Posted on 01/10/2005 10:26:26 PM PST by nickcarraway
When someone says, "just between you and I" cold chills run up my spine.
After reading your example,I quite despair of the future of our mother tongue.
Bump for later...
Those letters were indeed beautifully written.
I didn't mean economically, I meant in terms of breadth and scope. There is still art and classical music out there for those who care to search them out. The Von B. and Shakespeare comparisons are unfair since those works have endured. We don't yet what will endure from the mass of our culture.
That said, our language is becoming more technical in nature.
Welcome to the club.
English has been greatly enriched in the expression of new sciences. Much has been lost in verb usage. English is the most verb-rich language on earth (or it was). We are losing that, and I blame the friggin' teachers' unions.
End of rant.
Except for the Chuck Berry song, "Johnny Be Good" which is aboard the space ship we sent out 20 or so years ago to travel for eternity through space.
Alien cultures finding that gem will be perplexed for sure.
By the way I like the song.
If you go back 40-50 years,you'll see that even the most banal movies and T.V. programs had better word usage and much more varied vocabularies,than today's do. And should you go back to movies made in the 1930's,there's even a more yawning abyss.
I don't know -- there were still more than half a dozen papers in NYC in 1950. Perhaps I should choose one of the others. Afterall, the NYT was always considered upscale.
Years ago I bought a diary a homeless guy was selling on the street just off St. Marks. The diarist was a young girl circa 1930. The formality and over-blown romantic phrasing in it was maddening to read. However,the handwriting was beautiful.
What depresses me most is to read letters home from the front. Compare letters home from the Civil War to the Vietnam war.
This nation robbed her sons of the classical education they deserved. Rather than turn that around, the devolution has continued apace.
You like handwriting? It's my one wee vanity...I have an almost perfect Palmer hand.:-)
I can think of a half dozen rock songs that will endure 200 years from now. Universal themes and all that.
You're absolutely right;sadly.
Handwriting is fascinating in that it was considered a "status symbol" at one time, much like the ability to actually construct a sentence. A couple years ago I'm at the house of some whacked out European in California and he actually gave his children handwriting lessons. The tutor came in and instructed them on the care and use of a fountain pen, etc. etc. etc.
Arrrggggh! That means you could care less. What you mean is "I couldn't care less."
Just so you know, stupid white boys have been say aks for ask for, oh, at least 600 years ("I axe, why the fyfte man Was nought housband to the Samaritan?" -- Chaucer, 1386) and probably back well into Old English (as "acsian") for over 1,000 years. It was considered good literary English as late as 1535 ("Axe & it shall be given you." -- Matthew 7:7 in the Cloverdale Bible).
I'm sorry but I'm with the "liberal linguists" on this one. Languages change over time. The question is how much voice recordings will act to push back that change.
Incorrect contractions and homonyms irk me most.
What's wrong with that? Some people still use a fountain pen (I do!)and should know how to take care of it.
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