UKH

Dropped my phone while clambering over a wire fence. Noted its loss after about 100 ft of fighting head high ferns, thistles and young saplings over rough ground.

Tried to retrace my route back, thinking 'I'll never find it' and got back to the fence and found it there, thankfully just before the foliage went all cretaceous.

Now I've a bright yellow case for hiking, as oppsed to my nice autumn leaf themed one for everyday use!

Depends on location/having a mate willing to head back with you but switching on the find my  device/apple variant is a good plan. Means you can log into google from your mates phone and get the basic location and also have it ring regardless of whether it was left on silent or not.

I was once up on the moors practising micro nav, and realised I'd lost my phone. Retraced my steps on back bearings, back to where I last knew I had it, followed the course again and practically stood on it. Gave me confidence in my navigation skills, if not my trouser pocket design.

No signal on that bit of moor, so find my phone told us it was back at the car...

GTE

I've always wondered what "unlived" experience is imagined to be ...

It's called a 'risk assessment', I think...

I've never been in a high speed car crash. I know what a car crash is; I've heard people talk about them, seen them in films, driven past the aftermath of other people's crashes, and read about them in the news. I also have some knowledge about the possible consequences of a high speed car crash. But I have not ever directly experienced a high speed car crash for myself.

My experience of reading and hearing about car crashes is going to be very, very different to the experience of actually being in a high speed car crash.

There are many aspects of life that can only be truly appreciated and understood by actually experiencing them for yourself. Falling in love, becoming a parent, that perfect moment of flow when you are climbing, bereavement. Hearing about other people's experiences is never the same as actually living through something yourself.

Basically, experience of something can either be vicarious or lived. 

Thank you. The hostility towards "lived experience" really frustrates me because it always struck me as an entirely useful distinction, as you've described here much more clearly than my previous attempts to defend its value as a term. I assume the opposition is a combination of knee jerk dislike of a relatively new (at least in common use) phrase and the fact that it's often used in the context of discussions about "wokeness" in ways that also get many people's backs up separately from the term itself. In much the same way that lots of people who've never cared that much about the finer points of grammar suddenly start asserting that singular use of 'they' is grammatical nonsense that they just can't tolerate (it's not that they're at all intolerant of people's differences, you understand, it's just that they're a stickler for the rules of English).

Yeah I used the phrase lived experience on here once and some idiot had a massive go at me.

Dunno why, it’s a pretty commonly used, well defined term. 

Disagree. Experience cannot be vicarious. 'Lived' is a core inherent meaning in the word experience / experienced.

You're confusing knowledge with experience.

I can read about a star exploding. I can look at artists impressions etc. but no-one would say I've experience of a supernova. Likewise your example with a car crash: no-one should confuse your reading about it or talking about it eyc as 'experience'.

Anyway, pointless discussion based on my experience 😀

That's the "wisdom" provided by academics

(yes, I am cheekily goading several forum members )

If you listen to someone telling you about a really sad event in their life you will likely experience some sadness yourself. You have, through them telling you their story and you imagining what it might have been like for them, experienced a little bit of what it was like for them to have that experience. That is vicarious experience, empathy, "putting yourself in someone else's shoes". Call it what you want, through another person you gained some insight into what it was like to have an experience without actually having it, but that insight is always going to be limited compared to directly living through something.

You could say that strictly speaking what you experienced was more along the lines of an emotional response to an internal representation of someone else's experience that you have constructed from their verbal representation of their interpretation of their experience. But that's a little clunky, doesn't really capture what it is like to be in that situation, and language isn't an exact science.

I suppose that if people didn't so often claim experience and insight from positions of ignorance, and ignore the voices of people with actual direct experiences, then the linguistic distinction of "lived experience" might not have arisen in the first place.

Didn't see your edit as I'd left the reply box open a while. I don't think "knowledge" conveys the emotional component of what we are discussing.

But yes, it is a pointless discussion if you are after the "inherent meaning" because language doesn't have any "inherent meaning". It is noise and shapes that we choose to give symbolic meaning to. What is important is whether a linguistic representation of something is useful and agreed upon by those that use it.

I'd agree with that assessment.

If it actually is just about linguistic purity and efficiency, I dread to think how such people react when confronted with such outrageous linguistic perversions as metaphors: "If you care to check this spittle-flecked dictionary I think you'll find that 'cats and dogs' are four legged mammals and not an adjectival expression of intensity applicable to precipitation in its liquid form".

Your definition of experience is woolly then.   I prefer language to be clear and concise rather than messy terms used by people ignorant of the real meaning of words.

In my currency words like "experience" are too precious and useful to confuse.  After all, you would not like to be halfway up an alpine ice route only to find that your partner's claimed "experience" is just reading "Eiger, Wall of Death".  Innit.

Preference =/= reality. And there is no "real" meaning of words.

It appears to me that people use the term "lived experience" precisely because others have muddied the water by claiming to have expertise and experience of things that they really do not.

And if that kept happening to you, since you aren't in control of what other people say or do, your language use would probably evolve to address the issue.

People like to tell marginalised groups "I know exactly what it is like to be you, so I don't need to actually listen to you." "Lived experience" emphasises the fact that actually living something brings an important perspective. That emphasis would be unnecessary if people were less ignorant and close-minded to begin with.

Edit: if conciseness and clarity is actually so important to you, why describe a definition as having the characteristics of wool? A verbal representation of an abstract construct is clearly nothing like wool at all.

What you describe as vicarious experience is called knowledge. 

Gosh, you can’t possibly mean that there are words and phrases who’s meanings overlap with each other? Whoever would have thought/imagined/conceived of/believed it!?

As I said above, however, I don’t think “knowledge” adequately captures the emotional and empathetic component that I would associate with “vicarious experience”.

And I certainly wouldn’t claim that I know what it is like to be in a car crash, or to be a woman, or to be trans (to pick just a few examples). So “knowledge” perhaps isn’t as clear cut as you suggest if I can have knowledge yet still not know.

The interesting thing about language is often that is isn’t clear cut and static.

I’m sure we all do, but we also all use words and phrases every day that we’re completely unaware of the entomology of.  Added to that our language constantly evolves and the meaning of words has always changed over time.

There’s really no confusion caused by this term, context is everything. Your doctor tells you “from experience, I know this will get better in a couple of days” he’s seen it before. If he says “from my lived experience I know this will get better in a couple of days” he’s had it himself.

And come now, nobody is going to answer yes to “have you any experience of climbing the Eiger?” having read a book because of the existence of the term “lived experience”.

I bought an airtag tracker after I dropped my keys after failing to fully close my bumbag while running in the woods. My son bought one after he dropped his wallet while cycling in town.

(He got his wallet back intact thanks to an alert neighbour; I never found that set of keys)

I can't understand how I have got to this age without ever meeting the construct "lived experience". I don't like it, it goes into the bin along with "one of the only" as a modern, thoughtless, use of a once fiercely defended English language. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi....

Edit for spelling, I'm ashamed to say!

Given that the context of its use is usually marginalised groups who have been told their experiences aren’t real or don’t count, I doubt it came about “thoughtlessly” any more than it came about through “ignorance”.

Preserving it in stasis would kill that which is worth defending. It is a living language that owes its richness and beauty to centuries of dynamic change and evolution. I’m surprised how many of its self-professed champions would rather see it stagnant, dead and devoid of depth, nuance or interest.

I don't expect English to be stagnant, I would prefer if later additions could be considered as enriching the language rather than desecrating it. Obviously other opinions are available but these are examples of the kind of English up with which I will not put.

Thank goodness! Language would be far poorer for it if we enforced such a conservative and protectionist perspective.

To take an entirely different example, I know a lot of people who have forced themselves to lose their regional accents and dialects as they grew up because silly people made fun of them for not talking “Proper English”. I always think that’s really sad as different accents and dialects add so much interest to the language. Three cheers for the desecrations say I!

You do, at least, have friends in high places: https://www.itv.com/news/2019-07-26/itv-news-exclusive-jacob-rees-mogg-issu... 

Arrrghh! From the title I thought this was a thread about top tips people have learned. Looks like I've missed a pointless row on UKC. Well, up until now. 

I agree about regional dialects adding to the colour of spoken English, no problem there, and I don't agree with all of Rees-Mogg's style requirements. I now consider 'lived experience' as a phrase to be jargon, used by sociologists perhaps, as a technical term that is not required to follow the logic of proper English but has a use within the marginalised groups you mention. You win...

I'm hoping that's etymology. I hate creepy-crawlies.

One of my most used features on my Garmin watch is the find my phone feature where you can make it ring as long as you are in bluetooth range regardless of mobile signal. It also gives you a handy warm/cold display to see if you're getting closer. 

I was once getting some beer cans out of a stream that had been cooling there. It was dark and I had my phone in my teeth with the torch on (I didn't have my headtorch with me). I managed to drop my phone into the stream and watch the light head off down the stream leaving me in pitch darkness... 

I agree and of course that is the basis of much of art, especially the novel, play or film.

It's great to see Muphry's in action with pedants ... and to have an excuse to re-link this gem:

youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY&

Ha!  Well spotted.  

I’d say autocorrect did that, but it’s a lie. I can’t spell.

Sorry, but that made me laugh on a Monday morning!

Fantastic. I’d not come across that before, thank you. Though oddly enough, this thread did make me think of Fry as I always got the sense he would have little time for self-appointed defenders of “Proper English”. The Kennel Club analogy is perfect.

Must have been the old, pedantic Stephen Fry who was forever pulling up Alan Davies for his grammatical slips...

I so enjoy some of the threads here, even though I have little idea what is going on with them.

Dropped my phone on Dartmoor once. Walked over a km before I realised.  Walked back to the spot I last recalled using it.  Asked a couple who had just arrived there, if they had seen it.  The young lady looked down and it was right at her feet. In grass about 18 inches long.  A good day.

On a comedy quiz where as good friends their working relationship was clearly acted out for vicarious laughs.