I'm reading '1984' - and I'm horrified
It's talking about how horrible the world has become. And I'm thinking, 'Oh, that's sad.' People have no shoes, they have little food, their houses are falling apart, the government is lying to them, their language is being 'cut to the bone'... Wait, what!? A sickly sense of loss and hopelessness washes over me. Their language is being destroyed! Nothing has grabbed me the way this has. This is when I realize how awful their lives are.
Language! You can't take that from people. It is the essence of who we are, as people and as people groups. It's a beautiful thing, one that allows us to think and to grow (which, of course, is exactly why Big Brother is doing away with it). One of the examples put forth by a 'philologist' (a horribly inaccurate term for this man, as far as I'm concerned), is that there is no need for antonyms. Why have 'good' and 'bad', when you can say 'good' or 'ungood'? And why have so many adjectives? You don't need 'excellent' and 'splended.' 'Plusgood' will cover it.
What!? No! Those words mean different things! Part of what makes language so beautiful is the subtle nuances that words can convey.
Also, as '1984' points out, having a limited vocabulary not only allows a person to think less, it requires that a person thinks less. Look at the difference between people now and people of, oh, let's say Tolkien's day. I think of him and of Lewis and of all the other Inklings, and can't help but mourn the fact that there aren't people like that anymore. People are no longer deep thinkers. Just listen to how people speak.
This is one of the reason's Tolkien was so adament that people need to use a variety of words. (This, and the fact that he thought they were a beautiful gift from GOD.) It is why he believed we shouldn't dumb down our speech for children. If we dumb down our language for them, they will just get dumber.
I hope Tolkien never read this book. If I'm this mortified, I can't imagine how he would feel.
Language! You can't take that from people. It is the essence of who we are, as people and as people groups. It's a beautiful thing, one that allows us to think and to grow (which, of course, is exactly why Big Brother is doing away with it). One of the examples put forth by a 'philologist' (a horribly inaccurate term for this man, as far as I'm concerned), is that there is no need for antonyms. Why have 'good' and 'bad', when you can say 'good' or 'ungood'? And why have so many adjectives? You don't need 'excellent' and 'splended.' 'Plusgood' will cover it.
What!? No! Those words mean different things! Part of what makes language so beautiful is the subtle nuances that words can convey.
Also, as '1984' points out, having a limited vocabulary not only allows a person to think less, it requires that a person thinks less. Look at the difference between people now and people of, oh, let's say Tolkien's day. I think of him and of Lewis and of all the other Inklings, and can't help but mourn the fact that there aren't people like that anymore. People are no longer deep thinkers. Just listen to how people speak.This is one of the reason's Tolkien was so adament that people need to use a variety of words. (This, and the fact that he thought they were a beautiful gift from GOD.) It is why he believed we shouldn't dumb down our speech for children. If we dumb down our language for them, they will just get dumber.
I hope Tolkien never read this book. If I'm this mortified, I can't imagine how he would feel.
posted by melilotnfosco | 6:15 PM
35 Comments:
So true, so true. I had a teacher in grad school who didn't allow us to use "very," because he wanted us to come up with different, better words. Because "very" doesn't really say anything. It was a good rule - it turned "very good" into "fantastic" or "delicious" or "wonderful." Words are so important.
that is a wonderful rule
Or maybe a delicious one.
:D
That's the passage I was planning on quoting on my blog for you (is it in chapter 5? I tried to remember that to look it up later:), but I had to wait til I got the actual book to get it right, and it's still checked out by someone else -- but just wanted to let you know that I thought of you immediately (which should be a compliment since you thought of Tolkien, right?;) ...and yeah, what a disturbing book!
it also makes me think of the snicket books & how he keeps suggesting that people who read a lot are usually good people :)
yay! People who read a lot ARE good people! Or at least, smart people!
remember in 'national treasure' when nicolas cage is reading the declaration of independence and says "nobody talks like that anymore"?
I'm impressed how, in a post about the decline of language, you managed to sneak in the phrase "they're aren't"!
I wouldn't say we've lost the top level of philologists and wordsmiths, such as the Inklings, and I'd assert that literacy in general is on the rise (though I have no research at the moment to back me up). I would agree that the minimum level of effort that one is expected to put into a conversation, (or worse -- a debate), has seriously declined in the last ocuple of years. Two word sentence fragments suffice both for agreement and rebuttle. Punctuation and capitalization merely impede getting your point across (especially if one is on the internet). And arguing ad hominem is considered a perfectly valid way of winning a debate.
It's not so much literacy that's suffering, so much as decorum that's suffering, leading to the decline in eloquence.
well, la-ti-ta :P
and, yes, chelley, i am honored that you thought of me :)
You got me thinking more with you're "la-ti-ta" response. I've always worried about the whole anti-intellectual currents, and how they make it really hard to have a good discussion. At some point in time it became un-"cool" or even rude to express an opinion, and try to back it up with a proper argument. They don't really even teach rhetoric or vocabulary in school anymore. Trying to debate a point will have you labelled an "elitist", an "ivory-tower academician," or worse "intolerant". Thereafter, any evidence is simply ignored.
Why should one be ashamed of reading Tolkien - one of the best fantasy writers - or Orwell - one of the most thought provoking The best you can hope for is to find a group of people with whom you can discuss any topic, without fear of hitting on the wrong topic, or insulting someone by sounding "too smart".
Sorry for the disjointed post - there's just too many random tangents I want to go down.
Melilot, I'm glad I checked out your blog, because I love the way your posts and Chelley's are on different topics...but are really the same! And I like that both conversations revolve around the same theme: it's good to be smart, darn it! :)
hey! in a much more eloquent way, josh just reiterated my thought that you should start a tolkien discussion group.
(or did i reiterate his thought? since he posted first, but i wrote my comment before seeing his?)
hehe, sounds like we're all on the same page here & hanging out with the right crowd... now we just need to expand that crowd closer to our homes ;)
"reiterate" is actually redundant. "iterate" means to say something again/repeatedly.
it's hard to have a discussion group by yourself :(
and yes, chelley, we do all need to live closer!
"to say something again/repeatedly" is redundant
and on that note- I'll finally join the conversation!
I really bugs me when people use big words, or long sentences, unnecessarily. The best (and pretty much only good :) ) advice I ever got from my Dad was that if you can't explain something simply then you're not understanding it properly. This was when he was teaching at a Bible School and the kid's papers were driving him nuts. Too many times people use big words without understand their definitions. For example, labyrinth is a bigger fancier word than maze but in fact they have different definitions. It would not do to use labyrinth when one is actually talking about a maze and vice versa. We have a detailed vocabulary for a reason people!
when scout was about 4 and erma was 7, my dad decided to take the girls to an ice maze. he asked them if they wanted to go walk through the maze. they both gave him confused expressions as he tried to explain to them what a maze was. finally i said, "he wants to take you to a labyrinth." their faces lit up as they both said, "oh!"
In high school we had a teacher who really liked language. We had a word of the day - including a full etymological history from the OED. He gave us tasks where we were to write a tale with words with no more than one part.
An additional task was to put to script a story without invoking that illicit fifth symbol, normally so common in writing.
fifth symbol? what's that?
The letter 'e' - it's hard to describe the problem under it's own constraints.
'again' implies once, 'repeatedly' implies over and over
"including a full etymological history from the OED" - i would love that!
informative update- those two posts about e were by my geeky um.. wonderful husband!!
Was it really a labyrinth or was it a maze?
I was looking for a quote about television for something else, and I came across this:
"What is being lost is the magic of the word. I am not an image person. Imagery belongs to another civilization: the caveman. Caveman couldn't express himself so he put images on walls." (Elie Wiesel, 1995)
I thought it was appropriate for this discussion...
i like it.
interesting, too, how we can see GOD in nature, but JESUS is called 'the WORD'.
i love that Jesus is called "the Word" (have we discussed this before?)
a word is a tangible expression of the intangible. we can't communicate clearly when we say "you know that thing that does the thing with the thing?" we need an appropriate word to express our thoughts and feelings. when God wanted to share His thoughts and feelings with us, He sent us Jesus.
In Bible study, our workbook asked to list some things in nature that speak to us personally about God's existence, and the first thing I thought of was language. It's pretty cool. :D
32 comments - good job. it's been a while since we've had such a popular post
I definitely have times when I want to go back to school and take linguistics. For the time being, though, I'll just have to be content with Wikipedia and The Language Log
ooh - that looks like it could be fun :)
what's even more exciting about the 32 comments, is that it is intelligent conversation (for the most part), not just me and chelley going back and forth saying that maks is woo-woo
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