[CLUE-Talk] Looks like our brains match \w+

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Thu, 2003-09-25 at 09:52, Jef Barnhart wrote:
> English has always been evolving. If I were you Zonker I would just get
> used to it. There are several things that are against you, and everybody
> for that matter.

I'm not against the evolution of English, I'm against blatant disregard
for existant rules of spelling, grammar and punctuation -- there's a
difference. 

> 1) Technology. (MMMmmm... technology)
>    Internet.
>    SMS text messaging.
>    Reliance on spell checkers and grammar checkers.
> The rate at which ideas and thoughts are to be conveyed is getting
> faster and faster. Speech is the fastest way to convey an idea. Think
> about how long it took me to write this message as apposed to standing
> in front of you speaking to you. People want to converse at the same
> rate as they would in a normal conversation.
> 
> Sally: gr8 :)

Actually, speech is not the fastest way to convey ideas -- pictograms
are very fast for conveying simple ideas. Images are faster than speech.
Speech is faster than writing, but slower than reading for many people
-- You can usually understand spoken communication at a faster rate than
most people actually speak. (This is why lectures are so boring. You can
process information faster than the speaker can speak.) 

Using emoticons and such in text messaging doesn't bother me, so long as
they stay there. 

> 2) Culture. 
>    Groups of people not willing or resisting to learn any language.
> Think about this next time that you are watching tv. MTV has more
> influence on the youth of America than some would like to admit.
> 
> Somebody: Shnizzile nizzle dog.(This is closer to slang.)
> Somebody else: I ax you where the soap.
> 
> There are some groups in in effort to keep their cultural heritage are
> hamstringing their kids. "I want my kids to know [insert here]."


This is the most worrisome. Slang and "youth culture" (whatever that is)
hasn't, in the past, prevented people from using proper spelling,
grammar and such in other contexts. If my 17-year-old brother wants to
shnizzle nizzle his way through conversations with his friends, that's
fine -- so long as he can write a college essay in proper English. 

> 3) The schools. (Sorry Roger, Rita.)
>    What more can I say. At least with the Aurora Public Schools my
> experience has been sub par. It seems that in an effort to get the
> schools to do better they are willing to label students. Well we cant
> get all the kids up to a national level so we will "cull" them for the
> best students. 

I wouldn't blame the educators -- blame the parents. Parents are largely
unwilling to fund schools properly (but don't cut the sports programs!)
and generally unwilling to enforce the necessary discipline in their
children to get them to learn. 

I had the experience of sitting in on a high school class last year. I
was shocked by the behavior of those kids compared to the way my
classmates and I behaved when I was in high school not so long ago --
they were blatantly rude, talking openly while the teacher was trying to
give a lesson. I know, every generation complains about the manners and
behavior of the generations that come after them... but, seriously, I
saw no respect for the teacher whatsoever in those kids. How can an
instructor function in that environment? I don't know. But it can't be
solely up to the teacher to control them -- they have to be backed by
parents, and they usually aren't. 

> In ending. We may be seeing the second renaissance of the English
> language. When Shakespeare was writing he was inventing words. Some we
> still use and some we don't. The internet is moving ideas at a pace not
> seen since the invention of the printing press. 

I've got to disagree on these counts: 

1. Communication has been severely affected by electronic communication
in general. Television and radio are still a far bigger influence on our
communicative habits than the Internet. Read "The Gutenberg Elegies" and
"Amusing Ourselves to Death" if you get the chance. 

2. Renaissance? Hardly. We're witnessing a decline, not a rebirth. Speed
is not a substitute for quality. What we're gaining in speed, we're
losing in many other areas -- reading comprehension is suffering from
the dumbing-down of print media. The ability to think logically is being
severely impacted by electronic communication -- we've replaced context
and linear and logical thinking with media that excel only conveying
emotion and non-linear, non-contextual information. Without writing a
mini-treatise on the subject, think about the difference between a book
and a television show. 

Everything on TV is ephemeral, fleeting and of equal weight. There's no
logic, no context -- it's completely normal to watch a TV news show that
contains 12 minutes of commercials, 2 minutes of sports, 4 minutes of
weather, and a few minutes of soundbytes posing as news along with some
feel-good clip about a saved puppy or something. The same announcers
that tell you the nation is in recession read the copy for the puppy
story in almost the same tones. Everything is of equal weight. 

A reader would be severely thrown, or should be, if they were reading a
story about the recession and job loss and suddenly find an anecdote
about a rescued puppy in the middle of the paragraph. Again, go read
"Amusing Ourselves to Death" -- Neil Postman does a far better job of
explaining this than I can in an e-mail.

Inventing words? That's not a big deal -- you have to invent new words
to deal with new concepts. What concerns me is the abuse of existing
words, such as "piracy" or "theft" when there are appropriate terms for
the concepts that people are trying to convey -- but they are eschewed
out of ignorance or deliberate intent to evoke emotional response that
is not warranted. 

It is not inevitable that the English language become corrupt, nor is it
mandatory that we accept the decline in standards in order for progress
to occur. I'm constantly correcting my youngest brother's writing, I
check his homework whenever he has writing assignments, and generally
try to make sure he understands proper usage. I don't care whether he
says "l8r d00d" to his friends when he's chatting on IM, so long as he
knows the difference between proper usage and knows when it is
appropriate to use slang or proper English. 

I would be curious to know whether other languages are suffering the
same problems. If it's a byproduct of the English language -- which is
pretty much a mutant mutt of a language anyway -- and the American
culture, or if this is a world-wide trend. 

Zonker
-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
jzb at dissociatedpress.net
Aim: zonkerjoe
http://www.dissociatedpress.net