount of money. The three brothers were very content and they started their journey back home. But their journey proved to be extremely difficult, because they forgot all the other words they had known during the three years while they had been repeating only one expression. Being found in front of a body, they were accused of murder and as soon as they pronounced the Red Man’s words, they were sent to hanging because those words were accusing them.

This story brings into discussion the three aspects of the linguistic communication: the name, the repetition and the programmed amnesia. Each of them refers to an important aspect of the symbolic communication and clears up the secret capacities of the word.

Semiotica (Editor in-chief. Marcel Danesi, Mouton de Gruyter), vol 172 - 1/4, p. 261,  2008 (ISI)

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