Silence
Silence is a relative or total lack of
sound. An environment with sound below 20
decibels is considered
quiet or
silent.
Silence has been a part of the rituals surrounding
Armistice Day since its inception, after the idea was first proposed by an Australian journalist,
Edward George Honey, and later implemented by
King George V of the United Kingdom. A two-minute silence is held at 11am, "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" (the time at which the armistice became effective), both on Armistice Day itself and on
Remembrance Sunday. In the early years of the century the two minutes were very fully observed, even to the extent of traffic stopping in the streets. The practice declined somewhat (except as part of the Remembrance Sunday ritual itself) but regained popularity in the 1990s, partly through the agency of the then prime minister
John Major. The two-minute silence was first observed in
Cape Town,
South Africa in 1916 following the publication of South Africa's first casualty list of
World War I. Sir Harry Hands, the Mayor of Cape Town, ordered a two-minute silent pause, to follow the firing of the
Noon gun, in commemoration of those lost.
Such silences, usually of between one and three minutes, are now quite often observed wherever large numbers of people are gathered, to commemorate the deaths of people who have died tragically or after a distinguished life, such as the murdered toddler
James Bulger, the football manager Sir
Matt Busby, or the
Queen Mother in April 2002.
The normal British convention is two minutes of silence (though
Buckingham Palace suggested one minute for
Diana, Princess of Wales on
6 September 1997). This dates from the first Armistice commemorations in 1919, where the original proposal of one minute was increased to two by the
King. The victims of the
September 11, 2001 attacks were commemorated by two minutes' silence in the UK, three elsewhere. The
2002 Bali bombing was commemorated with a one-minute silence on
5 July 2003. There were international silences of three minutes each on
15 March 2004 for the
11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings and on
5 January 2005 for the
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. On the evening of
8 April 2005, the lights were switched off in houses throughout
Poland and five minutes of silence observed to commemorate
Pope John Paul II.
The victims of the 7 July 2005 London bombings were remembered by two minutes of silence throughout Europe at noon on 14 July. There were also two minutes of silence throughout the United Kingdom on 7th July 2006 to mark one year since the bombings.
One widely recognized symbolic
gesture of silence consists of a forefinger laid vertically across the lips. Comic emphasis is achieved with a gesture of thumb and finger
zippering the mouth shut. For the cultural misunderstanding that made Harpocrates an emblem of silence from Roman times, see
Harpocrates.
In the United States and other Western cultures, it is sometimes difficult to interpret the message being sent by a person being silent (i.e. not speaking). It can mean anger, hostility, disinterest, or any number of other emotions. Because of this, people in Western cultures feel uneasy when one party is silent and will usually try their best to fill up the silence with small talk.
Note that the above paragraph is based on a common misconception. In most mammals, silence is an expression of empathy. Voice is an manifestation of fear, which may result in anger or hostility.
The
Western Apaches use silence during times of uncertainty or
anger in the way most people in Western cultures would be vocal. The goal is to observe and anticipate what the other party is going to do.
In
Joy Kogawa's
novel Obasan, silence is a
symbol of victimization, a sign of the overbearing memories which burden us. Its characters have been silenced by
repression.
Silence has played a key role in many musical works. One famous example of silence in music is the respected composer
John Cage's work , which consists entirely of
four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence. Cage had this to say about silence: "Until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of music."
Argumentative silence is the
rhetorical practice of saying nothing when an opponent in a
debate would expect you to say something. Poorly executed, it can be very offensive, like refusing to answer a direct question. However, well-timed silence can completely throw an
opponent and give the debater the upper hand.
An
argument from silence (
Latin:
argumentum ex silentio) is an argument based on the assumption that someone's silence on a matter suggests ("proves" when a
logical fallacy) that person's ignorance of the matter. In general,
ex silentio refers to the claim that the absence of something demonstrates the proof of a proposition.
The
right to silence is a legal protection enjoyed by people undergoing police interrogation or trial in certain countries. The law is either explicit or recognized in many legal systems.
Violation of the
right to quiet enjoyment is a
common law tort.
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Silent film*
Silencer*
Retreat for the religious meaning of silence.
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Silent letter for a letter that does not correspond to any sound in a word's pronunciation.
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Ralph Lichtensteiger on Silence & Music*
Site of Silence
