Saturday, January 22, 2005
aye A timely meditation
Terror is a reaction, not an action.
Friday, January 21, 2005
eye Liquid Language
Reference:
brainhell
Post Date: Friday, January 21, 2005 - 7:10 a.m.
Post Name: Effect vs. Affect, round two
In the evolution of language, common use trumps standard use every time. Common usage is why, for instance, we no longer speak the old English in which Beowulf was written; common usage is why a junior high student finds her first dalliance with Shakespeare confounding. Thus, what's important about language is not what a dictionary says about the use of a particular word or set of words. Dictionaries contain a degree of obsolescence the moment they are published, which is why they are republished at regular intervals. The importance lies in how words are used and understood as people swap them about.
In the art of language (aside from the evolution of language) the most important skill is the ability to play: Allowing nouns, verbs and adjectives to mix themselves into verbals, adjectivals and nominals; paying close attention to onomatopoeia; luring conjunctions and articles out of hiding; a willingness to consider the semantic extension of turning any word into an exclamation; remembering that accepted English grammar was stolen from Latin, which had little to do with English usage and, as time goes by, has less and less to do with it; in general, rolling up one's oral and intellectual sleeves and getting one's tongue and mind dirty with language.
Thus, when an argument arises about "correct usage", the "exceptional" language player knows that the importance of the argument doesn't lie in which side is "right", nor, even, which side "makes sense" from a standard usage perspective, but what side reflects and furthers the inevitable evolution of language. As well, in the example of weather and tomatoes, it does, indeed, make sense to a gardener, for instance, that weather cultivates and even frequents the availability of tomatoes, depending on which semantic sense of "cultivate" and "frequent" one decides to understand.
Take it from the French intellectuals who decided, some years ago, to officially close French in an effort to keep it pure: Such an endeavor is always frustrating and inevitably doomed.
brainhell
Post Date: Friday, January 21, 2005 - 7:10 a.m.
Post Name: Effect vs. Affect, round two
In the evolution of language, common use trumps standard use every time. Common usage is why, for instance, we no longer speak the old English in which Beowulf was written; common usage is why a junior high student finds her first dalliance with Shakespeare confounding. Thus, what's important about language is not what a dictionary says about the use of a particular word or set of words. Dictionaries contain a degree of obsolescence the moment they are published, which is why they are republished at regular intervals. The importance lies in how words are used and understood as people swap them about.
In the art of language (aside from the evolution of language) the most important skill is the ability to play: Allowing nouns, verbs and adjectives to mix themselves into verbals, adjectivals and nominals; paying close attention to onomatopoeia; luring conjunctions and articles out of hiding; a willingness to consider the semantic extension of turning any word into an exclamation; remembering that accepted English grammar was stolen from Latin, which had little to do with English usage and, as time goes by, has less and less to do with it; in general, rolling up one's oral and intellectual sleeves and getting one's tongue and mind dirty with language.
Thus, when an argument arises about "correct usage", the "exceptional" language player knows that the importance of the argument doesn't lie in which side is "right", nor, even, which side "makes sense" from a standard usage perspective, but what side reflects and furthers the inevitable evolution of language. As well, in the example of weather and tomatoes, it does, indeed, make sense to a gardener, for instance, that weather cultivates and even frequents the availability of tomatoes, depending on which semantic sense of "cultivate" and "frequent" one decides to understand.
Take it from the French intellectuals who decided, some years ago, to officially close French in an effort to keep it pure: Such an endeavor is always frustrating and inevitably doomed.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
I My Inaugural Address
Subject: On the Occasion of Your Second Inauguration
From: Gail Hudson ieyeayeai@cableone.net
Date: January 19, 2005 - 2134
To: President George W. Bush president@whitehouse.gov
Please do not assume that you and your administration have the mandate of the American People. I am a United States citizen, a registered Independent voter, an American Person and you do not have my mandate. According to the election results, I am in good company; almost half the electorate of the United States of America has not extended their mandate to you.
It is important, I think, that you understand that this election has aroused the political interest, awareness and energy of a huge segment of not only the U.S. electorate but the general population. We have retrained our political eyes on our country, its policies, its elected officials and, most importantly, its pulse. None of us, whether we supported you or another candidate, is apt, in the wake of this presidential election, to drop our vigilance nor our reclaimed ability to enter into the arena of political decision making.
Many of us do not believe that this country needs to be healed of the divisiveness of this recent election but rather needs to be healed of our arrogant global insularity and our inability to serve the productivity, health and well-being of our beleaguered citizenry. Our interest in morality is not focused on the non-issues of gay marriage and whether the Abrahamic God is mentioned in political documents. Rather, we ponder:
Those of us whose mandate you have not been granted may have lost, in this election, the seat of the President of the United States but we did not lose our determination nor our sense that we count and can make a difference, regardless of who sits in the Oval Office.
Remember, President Bush, over these next four years, as you continue to spearhead our strategy in Iraq, choose judges for the highest court in our country and create policy that affects the lives of our bedrock citizenry, just because you cannot run for the office of President of the United States again does not mean that, for the next four years, you are allowed to do anything you please politically. The inner eagles of the many of us whose mandate you were not handed have taken flight.
Respectfully, with very high hopes for our country's next four years,
Gail Hudson
One of the Bedrocks
From: Gail Hudson ieyeayeai@cableone.net
Date: January 19, 2005 - 2134
To: President George W. Bush president@whitehouse.gov
Please do not assume that you and your administration have the mandate of the American People. I am a United States citizen, a registered Independent voter, an American Person and you do not have my mandate. According to the election results, I am in good company; almost half the electorate of the United States of America has not extended their mandate to you.
It is important, I think, that you understand that this election has aroused the political interest, awareness and energy of a huge segment of not only the U.S. electorate but the general population. We have retrained our political eyes on our country, its policies, its elected officials and, most importantly, its pulse. None of us, whether we supported you or another candidate, is apt, in the wake of this presidential election, to drop our vigilance nor our reclaimed ability to enter into the arena of political decision making.
Many of us do not believe that this country needs to be healed of the divisiveness of this recent election but rather needs to be healed of our arrogant global insularity and our inability to serve the productivity, health and well-being of our beleaguered citizenry. Our interest in morality is not focused on the non-issues of gay marriage and whether the Abrahamic God is mentioned in political documents. Rather, we ponder:
- The questionable morality of our involvement in Iraq;
- The dimensions of modern day political terror (considering that political terror is older than civilization) and what is so distinguished about it that we suddenly need to launch a terrible (forgive the pun but it's appropriate) war against what appears to be an inevitable human practice;
- The ethical divergence between the Patriot Act and both traditional and documented definitions of freedom in our country;
- The moral advisability of continuing to allow Big Business to run rampant over the economic vulnerability (which has increased in the last four years) of both U.S. and global citizens;
- The difficulty of politically determining morally based legal doctrine on the personal issue of a woman's right to choose to abort an unborn human and the use of fetal tissue in stem cell research.
Those of us whose mandate you have not been granted may have lost, in this election, the seat of the President of the United States but we did not lose our determination nor our sense that we count and can make a difference, regardless of who sits in the Oval Office.
Remember, President Bush, over these next four years, as you continue to spearhead our strategy in Iraq, choose judges for the highest court in our country and create policy that affects the lives of our bedrock citizenry, just because you cannot run for the office of President of the United States again does not mean that, for the next four years, you are allowed to do anything you please politically. The inner eagles of the many of us whose mandate you were not handed have taken flight.
Respectfully, with very high hopes for our country's next four years,
Gail Hudson
One of the Bedrocks
Monday, January 17, 2005
ai Epitaph for an Aquaintanceship
Not often, but once in awhile, I wish that my mind wasn't as finely tuned as it is. If it weren't I wouldn't know that I wasn't privy to ecstatic truths so I wouldn't miss them and I wouldn't suffer the bludgeoning of discouraging truths.
Tonight is one of those once in awhiles.
Tonight is one of those once in awhiles.
