RSA – Language as a Window into Human Nature
The writer in me is perpetually intrigued by language. Steven Pinker sheds light on some interesting nuances of language use.
Bloggers Bill of Rights
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is constantly fighting court battles to maintain and expand our freedoms on the Internet. They compiled a list of rights for bloggers that are based on established legal precedent.
- Bloggers can be journalists (and journalists can be bloggers).
- Bloggers are entitled to free speech.
- Bloggers have the right to political speech.
- Bloggers have the right to stay anonymous.
- Bloggers have freedom from liability for hosting speech the same way other web hosts do.
They further explain each right, as well as provide the precedents that establish them in the Bloggers’ Rights.
Corporate Copy Can Be Fun
It’s been my experience that corporations, or more specifically, their lawyers are allergic to any copy that is even remotely fun. This becomes even more apparent when they are editing and approving copy that meets a regulatory need. Typically, regulation copy is so overwritten and serious that you need a law degree to make head-or-tails of it.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Last month, Google mailed thousands cr-48 test laptops arms with Google Crome OS to Googlers, and members of the tech media. While the laptop and it’s OS are interesting, the instruction manual that came with it is really cool. Yes, the instruction manual.
Here are a two clips from it.
If more instructions were written in this manner, perhaps people would actually read them.
“Editing” Mark Twain
You can’t escape your past, but you can study it, learn from it, and eventually find peace and acceptance.
Or you can ignore it, push it away, and not learn a damn thing.
Here are a few crimes against humanity:
- Germany invaded it’s neighbors, enslaved populations based on race, and systematically committed genocide
- Japan invaded it’s neighbors, raped, and killed in a volume that is unfathomable
- Russia is guilty of annihilating large portions of it’s own population
- The United States and England firebombed a city for no strategic gain
All of these acts were committed during World War II. Four bullet-points that represent the brutal deaths of millions of people.
Humanity has done and continues to do all manner of monstrous up things to one another. We can’t change that they happened, but maybe if we learned from these inhumane acts, we can stop committing them.
We owe it to the victims of these acts to remember their suffering the way that it actually happened, not some classy, kid-friendly Disney version of suffering.
When we remove “nigger” from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, to make it more friendly, classy, and politically correct, we are killing the memory of life under Jim Crow. Twain’s language in Huck Finn was deliberately harsh and indicative of the times. Twain knew exactly what he was writing in Huck Finn, and his points are clear unless you are a shallow and vapid.
Huck Finn is a hard book to read precisely because it paints a realistic picture of humans causing misery. Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, and Elie Wiesel’s Night are just as painful to read because of their honesty. When you don’t have to look real human suffering in the eye every day, it’s shocking when you have a casual encounter with it.
Implications
Huck Finn is one of the novels that has been in the crosshairs of book burning scum for about a century. I always believed it would stand the test of time because it was written by Mark Twain, one of history’s great novelists. If we’re censoring Twain is any novel safe from the grease pencils of America’s easily offended helicopter parents?
It is a sad day.
(Via CNN: New edition of ‘Huckleberry Finn’ to lose the ‘n’ word)
(Image)
Aaron Sorkin Discusses Palin on CNN’s “Parker Spitzer”
I’ve been sick since Tuesday. I’m talking full on can’t get out of bed sick. So I spent most of this week watching Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Sports Night, and The West Wing. Aaron Sorkin is without a doubt my favorite writer. I will watch, read, or sit through anything that the man wrote. Even when I disagree with him, I enjoy the way he strings words together.
The Interview
I google Sorkin from time to time to see if he has put out anything new. This evening I found this video of him appearing on CNN’s Parker Spitzer.
Sarah Palin
While I feel each and every point Sorkin made about the right-wing demagogue was accurate, the interview left me with the impression that promoting The Social Network was just an excuse to get on TV and bash on Palin (which I’m all for). The Social Network debuted in October, and the DVD isn’t coming out until January 11th; it’s odd timing for a promotion.
Eliot Spitzer
What really bothers me about the interview was neither Sorkin, nor his arguments. The location, or rather the interviewer is what has me peeved.
Eliot Spitzer, Sarah Palin, and John McCain are three politicians who are emblematic of my much of my despair with the current state of American politics. McCain because I deeply believed in him for years, and in the end, he turned his back on damn near everything he claimed to stand for. Palin because she is a mean-spirited, attention grabbing, moron. Even if you agree with her position on issues, her unscripted statements don’t make a bit of sense. Spitzer because he is the worst kind of hypocrite.
Spitzer made a name for himself prosecuting prostitution rings as Attorney General of New York. Within three months of his term as Governor he resigned because he was outed for banging a prostitute. CNN chose to give the bastard his own television show presumably because they figured they could squeeze some ratings out of the disgraced former Governor.
Eliot Spitzer is the kind of guy who would have been an antagonist in a Sorkin script. I’m generally good at separating artists from their art, but I have to believe that Sorkin sees Spitzer for the scum he is, and I’m disappointed that he was willing to use the man’s show as a soapbox.
TGW Cited on Wikipedia
I just learned that someone cited me in a Wikipedia entry about Serenity/ Firefly comics. More specifically, my review of the recent graphic novel, Serenity: Shepherd’s Tale.
The passage I’m cited in reads:
Reviews of The Sheperd’s Tale were mixed. Sean Kleefield praised the storytelling, both its content and structuring, but reiterates previous comments that the comics are hard to comprehend without knowing the television series.[27] However, he opines that this may be a calculated decision to target the most likely market for the comic.[27] David Spira of The Geek Whisperer echoed Kleefield’s comments on the story while also praising the book’s artwork, but felt the comic’s release as an expensive hardcover was not justified by the content, and agreed that Book’s tale was “completely meaningless unless you are a Browncoat”.[28] The reviewer for Daemon’s Books found the recurring flashback structure confusing, and complained that the attitude of the Alliance towards Book in the episode “Safe” no longer made sense.[29] The goodtobeageek reviewer, Jessa Phillips, felt that the flashback structure was overused, and agrees with Spira’s comment on the value for money, but highly praises Chris Samnee’s artwork.[30] (Wikipedia)
I have no clue who wrote the entry, but I’m honored to be cited among a number of great reviewers.
This made my day. Hopefully no one edits it out for a while.
Uppity About Language?
I love writing.
That being said, I have never felt particularly comfortable with the idea that English must be written in accordance with strict rules.
English changes. The rules that were, are no longer the rules that are. If you don’t believe me, here’s a reading list:
- Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
- Anything by Shakespeare
- Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer
They are all written in English, yet they are astonishingly different in style, syntax, and verbiage.
Language evolves.
The idea that a sentence can never end in a preposition is preposterous and pretentious.
Write. Express your thoughts. Make your points clear. Have fun. Screw the rules.
If you don’t believe me, listen to Stephen Fry.
(Nerdist)
