9.23.2002
first, I shall weigh in with a belated happy birthday to Chad, captain of this blog-ship.
And I shall register my disgust with the degradation of the English language that is so pervasive in our society. A few years back it was Ebonics. How dare we white folk look down our linguistic noses at people who are merely speaking a 'dialect' of English? Now it is the mangling of the written word. Both are equally stupid. At least Ebonics is amusing. Until you have to ask directions. Then it is confusing.
One of my pet peeves has been the commercialization of the *ight suffix. as in Nite, Brite, and Tite.
One gets used to the hacking of normal speech until one reads well written pieces from people (ppl?) like Shakespeare and Donne and others from that time, as well as people like Bradbury, Lewis and Orwell from more recent times. Bradbury, particularly, and Lewis to a lesser extent, had a cadence with their words that would put the best rappers to shame. Orwell could clearly abstract the pertinent details out of a social environment and apply them seamlessly to a seemingly unrelated story (ala Animal Farm).
Oh well. I must not complain too loudly, because my email communication has known some abbreviations and emoticons, but there should be a difference between what one IRC's (or IM's for those with more pedestrian tastes), and what one writes. I think there should, anyway.
Well. I am tired. Ergo, I sleep. Maybe I shall have more of the interesting and entertaining dreams that have been traipsing though my brain as of late. It seems to be the only interesting thing I have left.
jeff
"To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come?" -Shakespeare
And I shall register my disgust with the degradation of the English language that is so pervasive in our society. A few years back it was Ebonics. How dare we white folk look down our linguistic noses at people who are merely speaking a 'dialect' of English? Now it is the mangling of the written word. Both are equally stupid. At least Ebonics is amusing. Until you have to ask directions. Then it is confusing.
One of my pet peeves has been the commercialization of the *ight suffix. as in Nite, Brite, and Tite.
One gets used to the hacking of normal speech until one reads well written pieces from people (ppl?) like Shakespeare and Donne and others from that time, as well as people like Bradbury, Lewis and Orwell from more recent times. Bradbury, particularly, and Lewis to a lesser extent, had a cadence with their words that would put the best rappers to shame. Orwell could clearly abstract the pertinent details out of a social environment and apply them seamlessly to a seemingly unrelated story (ala Animal Farm).
Oh well. I must not complain too loudly, because my email communication has known some abbreviations and emoticons, but there should be a difference between what one IRC's (or IM's for those with more pedestrian tastes), and what one writes. I think there should, anyway.
Well. I am tired. Ergo, I sleep. Maybe I shall have more of the interesting and entertaining dreams that have been traipsing though my brain as of late. It seems to be the only interesting thing I have left.
jeff
"To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come?" -Shakespeare
< 23:52 >< /j >
