Nathan Bierma writes about Naomi Baron's new book, "Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World." I've not read the book, and I doubt I will after hearing about her prescriptivistic attitude. She apparently cites the pace of our society, as well as its casualness, as being the causes of our "lowered standards." Balderdash! Her "evidence" is that advertisements have increased punctuation errors. Further, she explains why there has been an increase in typos in magazines and on the subway (I've not noticed that) here: "The issue, I suggest, is not just a devolution of proofreading skills but a quiet revolution in social attitudes toward linguistic consistency." Oh. my.
BTW, my husband and I did see a new book on Yiddish that's out. Now that looks good!
Lord Byron said, “Words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.” Language is indeed beautiful, and I will write about my love of words and poetry, including limericks and double dactyls. As the name of this Blog indicates, I will periodically comment on my favorite word. I hope my words will stimulate your thinking...and comments.
About Me
- Kalleh
- Chicago, Illinois, United States
- There's not a lot about me, really. I am fairly mundane. I was raised on a farm in Wisconsin, but always loved the big city. I absolutely adore Chicago. We might not have that wonderful weather of California or the history of the east coast (or Europe) or beauty of mountains...but it's a fine city. While I've been in nursing education most of my adult life, a few years ago I became interested in words, language and linguistics. My husband and I started a Web site, Wordcraft (www.wordcraft.infopop.cc), and my pursuits of words and language have been uphill ever since. Love the people there, too. Oh, and I have 3 beautiful children whom I am very proud of. But let's get down to epicaricacy. Please talk to me here because I am definitely a social being! And thanks for coming!
Web sites
- American Dialect Society
- Anagram Server
- Double Dactyl
- Dr. Grammar
- Eggcorn Database
- Epicurious
- Etymology Online
- Examining the OED
- Free Rice
- German/English Words
- Grandiloquent Dictionary
- Hyperdictionary
- Jesse Sheidlower's Site
- Luciferous Logolepsy
- OEDILF
- Online Books
- Online Thesaurus
- Phrontistery
- Poetry Society of America
- Queen's English Society
- Shakespeare Online
- Silva Rhetoricae
- Take Our Word
- The Devil's Dictionary
- Tiscali Dictionary of Difficult Words
- Unusual Words
- Verbatim
- Verbivore
- William Shakespeare Elizabethan Dictionary
- Word Detective
- Wordcraft
- World Wide Words
- Worthless Word for the Day
Blogs I Find Interesting
- A Cuban in London
- Alan's Blog
- Bradshaw of the Future
- Caterwaulling
- epea pteroenta
- Fritinancy
- Glottopedia
- Is It Irony?
- jerrys-house
- Language Log
- Languagehat
- Lexiophiles
- Motivated Grammar
- Mr. Verb
- Nathan Bierma
- nurse connect
- Out of the Middens; Straight from the Heart
- The Hitting the Road Again Blues
- The Longest Words in the English Language
- The Sperical Influence
- Uncle Jazzbeau's Gallimaufrey
3 comments:
Balderdash indeed. I am on-line all the time, and I see everything from elegant, perfect writing to incomprehensible jibberish. There is an increase in the use of text abbreviations, which was inevitable. But the increase in misspellings, punctuation errors, and syntactic garble is a reflection of the horrible state of our public education system, not a society-wide lower of standards.
Oh, it is so good to hear from you again! I had sent you and email, and when I didn't hear back from you, I was worried. I've been missing you!
"The issue, I suggest, is not just a devolution of proofreading skills but a quiet revolution in social attitudes toward linguistic consistency."
It sounds like all she's saying here is that we are becoming more tolerant of orthographic variation. If that's true, it's not necessarily bad. I don't think it's true tho.
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