Goodbye, cruel words

[Dave (imported)]

>>I find this interesting and humorous.

>>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... v=national

Below the Beltway

Goodbye, cruel words: English. It's dead to me.

By Gene Weingarten

Sunday, September 19, 2010

The English language, which arose from humble Anglo-Saxon roots to become the lingua franca of 600 million people worldwide and the dominant lexicon of international discourse, is dead. It succumbed last month at the age of 1,617 after a long illness. It is survived by an ignominiously diminished form of itself.

The end came quietly on Aug. 21 on the letters page of The Washington Post. A reader castigated the newspaper for having written that Sasha Obama was the "youngest" daughter of the president and first lady, rather than their "younger" daughter. In so doing, however, the letter writer called the first couple the "Obama's." This, too, was published, constituting an illiterate proofreading of an illiterate criticism of an illiteracy. Moments later, already severely weakened, English died of shame.

The language's demise took few by surprise. Signs of its failing health had been evident for some time on the pages of America's daily newspapers, the flexible yet linguistically authoritative forums through which the day-to-day state of the language has traditionally been measured. Beset by the need to cut costs, and influenced by decreased public attention to grammar, punctuation and syntax in an era of unedited blogs and abbreviated instant communication, newspaper publishers have been cutting back on the use of copy editing, sometimes eliminating it entirely.

In the past year alone, as the language lay imperiled, the ironically clueless misspelling "pronounciation" has been seen in the Boston Globe, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Deseret Morning News, Washington Jewish Week and the Contra Costa (Calif.) Times, where it appeared in a correction that apologized for a previous mispronunciation.

On Aug. 6, the very first word of an article in the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal was "Alot," which the newspaper employed to estimate the number of Winston-Salemites who would be vacationing that month.

The Lewiston (Maine) Sun-Journal has written of "spading and neutering." The Miami Herald reported on someone who "eeks out a living" -- alas, not by running an amusement-park haunted house. The Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star described professional football as a "doggy dog world." The Vallejo (Calif.) Times-Herald and the South Bend (Ind.) Tribune were the two most recent papers, out of dozens, to report on the treatment of "prostrate cancer."

Observers say, however, that no development contributed more dramatically to the death of the language than the sudden and startling ubiquity of the vomitous verbal construction "reach out to" as a synonym for "call on the phone," or "attempt to contact." A jargony phrase bloated with bogus compassion -- once the province only of 12-step programs and sensitivity training seminars -- "reach out to" is now commonplace in newspapers. In the last half-year, the New York Times alone has used it more than 20 times in a number of contextually indefensible ways, including to report that the Blagojevich jury had asked the judge a question.

It was not immediately clear to what degree the English language will be mourned, or if it will be mourned at all. In the United States, English has become increasingly irrelevant, particularly among young adults. Once the most popular major at the nation's leading colleges and universities, it now often trails more pragmatic disciplines, such as economics, politics, government, and, ironically, "communications," which increasingly involves learning to write mobile-device-friendly ads for products like Cheez Doodles.

Many people interviewed for this obituary appeared unmoved by the news, including Anthony Incognito of Crystal City, a typical man in the street.

"Between you and I," he said, "I could care less."

E-mail Gene at weingarten@washpost.com.

[Riverwind (imported)]

How true and it get worse all the time, don't you just love it

River

[tugon (imported)]

I try to never end a sentence with a preposition. Of course if I am talking to an attractive young man I might end a sentence with a proposition.

[StefanIsMe (imported)]

It's even worst than this.

I've had applicants at work, high school grads, who's emails are filled with "Ya that sounds good ok ill be there 2morrow lol" bullshit. I'll even call them on it, and the responses I get are frequently along the lines of "Yeah, but you know what I mean, and isn't that the real point? Just to get your point across and be understood?"

What utter shite. These kids (and adults) who don't give a rats ass about even TRYING anymore when online inevitably don't give a damn when at work either, and next thing you know, you have a bunch of retarted-sounding L33T's at your workplace sending emails to clients that look as if they were written by drunk, dropped-out dock workers, flailing their fingers at the keyboard while singing "Hehe! Lookit me, I'm typing!"

I hate sounding old, but no doubt; texting and IM's are destroying SOME users capacity to write, let alone give a shit, about decent English.

At least I don't have to hire them. Actually, if they are as pathetic as the example above, I not only don't hire, but also tell them exactly what kind of work they can expect in the future if they don't start at least trying to write well; my garbage can is always nearly overflowing at my department, and they are welcome to empty it for me for a nickle.

[DeaconBlues (imported)]

As usual, I have strong feelings both for and against the point of view in the original post.

My feelings AGAINST the point of view offered by the writer Gene Weingarten are mostly brought on by very very unpleasant memories of numerous "English Majors" and English teachers, and "writers" who have made it their life long crusade to destroy any real communication between people. Recently, my son's English teacher has found her way on to a list of people I really don't like.

Seriously, I would like to ask some of our better "word kings" here, what is it about learning the finer points of the English language that makes people become total ASSHOLES? I am not kidding here, seriously and honestly I would like to know. Why is it that people who teach English are almost universally petty, extremely irritable, pedantic, didactic and RUDE?

I can understand that teaching English can be difficult, as are many other things, yet other people who are doing difficult things are not nearly as likely to be total assholes as English professors and teachers.

Honestly, I think that many of the "grammar police" sorts, who think they are helping the English language, are like the pervert child molesting priest who think they are furthering Christianity. Any good they might have done has been negated and totally reversed because of the bad delivery method.

Now, on the other hand... I am so so so sick and tired of trying to wade through some truly lousy articles in magazines and newspapers. The best example of some really bad writing I have seen recently was written by... Gore Vidal of all people, who teaches English (how's that for irony?). I positively hate reading "ne1?" when someone means "anyone?" or the NUMBER "2" used instead of the properly written "to" or the NUMBER "4" instead of the properly written "for."

Ultimately, I agree with the writer as he laments the death of the English language, it is truly a sad thing. But I think it is very wrong to lay the blame completely upon "this new generation" or the educational system in the U.S. today. I honestly believe that the very people who most loudly lament the death of our English language are themselves the ones most responsible for the demise.

[Riverwind (imported)]

Another sad thing is that the Light bulb is gone, GE stopped production on them Thursday 9/23 forever. May they rest in peace.

River

[gareth19 (imported)]

>>I find this interesting and humorous.

>>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... v=national

The English language, which arose from humble Anglo-Saxon roots to become the lingua franca of 600 million people worldwide and the dominant lexicon of international discourse, is dead.

The end came quietly on Aug. 21 on the letters page of The Washington Post. A reader castigated the newspaper for having written that Sasha Obama was the "youngest" daughter of the president and first lady, rather than their "younger" daughter. In so doing, however, the letter writer called the first couple the "Obama's."

verbal construction "reach out to" as a synonym for "call on the phone," or "attempt to contact." E-mail Gene at weingarten@washpost.com.

This is all nonsense. English has been constantly evolving, and self-proclaimed experts have found fault with expressions for centuries without having any effect on the development of the language. So what if youngest is used with only two? Does the same reader object to the crass illiteracy of nearer? Near is a contraction of neigh-er so near-er would be neigh-er-er; btw neigh-est becomes next. And let us remember that those self-appointed gurus of the language, Strunk and White, recommend the vulgar illiteracy of persons as the plural of person, apparently having never heard of people which is the suppletive plural that has been employed by such writers as Thomas Jefferson and Winston Churchhill. And the apostrophe for the possessive is an imbecilic illiteracy that was foisted off on the English public by the same eighteenth century savants who misspelled rime as rhyme in the mistaken belief that a perfectly good Anglo-Saxon word (related to rim as the edge of the line of poetry) was a Greek immigrant akin to rhythm, a fact that demonstrated both that they had no sound knowledge of the history of their own language nor an ear for poetry, for, as John Milton observed, rime "is no true musical adornment" to poetry (that is, it has nothing to do with the metre and rhythm). As for the possessive, it derives from the Anglo-Saxon genitive OE cyninʒes > ME kinges > NE king's; the apostrophe represents an eighteenth-century misunderstanding that king's is a contraction of king his. Hence the defense of the apostrophe is the defense of stupidity, not of an actual linguistic feature.

I will not go into the nonsense about preferring Dorothy pulled out the witch's broomstick to the perfectly grammatical and idiomatic Dorothy pulled the witch's broomstick out beyong observing that Dorothy pulled it out is grammatical while the supposedly "superior" *Dorothy pulled out it. is most assuredly not grammatical, but I will note that grammarians of the 1950s found the use of contact as a verb particularly offensive, insisting that one didn't contact anyone, but rather made contact with someone.

[Dave (imported)]

I think I still have my copy of Edwin Newman's STRICTLY SPEAKING which was a humorous book on this same topic.

I get the all day giggles when I read:

"eeeks out a living" kinda means screaming at a mouse (Eek Eeek) rather than ekes meaning scratch for every penny existence. Do poor housewives climb on chairs and tables when they see mice? I know some cultures pay mourners to cry a funerals but what culture would pay people to stand in the poorer neighborhoods caled out "Eek, Eek" for a day?

"Doggy Dog World" which is like a matronly lady petting a poodle and going nice doggy instead of the more rabid and bloody Dog Eat Dog world meaning vicious, nasty competition.

"spading and neutering" sounds so cruel to me. Much crueler than "spay and neuter" meaning to render pets incapable of reproducing rather than digging a grave {?} with a spade for the female animals and neutering (being the removal of male parts). Too cruel for me.

"Prostrate cancer" is one of those mispronounced and misremembered images of some sort of bloody ugly cancerous flesh representing (how about re-pee-senting) a human organ laying at my feet as opposed to the tiny, round organ properly named the prostate gland that makes peeing hard in your old age. When I describe it that way, I think of the ugly resemblance of a bladder dressed in purple on a golden throne and some poor guy begging on his knees or actually lying prostrate on the ground praying to this bladder to let him "make water" as the children say because he drank too much beer last night.

[Arab Nights (imported)]

Seriously, I would like to ask some of our better "word kings" here, what is it about learning the finer points of the English language that makes people become total ASSHOLES? I am not kidding here, seriously and honestly I would like to know. Why is it that people who teach English are almost universally petty, extremely irritable, pedantic, didactic and RUDE?

QUOTE]

Learning the finer points of English has nothing to do with it. They were born that way and then became word kings.

Like Deacon, I have two feelings. One is that the experience of writing a 750 word extended definition of 'green' in college still haunts me. I clearly am a 'C' person when it comes to communicating in the written language. The other is that of continually correcting my kids so that they do not become adults thinking they can say 'me and Elliott', etc. I tell them that I understand their friends talk that way, but they are going to grow up knowing an alternative English.

I want the last 'LOL' to be on me.

[bobover3 (imported)]

Incorrect grammar and usage is RUDE. It expresses contempt for those with whom one is pretending to communicate.

My pet peeve is the use of "advocate for" in place of advocate. Even the NY Times might write "he advocated for peace" in place of "he advocated peace." In this context, "for" is meaningless.