“I told him I was 35, and he replied that he had already fathered two children by the time he was my age. Since I had to admit I hadn’t, he advised: ‘But you should, because otherwise, when you are dead, no part of you will live on.’ For want of a better reply, I mentioned that I write and that maybe there was a chance that some of my writing would survive me. He agreed: ‘That’s not too bad, because you can never be sure that children will say what you want them to; with writing it’s different, it always does.’ Staggering out of the cab, I couldn’t help thinking: ‘Well, does it, really?’” – Jan Verwoert
“I think there are people who like languages who don’t necessarily want to communicate with other people, they just like the medium. I have a feeling I’m like that most of the time. I like languages for their grammatical idiosyncrasies – when I come across a rare verb form in Arabic it makes me laugh out loud. I like the different ways they sound, the way Slavic languages are chewy, the way Spanish and Scots use rolled r’s for a sort of verbal pinball, the way Danish has a sort of archipelago of half-submerged consonants. This is not obviously a recipe for world peace… Part of the attraction of a different language, though, is that the mind, immersed in this new medium, finds the possibility of a different self. When people do ugly things they don’t use a separate language for them – so the words we use every day, ‘if’, ‘and’, ‘the’, ‘but’, ‘you’, bring back memories of that ugliness. If you escape into a different language you leave all those ordinary words behind; the words of the new language are innocent, harmless, have no history.” – Helen DeWitt (via.)
Handmade Looking Writing
Reviewing “Lesser Panda,” by Sarah Morris at White Cube in London, The Guardian’s Adrian Searle recently wrote “Technically, Morris’s paintings are so accomplished there is nowhere for them to go. They are what they are and do what they do, resolutely declaring themselves as both product and spectacle.”
But…
Next to a Sarah Morris painting I feel sweaty, awkward, street-soiled and gangling. There’s not a bleed of paint, an errant hair or a fly trapped anywhere in the paint. If Morris’s horizontals or verticals ever appear off-whack, it is because the world is wrong. Euclid would run screaming from the room.To witness such perfection in a handmade object is wearying. Even Mondrian was allowed blips. Barnett Newman was positively sloppy. Morris’s unremitting dazzle is somehow soulless and inhuman, which I guess is the intention. However much the colour sings and the Olympic quoits jump and shuffle about, the general effect is alienating.
Reading that, I was reminded of an interview with Margaret Kilgallen, where she said she tries her best to make her lines even, but she doesn’t mind some asymmetry or crookedness as it is the sign of a human touch.
Will the Kilgallen way ever be the prevailing attitude toward online writing: the idea that a typo here or there is just the sign of a human being behind the text?
Were an artist to seek “perfection” in every painting, the end result would likely be fewer paintings. Some artists are better at it: a tighter grip, keener eye, or a number of other reasons can enable more precision. While it is true there is some laziness to letting a line get crooked, I don’t know of any art critic holding it against an artist unless it’s obvious.
Published writers aren’t allowed mistakes. To many, any kind of error proves absence of authority. Previously, we discussed the unlikelihood of conversational artificial life any time soon. The English language just has too many words, each nuanced with a number of scarcely interpretable resonances. But someday we’ll be talking to robots and they’ll be writing our press releases. And when they do, will it seem cool to let go a misspelling or a grammatical error here or there? You know…just to keep the reader on his toes.
The amount of email we all struggle with means if you aren’t born with a copyediting sixth sense, you probably made several errors today. The l33t-speak “teh” once seemed to signal “I’m too busy to backspace.” (Don’t we often feel that way? I’ve got something like 50 emails weighing on my shoulders and I’d love it if half the future recipients wouldn’t be offended if I type the message out as fast as I think it.)
Also, we make tradeoffs with our time. Time is allocated depending on the priority of the recipient. A document I turn in to my employer is edited line by line several times. But with emails to friends, I don’t just skip spell check — sometimes I don’t read it over before pressing send (which usually leads to clarifications in the Re:s, but anyway!) My blog is somewhere in the middle. Fretting over the spelling and grammar eats into the short time I have to write the posts. And writing out my ideas is the point of this blog. That being said, it’s the first page result googling my name, and on the off chance someone important is checking it out, I don’t want to appear hasty or incompetent.
That’s what spelling and grammar is all about: appearances. There are people out there who, no matter what you accomplish in life, will view you as at a third grade intellect if your tenses don’t match.
Tech Dirt recently wrote:
There’s a class of folks (you know who you are!) who are well known in any kind of written forum/blog/email list etc. It’s the infamous “Grammar Nazi.” There are nice Grammar Nazis — and we appreciate those — and then there are the obnoxious Grammar Nazis who like to imply that you are the stupidest person to ever touch a keyboard because you mixed up affect and effect. From my perspective, I certainly appreciate the folks who point out the grammatical errors we make (we try to fix them quickly, if it makes sense), though I often find it silly to get bogged down in some of the minutiae of certain grammar rules that for all intents and purposes are almost universally ignored.
He also explains a nice Grammar Nazi (”usually emails us privately”) and the obnoxious kind (”always, always, always posts their comments publicly.”) By the way, if a writer does happen to write “you’re” instead of “your”: yes, he probably does know the difference, dearest helpful readers. Those of us without the sixth sense sometimes type homophones when we are working fast.
What is particularly vexing about the correctors is the implication that someone who makes typos doesn’t deserve to write. This is the belief of elementary school English teachers, at least when I was growing up. Points were docked for misplaced commas or misspellings, so the person with the highest grade didn’t necessarily write the greatest essay.
The best editors aren’t the best writers. I like the first draft quality of Philip K. Dick’s books. Maybe Gertrude Stein wasn’t as self-aware as people thought, when it came to her run-on sentences. I hate to think the reason modern literature is such a wasteland these days is because the genius novelist we’ve been waiting for was turned away by a Random House editor, “Ah, he can’t spell.”
Art by Sarah Morris.
Previously:
Saying Yes and Hearing No
Open Source Art: Will There Ever Be Another Lily Chou-Chou?
Alright, Sokay: Tomorrow’s English Language
The New Wave of Neural-Advertising in Michael Crichton’s “Looker”
Saying Yes and Hearing No
Steven Pinker, extolling the virtues of human language, observes that information is the sole commodity that a person can give away and keep at the same time. I would add that sexual pleasure is also something that a person can confer on another and personally enjoy simultaneously. The linkage between sex and language can further be divined by noting that the English language tacitly acknowledges that sex was the primary force behind the evolution of speech. I doubt that it is mere coincidence that the word ‘intercourse’ has two common meanings, only one of which refers to speech.
- Daniel Dennett
The best advice I’ve heard in a long time, comes from a trashy women’s magazine I picked up at the gym the other day: “aim to hear the word ‘no’ at least three times a day.” Like most good advice, I’ve yet to fully integrate it into my life (I’m at the “maybe” and “we’ll see” one or twice a week stage.)
For their fall collection, Viktor & Rolf sent their models down the runway wearing the word “No” written in makeup on their faces or sewn into their clothes. Models without a cause. But the fashion designers called it female empowerment. And it is, I guess. People generally dislike saying “no,” more than they dislike hearing it — it means you’ve been challenged. Saying it can burn a bridge. Hearing it can be a great motivator.
But the economic principle of diminishing marginal returns (one scoop of ice cream is nice, two is better, three is alright, and four scoops is worse than none at all) definitely applies to this advice: hearing “no” more than three times a day would be demoralizing to the most blissed-out zen yoga instructor.
Is there anything worse than disputing a balance with a call center representative? They’ll tell you “no” three times in a single sentence. This week’s New Yorker goes behind the scenes of Avoke, a voice software company that measures the exact moment a caller breaks from “cold anger” (”in which words may be overarticulated but spoken softly”) or “hot anger” (”in which voices are louder and pitched higher”) to full-on WTF?!???!?!?
The article mostly explains the difficulty in programing a computer we can talk to both by hearing and speaking language. One major speed bump: we have a lot of words that mean the same thing, just with subtle nuances. Take the word yes:
Even a simple concept like “yes” might be expressed in dozens of different ways –including “yes,” “ya,” “yup,” “yeah,” “yeahuh,” “yeppers,” “yessirree,” “aye, aye,” “mmmhmm,” “uh-huh,” “sure,” “totally,” “certainly,” “indeed,” “affirmative,” “fine,” “definitely,” “you bet,” “you betcha,” “no problemo,” “and “okeydoke” — and what’s the rule in that? At Nuance, whose headquarters are outside Boston, speech engineers try to anticipate all the different ways people might say yes, but they still get surprised. For example, designers found that Southerners had more trouble using the system than Northerners did, because when instructed to answer “yes” or “no” Southerners regularly added “ma’am” or “sir,” depending on the I.V.R.’s gender, and the computer wasn’t programmed to recognize that.
One of my friend Iris’s favorite words is “yes.” She notes, “around the world, ‘yes’ or its equivalent frequently tops surveys as the most beautiful word in a given language; for you, too, is it the only word that you really want to hear?”
But how often do we hear it? Most positive responses are yep, ok, sure, will do, etc etc. What else could a film called “Yes” be about other than bodice ripping? The scarcity of “yes” in daily discussions must have something to do with its frequency as bedroom utterance.
When John Lennon first met Yoko Ono, he walked up a ladder to read a single tiny word with the aid of a magnifying glass: “Yes.” Then there is Molly’s soliloquy in Ulysses closing the book famously with the words “..yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”
Interestingly, the Irish language has neither “yes” nor “no” (A fact that surely didn’t escape James Joyce when he wrote that.) Per a Wikipedia article that’s since edited, but is archived on Answers.com: “In it to indicate a positive or negate response to a question, the verb of the question is repeated in either the positive or negative form. For example (verb underlined)”
“An bhfaca tú an timpiste?” (”Did you see the accident?”)
“Chonaic.” (”Saw.”)or
“Ní fhaca.” (”Did not see.”)
The terms Sea (”is so”) and Ní hea (”is not so”) mean “yes” and “no”, but can only be used in response to the question An ea? (”is it so?”).
Previously:
- Alright, Sokay: Tomorrow’s English Language
- Open Source Art: Will There Ever Be Another Lily Chou-Chou?
“No one can read our thoughts, for now, but some scientists believe they can at least figure out in what language we do our thinking.” – MSNBC
Alright, Sokay: Tomorrow’s English Language
sokay
(also okay) informal
- exclamation 1 expressing agreement or acquiescence. 2 introducing an utterance.
- adjective 1 satisfactory. 2 permissible.
- adverb in a satisfactory manner or to a satisfactory extent.
- noun an authorization or approval.
- verb (OK’s, OK’d, OK’ing) give approval to.
— ORIGIN probably an abbreviation of it’s ok.
Oxford English Dictionary Online, Updated: 30 November 2035.
Fast contractions like the Brit-ism “innit,” and filer words (”um, like”) are constantly moving in and out of our daily lexicon. Why not “sokay”?
“Sokay,” says the waitress when the other waitress bumps into her tray with a “sorry.” You say “sokay,” to the guy saying “pardon” for almost pushing you out of the metro in rush hour. It’s the knee-jerk polite-ish response to the knee-jerk polite-ish apology, barely considered at all; sometimes uttered so softly neither party even hears it. You can’t just say “okay,” as that implies, “Oh, so you are sorry, well I recognize that.” Only “it’s okay,” assures the other person you didn’t take the bump personally.
Language is a constantly evolving thing. Soon few will know what a “swiftboat” was, or more dismally, who John Kerry was, but the term will continue on as it so narrowly defines a common campaign tactic. Lots of our language comes from election year rhetoric. “Keep the ball rolling” refers to “Victory Balls,” ten-foot diameter globes of tin and leather, General William Harrison’s supporters pushed from rally to rally in the presidential race in 1840.
There are a few theories about the origin of “OK”, but at least two refer to that same election’s victor (and incumbent) Martin Van Buren. “Orl korrect,” the 19th century jokey way of writing “all correct” was a Van Buren slogan. Plus, his nickname Old Kinderhook provided the initials.
What is known is that one of the first instances of OK appearing in print was in the spring of 1839 by the Boston Morning Post:
It is hardly necessary to say to those who know Mr. Hughes, that his establishment will be found to be ‘A. No. One’ — that is, O.K. — all correct.
So if OK stands for “all correct,” wouldn’t it be “AC”? Not exactly, says linguist Erin McKean, who points out that the word was intentionally misspelled. Much like the way people on the Internet shorten or abbreviate words when typing, OK was misspelled on purpose.
“For instance, a lot of kids online spell “cool,” “k-e-w-l,” says McKean, senior editor for U.S. dictionaries at Oxford Press. “They know how to spell cool, but it just looks cooler to spell it “k-e-w-l.”
Blame the kids. Now with the internet and mobile phones they have even more ways to pervert spelling and definitions. Kent State researchers consider instant messaging a separate language. “They found that what looked like nonstandard features of written language were, actually, the standardized features within the IM language. The language of instant messaging was found to be informal, explicit, playful, both abbreviated and elaborated, and to emphasize meaning over form and social relationships over content.”
Teens abroad have a subversive vocabulary based on the predictive text on mobile phones
Key words are replaced by the first alternative that comes up on a mobile phone using predictive text — changing “cool” into “book”, “awake” into “cycle”, “beer” into adds”, “pub” into “sub” and “barmaid” into “carnage”.
Those expressing excitement with the old-fashioned text phrase “woohoo!”, now use the far more hip “zonino!” instead. The replacement words — technically paragrams, but commonly known as textonyms, adaptonyms or cellodromes — are becoming part of regular teen banter.
And the older generation — many of whom already struggle with simple text language — are being thrown into yet deeper confusion.
Then again, they called uncool things “pants” long before test messaging.
More than technology, the increase in non-native speakers who might use English only online is going to totally change our language, as Michael Erard explained in New Scientist a few months ago. There will be countless pigeon forms, not just Engrish, but dialects of the sort that you find in African “English-speaking” countries. My friend’s brother-in-law in Nigeria claims he can’t understand her accent. Erard’s article makes the interesting observation that nonnative speakers communicate best with other nonnative speakers. The grammatical structure is too complex.
You probably know it’s “a lot” not “alot,” and flinch when someone says, “they mailed it to my friend and I.” You know what “hopefully” and “momentarily” really mean, but use the colloquialisms nevertheless. But what about “had” before a past-tense verb? Or hyphenating adverbs?
I’ve never understood why some people get crazy angry about “alright,” but grammatical excellence seems to have less to do with English language preservation than it does ritual and initiation. (Yes, I’m trying to find a way of explaining that without using the dreaded E-word.)
When I checked “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” out of the library, I hoped it might cover any grammatical terrain my K through BA public education didn’t. But basically the author says do whatever you want so long as it means exactly what you want it to (i.e. the panda isn’t shooting anybody or going anywhere.)
Garance Franke-Ruta writes:
As blogs move us into a less heavily copy-edited world, I sometimes wonder if we’re moving back into a more 16th and 17th century form of writing, where the idea of correct spelling was less important than the communication of meaning — which, in reality, can be accomplished just as well with incorrectly spelled words and homonyms as with a more perfect language. And also: as we move ever deeper into this new world of speech-like writing, will the perfect, formal language of the page one day seem as antique and elaborate as Victorian silverware?
The success rate of dyslexics should finally dismiss using spelling and grammar as an indicator of intelligence. But besides that, the size, lighting and composition of a computer makes it less than ideal for reading compared to a piece of paper. This makes line-by-line editing a drag for most of us. Maybe it even draws latent dyslexic tendencies from people who don’t otherwise have a problem. Yet this is the device almost all of us use to write. While I’m sure some people are good at spotting errors no matter what the medium. I’m not one of them.
BestWeekEver’s response to a letter suggesting a “copy editor or a lively seminar on the Strunk and White classic Elements of Style is in order” is a classic:
we’re a f*cking blog. And this is the Internet. Though there are many confusing similarities between BestWeekEver.tv and the Harvard Review, the simple fact is the latter is written and edited by erudite men and women of learning, while the former is barely cobbled together by hungover ne’er-do-wells with poor command of the English language and whose lives are generally in shambles. I’m not familiar with this “Strunk and White” of which you speak, but I will assume it’s one of those “book” things I hear so much about from old-timey people. These “books” are like short, boring internets, yes? Forgive me for not caring about them.
The most annoying thing about someone correcting written grammatical errors is the assumption the writer is unaware of the difference between possessive and plural. Why there isn’t more research about how fingers following some rote process, sometimes press the wrong key — usually a homophone — is really surprising.
Related links:
- “The Future of English?” by David Graddol
- Matt Ygelsias’ cake
- Engrish
- “Um…: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean” by Michael Erard
- “Going Nucular” by Geoff Nunberg
- Who is to Blame for “Under the Bus”? Newsweek
- “Do You Speak American?” PBS on the Ebonics debate
- Futurismic on “The Future of English”
- “Read My Slips: Speech Errors Show How Language Is Processed” Science
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