Saturday, February 20, 2010
LEMME AKS YOU ABOUT COMMUNICATION
Ya know, with a generation of people texting to hell, all day, everyday, everywhere, you'd think that the population might have become a little more literate.
Educators were beaming a few years ago during the Golden Days of computers (about a 3 week period of time during early December 1995), saying that for the first time in ages, people were starting to actually read again. All to no avail.
Now, in order to get a real glimpse at how English Departments across this great land have failed and are failing, just go to any newspaper's "comments section" in their internet division on your computer and try to make some sense of the verbiage that is attempting to perpetuate itself as language!!
People are so interested in being heard that they arent paying attention to the most important part of communication: being understood!! If all you say means nothing because it cant be interpreted in any intelligible manner, then you may as well just turn on the "web ding" (or similar font) as you're typing and have at it!! (This btw is 'kiss my ass' in webdings font: - pretty difficult to comprehend, eh??)
Here's something that caught my eye about a year ago which touches on another pet peeve: people wasting time at work like its going outta freakin style. One of my first jobs was with a tyrant whose mantra was "save steps" He has contributed in large part to my total inability to get anything done AT ALL as a result of multitasking on a grand scale. I'm reading 25 books right now, to give you a glimpse at a small corner of the mania. But I digress....
Here is a photo that should be the poster-child-pic adjoining the dictionary definition of the word: total-waste-of-fucking-time (I think that's a word??):
But language and communication remain complicated parts of civilized life and I cant help but be amused by how people use and abuse it. One of the typical juvenile non-p.c. ways to mock Asians' attempting to speak English is to substitute the letter "r" for the letter "l" in a word. Example: Crab claws, which would convert into Crab cRaws. Amusingly enough, at one of my favorite Thai restaurants we noticed on the menu that one of those annoying juvenile non-p.c. people had obviously infiltrated the printing company and commandeered the printing press. Here is a photo of the deed in black and white from a portion of the menu:
For all intents and purposes, in order to be totally correct in mispronouncing Crab Claws one would have to not only exchange the 'R' for the 'L', but also exchange the "L" for the "R". Then, in true juvenile style, crab claws would be pronounced cLab cRaws...
Of course it's one thing to look at kids who are bemusedly imitating people's foreign accents but its another to realize that the people in the restaurant who sat down and put together the menu were not doing it as a bit of humor (altho it would be really funny if they had!!) It's apparent that their misuse of the English language isnt just a misunderstanding of the sound of the letters, it's actually an evolved process where, having heard the word mispronounced so often, it has become the de facto pronunciation they've come to understand. Here in southern Louisiana I've heard, and almost across the entire socio-economic strata, what would be referred to up north as the "ebonic" pronunciation of "ask" - that pronunciation being "aks" or "axe".
I chuckle with incredulity when I come across educated people saying that too, and am waiting to see that one on a menu somewhere - and I KNOW someday I will!!
Educators were beaming a few years ago during the Golden Days of computers (about a 3 week period of time during early December 1995), saying that for the first time in ages, people were starting to actually read again. All to no avail.Now, in order to get a real glimpse at how English Departments across this great land have failed and are failing, just go to any newspaper's "comments section" in their internet division on your computer and try to make some sense of the verbiage that is attempting to perpetuate itself as language!!
People are so interested in being heard that they arent paying attention to the most important part of communication: being understood!! If all you say means nothing because it cant be interpreted in any intelligible manner, then you may as well just turn on the "web ding" (or similar font) as you're typing and have at it!! (This btw is 'kiss my ass' in webdings font: - pretty difficult to comprehend, eh??)
Here's something that caught my eye about a year ago which touches on another pet peeve: people wasting time at work like its going outta freakin style. One of my first jobs was with a tyrant whose mantra was "save steps" He has contributed in large part to my total inability to get anything done AT ALL as a result of multitasking on a grand scale. I'm reading 25 books right now, to give you a glimpse at a small corner of the mania. But I digress....
Here is a photo that should be the poster-child-pic adjoining the dictionary definition of the word: total-waste-of-fucking-time (I think that's a word??):
But language and communication remain complicated parts of civilized life and I cant help but be amused by how people use and abuse it. One of the typical juvenile non-p.c. ways to mock Asians' attempting to speak English is to substitute the letter "r" for the letter "l" in a word. Example: Crab claws, which would convert into Crab cRaws. Amusingly enough, at one of my favorite Thai restaurants we noticed on the menu that one of those annoying juvenile non-p.c. people had obviously infiltrated the printing company and commandeered the printing press. Here is a photo of the deed in black and white from a portion of the menu:
For all intents and purposes, in order to be totally correct in mispronouncing Crab Claws one would have to not only exchange the 'R' for the 'L', but also exchange the "L" for the "R". Then, in true juvenile style, crab claws would be pronounced cLab cRaws...Of course it's one thing to look at kids who are bemusedly imitating people's foreign accents but its another to realize that the people in the restaurant who sat down and put together the menu were not doing it as a bit of humor (altho it would be really funny if they had!!) It's apparent that their misuse of the English language isnt just a misunderstanding of the sound of the letters, it's actually an evolved process where, having heard the word mispronounced so often, it has become the de facto pronunciation they've come to understand. Here in southern Louisiana I've heard, and almost across the entire socio-economic strata, what would be referred to up north as the "ebonic" pronunciation of "ask" - that pronunciation being "aks" or "axe".
I chuckle with incredulity when I come across educated people saying that too, and am waiting to see that one on a menu somewhere - and I KNOW someday I will!!
