Thanks to reader Jeff, I became aware of this interesting article in The Atlantic by Luba Vangelova that tries to explain why English spelling is so quirky compared to other languages, making it a nightmare to learn, and resulting in children in English-speaking nations trailing those in other countries when it comes to literacy.
Why is English so different?
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Metaphors are excellent ways to make abstract ideas more concrete by providing a visual image of what you are trying to convey. But I am a little puzzled by people who use this device to bring up mental images that are so utterly distasteful that one does not want to even contemplate the image, which seems to defeat the purpose of using metaphors.
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In my writings, I use whatever words that come to my head and that I feel comfortable using and never go to a dictionary or thesaurus to look for the appropriate word. I do not gratuitously use swear words or scatological words unless I am quoting someone else. It is not that such words offend me (they don’t) but it is just not my style to use them. I also do not shy away from words that are not too commonly used as long as I think they exactly fit my needs and are not so esoteric that too many readers are baffled because its meaning is not clear from the context.
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The idiosyncratic spelling of English words is the bane of anyone trying to learn the language. Many people have come forward with ideas about how to make it more sensible, or at least remove some of the more absurd examples, but they have failed because languages tend to change from the bottom up, because some new usage emerges more or less spontaneously and then becomes the norm. Efforts to change things by fiat almost never seem to work.
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After broaching the topic of whether something that we all tend to agree is wrong (blackmail) should be illegal, I came across a comment on Pharyngula that, in the wake of the Avicenna plagiarism case, challenges another a popular belief, this time that plagiarism is wrong. Here is what commenter chimera said:
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Ed Brayton of Dispatches from the Culture Wars, who is the person who maintains and is responsible for the FtB network, gives the sad news that a fellow FtB blogger over at A Million Gods has been removed from the network because of serial plagiarism. The charge is that he lifted entire chunks from the writings of others without attribution.
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George Orwell warned that when a metaphor gets mangled, that is a sure indication that the writer is not actually thinking about they are saying but is in a kind of auto-mode, not visualizing the idea but just stringing together words that sound good but don’t really mean anything. It is a sign that the writer lacks conviction or does not care. I have observed that this is true for me, that the times when I have been in the auto-mode are when I make errors or say something that makes little sense when examined closely.
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Lee Zion is an editor of the Manchester (CT) Journal Inquirer and in his final memo to his reporter colleagues before taking up a new job, he gives them this useful bit of advice: Keep your sentences to less than thirty words.
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With the appearance of software that can detect plagiarism, those who are too lazy to compose their own prose have been forced to take steps to try and avoid detection. Thus the word ‘rogeting’ has entered the lexicon, coined by a lecturer in business information systems who found strange phrases in his students’ essays.
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Yes, this series actually is coming to an end! But not before I add some final thoughts.
Insults usually have no basis in fact. In fact, the more spectacular insults may have absolutely no contact with even reality. They are meant to inflame passions by ascribing qualities to the other person that, looked at dispassionately, may not even be derogatory. [Read more…]