The entrance to hell bears the following admonition: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That message, part of the 14th-century work, The Divine Comedy, by Dante, came to mind as I listened to a couple of famous people who should know better.<\/p>\n
Consider: The language of Shakespeare and Milton is being reduced to a few (very few) mono-syllables designed mainly to pique one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interest in partyin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, eatin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, cruisin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, and meetin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.<\/p>\n
But no, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s too harsh. Obviously, users of this form of communication have loftier purposes, but they need to express them quickly, before a cop spots them.<\/p>\n
Let me explain:<\/p>\n
Stopped at the sign at Seventh and Baca, on my way to work Monday, I got tapped. Thinking it was a buddy who knew me, I turned around but failed to recognize the tapper. Instead what I saw was an embarrassed teen behind the wheel placing her cell phone to her ear, obviously trying to disguise the fact that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been texting on her phone. Remember: Texting forces you to take your eyes off the road; mere chatting removes only your brain from the equation. Apparently, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been holding the phone on her lap while she tapped out an urgent message like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153LOL.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
I assume she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d simply let the car roll at the stop sign, so it hit mine. No harm. No foul. But the potential is there. Look around. Notice how many people glance up only after someone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s honked at them in a way that sends this message: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all right for you to move your car now, sweetheart; the light is now green. After you.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve written plenty in the past about the physical dangers of texting while driving. What about the endangerment of the language we speak? Thanks to cell phone texting, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ROFL\u00e2\u20ac\u009d somehow represents \u00e2\u20ac\u0153rolling on the floor laughing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Or about how each telescoped word takes us farther away from that skill called correct spelling. So, in addition to committing the crime of DWT (driving while texting), thus endangering other drivers, too many people annihilate the language in the process.<\/p>\n
The last time I graded a batch of papers as a teacher, evidence of text-write had emerged. The transformation of words like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153because\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u2122cause\u00e2\u20ac\u009d then \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cuz\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was a clue that something was amiss in the classroom. When I began teaching, in 1966, many students had trouble with apostrophe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, placing them in place\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where they didnt belong and omitting them when they shouldve been included.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trouble to include that pesky apostrophe when texting, so perhaps its simply easier to pretend it doesnt exist.<\/p>\n
Texting, the practice of tapping on the phone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mini-keyboard to send a written message to another, is culpable in this linguistic free-fall. But what about language usage itself?<\/p>\n
It used to be that the language considered proper and worthy of emulation was that used by mass media broadcasters such as Edwin Newman, Edward R. Murrow, Peter Jennings and Walter Cronkite. Now, announcer-celebrities like Katie Couric and Meredith Vieira set the pace.<\/p>\n
But, as evidence that we ought to abandon hope, here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how the two newscasters expressed themselves in separate recent appearances with Jay Leno on The Tonight Show:<\/p>\n
Vieira, explaining that she wished a happy birthday to someone whose birthday it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t, said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWhat are you talking about?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Later she said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m like \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI dunno,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when asked whether she ever remembers the answers to questions on the program she hosts, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Who Wants to be a Millionaire.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Discussing an overseas trip in which she ran into a celebrity, Katie Couric said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Suddenly, Mick Jagger walks in and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m like, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcHey, OK, hey, Mick.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In another context, she asks, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that Zazu\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? She continues, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcYeah, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the bird from The Lion King.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The force and certainty of observation is lacking in Couric\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prose, as, in her words, she \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sorta leaned toward him and he kinda recoiled.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Katie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kinda like tentative here, and sorta nervous.<\/p>\n
What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not to like about what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happening to English? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not like ready to despair, but the prospects for the language aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t, like, very good.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
It seems like eons ago that I started including my weight next to my name in this column. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a 30-pound fluctuation, all the way from a high of 234 pounds to 204, back up to today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s weight.<\/p>\n
In the process, some people who might not remember my name certainly remember my weight, even if they exaggerate it a bit. A while back, Alfredo Gallegos, my former schoolmate at Immaculate Conception, asked, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What are you up to now? 256?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He was not asking about my IQ, I surmise.<\/p>\n
Saturday, I met Horacio and Quirinita Martinez, retired educators in the Mora School system. Horacio asked me, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you the one who weighs 220 pounds?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
And later in the day, I met Dave Martinez, the store manager at Franken Tires. He too recalled that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a man of poundage and remembered my weight. I needed to tell him my name before he wrote up the job ticket. Dave, now clearly at his high school weight, said he once had been heavier than my highest recorded weight.<\/p>\n
Part of his secret? Well, he gave up flour tortillas many pounds ago.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m left with at least two conclusions: 1) Maybe I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll give up flour tortillas; 2) Maybe I will give up trying to re-reform the use of language.<\/p>\n
Nah, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think so!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The entrance to hell bears the following admonition: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That message, part of the 14th-century work, The Divine Comedy, by Dante, came to mind as I listened to a couple of famous people who should know better. Consider: The language of Shakespeare and Milton is being reduced to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=661"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":662,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661\/revisions\/662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}