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| Drama: Words Words Everywhere and Not a Thing to Read |
Posted by
callei on Friday, September 27, 2002 - 04:01 AM PST
It is my great joy and my terrible misfortune to be adequately educated in my mother tongue and to enjoy the written word. The ambivalence that I experience when I approach the Internet is therefore, at times, quite severe. I have an ordered mind, logical and methodical as a rule, and I do not enjoy the chaotic, unordered and inefficient language employed by other native English speakers, or in this case writers, but like a train wreck, I do slow down to view the carnage.
If we define language as the symbols that a human mind uses to relate, understand, and communicate the stimuli that it perceives and the emotions that it feels, then the logical assumption is that the Internet is being overrun with monkey. These monkeys with keyboards, in conjunction with a supercomputer to read the resulting scripts there by produced, are producing the majority personal web pages, 30% of corporate web sites, and the vast majority of consumer sites. No rational, cogent human would use a phrase like " I am a combination of a few beers (although I cut my drinking down anywhere to drinking from 1-4 times a month), and lifting a few weights." to mean that he has recently lost some weight due to cutting back on his drinking and getting more exercise. Do I need to elaborate?
In majority, my job is to correct these little lapses, to add some order to the disorder of language, in short to be a grammar nazi. I delight in my job. It is entertaining, enriching, and offers many opportunities to expand my horizons. But then, for the most part, I edit scholarly works; text books, educational websites, research documentation, and the occasional fiction book.
In the course of my mental labors, I turn to the Internet for reference material frequently. When I need to find the exact date of the end of the 100 years war, when I need the exact spelling of Freud's wife's family name, when some article or other is referenced from some magazine or journal, when I need that name of the captain of the first ship on which Darwin traveled I turn to the Internet. As I spend so much time looking for such pages, I invariably find all sorts of other pages on the way. I amuse myself while the tortoise like pages of academia load by reading whatever other page may catch my eye, or as is more often the case, to pick between the worse excesses that catch my attention. I quantify these pages into categories like "insane monkey", "rabid, snail-brained mouth breather", and "should have their computer confiscated immediately and with extreme prejudice".
I am an avid reader, truly avid. I read, on average over the last 20 years, four books a week, some thousand pages of fiction and often a thousand of non-fiction as well. My job is also to read and I consume nearly an entire textbook a week, including the majority of articles and books (in synopsis or abstract form) as well. Add to that my frequent and copious visits to Shmeng, my own site, and correspondence to my family, friends, business associates, and clients, and you have a day replete in the written word.
I am also a published writer, having produced both fiction and non-fiction, and have been quoted in newspapers and journals. I write rants at Shmeng and my own site, I write reviews of texts and educational sites, business proposals, and grant applications. I write research papers for my own sociological research as well, but that is, as yet, unpublished. These are my credentials for critique of others.
Literature, like other art forms, requires study to appreciate it's splendor and it nuances to its fullest, and like other arts, it can be distained by even the least educated dullard. Our education system do not teach the appreciation of this art any more than they teach the love of any other art, barring perhaps the art of war. This is, to me, indicative of the decay in both our empire and our social system.
This may not strike some of you as shmeng, but I assure you that, to me, it is very shmengy. To be assaulted by badly written, inarticulate, hatemongering or febrile, insensate 'views' is almost intolerable on the best of days. On my less forgiving days, I copy the text from these personal sites, correct it, and send it to the author with my condolences and a plea to attend an English class at their local college.
The few members that have met me face to face or with whom I have had long online correspondences, will, I am sure be able to confirm that not only do I write copiously, albeit that that the words are infested with amusing typos, but that I am often stenatorial in manner and tone; that in fact, I am didactive and long winded.
This ignorance bothers me as much as mall rats bother bettie_x, drama bothers Devin, or agnostics bother Bible thumpers. I am frustrated that schools refuse to teach the one most important life skill, that parents are hindered by their illiteracy and thereby restrict their progeny with their example, and that the well-written word is shunned in business. And like bettie_x, Devin, and the Bible thumpers, I am dependant on it for my amusement and paycheck.
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| Words Words Everywhere and Not a Thing to Read | Login/Create an account | 37 Comments |
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Re: Words Words Everywhere and Not a Thing to Read
by Ironboots on Sep 27, 2002 - 12:31 PM
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I heartily agree. People should learn grammar... and USE it. The occasional typo is not a grievous offense, yes, but when I visit a chat room, and every line is a verbal beating to the imaginary person who made English, it is wrong.
Of course, no politician/educator/administrator would make this their hallmark, because such a goal seems very small. The people want to hear about math and science scores, not writing... Who gives a rats ass about writing.
But reading and writing are key to learning other subjects. How are you going to dissect an intense physics book without a solid vocabulary? It'd take you an hour to get through the first paragraph. How are you going to prove that you're a hot shot mathmatician if you can't even write out a decent resume?
Oui... tv killed the book...
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Re: Words Words Everywhere and Not a Thing to Read
by Merry_Widow on Sep 27, 2002 - 01:00 PM
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And in this room, we have 1000 monkeys working away at 1000 typewriters, soon to create the best novel known to man...
It was the best of times, it was the BLURST of times?!!
You stupid monkey!!!!
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Re: Words Words Everywhere and Not a Thing to Read
by bettie_x (strangersangel@hotmail.com)
on Sep 27, 2002 - 06:47 PM
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The funny thing is, I have a friend that is from the slovak republic (exchange student that married one of my best friends! yay!) speaks FOUR languages...his native, english, german, and french.
And tho I can't understand the other three, I can understand english (most of the time, depending on who it's coming from) and he speaks it WAY better than anybody I know, myself included. He doesn't use sloppy conjunctions, he doesn't slur his words or speak "slang". And it irritates HIM that people that speak ONLY english can't even speak it correctly! He has an accent of course, but you can clearly understand him...and it just makes it that much funnier when he says "fuck".
I will go on a killing spree myself the day they make ebonics a legitimate "language" and have it taught in schools.
Excuse me, stewardess, *I* speak jive....
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Re: Words Words Everywhere and Not a Thing to Read
by Celria on Sep 28, 2002 - 02:04 AM
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I'm one of those people who makes no sence <--- note the bad spelling I try but I never try hard enough. people tell me that I speak beautifully, but I just can't write for crap *sigh* and i'm an avid reader! I mean I don't go through four books a week ( but I used to) but I read at phenominal rates and then can't get a thing down on paper or as it may be, computer.... well..... *sigh* if we are going to do simpsons quotes heres an appropriate one
me fail english?
thats umpossible!
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this her is 'da 2 pennys i got
by IamSquid (AAA@sockmonkeys.net)
on Sep 28, 2002 - 03:11 AM
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Where's the...um...metal dealy...yoo use to...dig...*motions with hand*...food?
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Re: Words Words Everywhere and Not a Thing to Read
by Comedian (eccentrically_long@yahoo.com)
on Sep 29, 2002 - 09:04 PM
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I am a failure of America's modern system of education. But that is not important. What is important is:
Tommys from Yee Olde Engalonde should not say "mother fucker." This is only for Americans.
All the assorted wogs from America should not say "bloody." This is only for the English.
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