Language Responsibility Project?

[navkat]

I watch this board sometimes. I'm not sure I grasp fully all the nuances of the BIP "tenets," but I'm trying...god damn, I think all this stuff is shit I've thought or written about in some abstract form or another. I feel this is possibly the most important board on this forum for reasons that...well if you follow this stuff, you understand what I'm saying.

More and more, I'm becoming a "guardian of words." I'm scared that I'm not doing it right. I need help, and I'm sure there's stuff I miss or forget or get complacent about, but it's soooo sooo important for the all the reasons Orwell pointed out (and some of the ones he missed) now that conversation and information and memes and the internet are everything.

I have noticed a scary trend lately: Despite the fact that since the webbernet has become a part of daily/hourly/minutely life and I actually write, post, blog and journal and have an excuse to exercise mastery over the written word MORE often; I seem to have become a lazier, LESS skilled writer as of late. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but I've lost my edge. Something in my brain has gotten squished-up and milky and homogenized and it seems (no humour intended) that the internet is actually making me stupider.

LOL
WTF?
ROTFLMAO.

No shit: I once tested at the age of five with a 160 IQ. Now, I don't even have the patience/brainpower to win finish start a game of chess.

"Selective Prosecution."

What does this phrase mean to you?

To me, it means a lot. A lot a lot.

A lot a lot a lot a lot.

To you; the phrase "selective prosecution" is just some legalese for cops who don't go after ALL the bad guys...just some. It's not really a necessary phrase because Christ; we have so many words in this language, we probably could maneouver our way around that phrase with a slew of other shit if we really had to. Right? Besides; that shit sounds so uptight...like something some bitchass lawyer snob might say...RIGHT?

To me: "Selective Prosecution" isn't just words: it's an entire, complete thought. It is a concept. It is the difference between seeing the act of busting a hippie/poor/black man for jaywalking at a corner where "everybody does it but no one's ever gotten busted before" as an act of discrimination, or just some "bad luck."

"Yeah, but EVERYBODY does it."

"Doesn't matter; you broke the law too. The cops are not obligated to give you a break just because they give one to everyone else."

You follow?

Here's another one to mull over:
"Cognitive Liberty."

I'll bet to some people; it will never ever occur to them before hearing that phrase that there's any question about whether or not the government has the right to control what chemicals you use to alter your own perceptions. Of course they do...Right? RIGHT?!?

Think about it.


One final chunk of thought: we need to stop MIS-using words.
Take the word: Terror.
That's a pretty strong word; Terror is the strongest word we have to describe "scared" in the English language. "Terror" doesn't just mean "Oh, my god, the bank is going to close before I make my deposit for the day." Terror is not a guy passing out anti-american flyers...or a bunch of kids putting LightBrite cartoon characters all over the city of Baltimore. Terror is "Oh-my-fucking-god-some-guy-is-in-my-house-with-a-gun-to-my-head-I-just-shit-my-pants-oh-god."

You forgot that, didn't you? That's because the word has been over used. It's been used to describe things it doesn't mean.

Think about the word "Pain."
Now think about the word "Anguish."

You see what I mean?
Fear.
Terror.

Just doesn't have the same impact anymore.

I don't know what to do. The problem is so pervasive now, I don't even recognize when it's happening sometimes. I can't do this by myself. I feel like I'm losing.

I can't talk about this shit with anyone else anymore: lately, I'm getting the "tinfoil hat" treatment. Maybe I *am* paranoid, I don't know.

Help me.

And thanks for BIP...for putting into words, that which I could not put my finger on.

[East Coast Hustle]

I agree. The way the internet causes me to process and synthesize information seems to have robbed me of my former ability as a wordsmith.

now everything sounds like legalese in my head.

[hooplala]

I've been thinking the exact same thing lately.  With my blog I've been writing more than I ever have before, but if anything, my sentence structure and vocab seems to be diminishing.  I chalked it up to pot.

[LMNO]

I wouldn't worry about it.

In my view, language (including writing) is audience-dependent.

On the intrablags, you descend into slang.  Shorthand, in-jokes, correct motorcycles, et al.  It's juts easier, and it's a bit more fun.

Also, it becomes more like a conversation.  And I believe Leary had it right when he said that the majority of human conversation are variants on "I'm here.  Are you there?"

Which means, the more you communicate with the written word, the more that the familiar patterns of conversation emerge... which means that repitition occurs.

When I learned composition as a child, my world of writing was mainly essays, reports, the occasional catching-up letter, and the Deep Thoughts of my childhood.

Today, my world of writing is mainly chatting with a bunch of anonymous spags, with the occasional insight.

So, it's not that my ability to write has decreased, it's more that my subject matter has gotten more frivolous.



LMNO
-I'm here.  Are you there?

[Cramulus]

to navkat
and to LMNO too

I don't think people are worried enough about the perversion of language. You make some good points about the word Terror... the phrase "Department of Homeland Security" is another piece of brilliant word play. Individually, those are all words with strongly positive connotations.

I think this is a symptom of the Strange Times. Everything gets recontextualized every time it's used. (Like how I can't think of the Transformers I played with as a kid without also thinking of last summer's blockbuster.) Because of this, it's really easy to assign new meanings to old words.

This is exactly where culture jamming comes in, and it's one of the best ways to fight the power of meaning.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

to navkat
and to LMNO too

I don't think people are worried enough about the perversion of language. You make some good points about the word Terror... the phrase "Department of Homeland Security" is another piece of brilliant word play. Individually, those are all words with strongly positive connotations.

I think this is a symptom of the Strange Times. Everything gets recontextualized every time it's used. (Like how I can't think of the Transformers I played with as a kid without also thinking of last summer's blockbuster.) Because of this, it's really easy to assign new meanings to old words.

This is exactly where culture jamming comes in, and it's one of the best ways to fight the power of meaning.

What do you mean by preservation of language?

[Kai]

In the scientific community, vocabulary is very important. Technical terms are often seen as jargon, excess, and unneeded, but the real reason is precision. When I use the phrase "natural selection", I am using it to describe a very specific process occuring in biology, a set of natural phenomena. To many people it is just a buzzword. To a biologist, the word codifies the gestalt of a process that encompasses all living things, their ancestors, and their descendants. Its not a synonym for anything, its a phrase that is the symbol for a massive concept.

Or insect morphology, for example. When I talk about Malpighian tubules, I am communicating about a very specific type of excretory structure (hah, theres another one, excretion.) found in insects at a specific location on the gut. When you use a specific name for a structure, or an organism, it conveys, to one who understands such things, the gestalt of the structure or organism. The object of the word is conveyed with a wholeness that would not be conveyed if you had used something less specific.


Leaving science. When we look at linguistic anthropology, we notice there are words in other languages that have no direct translation. For example, the Austrian word Schmuh (or schmah; I can't remember how it is spelled). It has no direct translation in English. I am failing at the moment to describe what it means properly, but it is an overreaching concept of a sort of dark ironic humor. There are phrases in Japanese, mono no aware, and wabi sabi, that denote concepts there are no easy explanation for.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Having a 160 IQ just means the taste of failure is that much more keen.

[Kai]

Having a 160 IQ just means the taste of failure is that much more keen.

IQ is also just one of several types of intelligence.

Verbal-Linguistic would be more important (in the case of this thread) than Logical-Mathematical.

[navkat]

(Like how I can't think of the Transformers I played with as a kid without also thinking of last summer's blockbuster.) Because of this, it's really easy to assign new meanings to old words.

This is exactly where culture jamming comes in, and it's one of the best ways to fight the power of meaning.

Haha. I've managed to jam my own brain to associate the symbol for the decepticons with the NEOcons.


And now, I just did it to you, reader.

[Cramulus]

to navkat
and to LMNO too

I don't think people are worried enough about the perversion of language. You make some good points about the word Terror... the phrase "Department of Homeland Security" is another piece of brilliant word play. Individually, those are all words with strongly positive connotations.

I think this is a symptom of the Strange Times. Everything gets recontextualized every time it's used. (Like how I can't think of the Transformers I played with as a kid without also thinking of last summer's blockbuster.) Because of this, it's really easy to assign new meanings to old words.

This is exactly where culture jamming comes in, and it's one of the best ways to fight the power of meaning.

What do you mean by preservation of language?

I wrote "perversion of language", not "preservation". 
---referring to semantic repurposing meant to obfuscate the original meaning

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

to navkat
and to LMNO too

I don't think people are worried enough about the perversion of language. You make some good points about the word Terror... the phrase "Department of Homeland Security" is another piece of brilliant word play. Individually, those are all words with strongly positive connotations.

I think this is a symptom of the Strange Times. Everything gets recontextualized every time it's used. (Like how I can't think of the Transformers I played with as a kid without also thinking of last summer's blockbuster.) Because of this, it's really easy to assign new meanings to old words.

This is exactly where culture jamming comes in, and it's one of the best ways to fight the power of meaning.

What do you mean by preservation of language?

I wrote "perversion of language", not "preservation". 
---referring to semantic repurposing meant to obfuscate the original meaning

Oh that makes much mroe sense...


I am FAIL reader apparently.

[Eve]

I've been thinking the exact same thing lately.  With my blog I've been writing more than I ever have before, but if anything, my sentence structure and vocab seems to be diminishing.  I chalked it up to pot.

I've gotten to the point where I don't even bother to post in my blog, post Intelligent Stuff here, or even finish papers for school. I chalked it up to pot, but it didn't get better when I stopped smoking. Hm.

I don't think people are worried enough about the perversion of language. You make some good points about the word Terror... the phrase "Department of Homeland Security" is another piece of brilliant word play. Individually, those are all words with strongly positive connotations.

I think this is a symptom of the Strange Times. Everything gets recontextualized every time it's used. (Like how I can't think of the Transformers I played with as a kid without also thinking of last summer's blockbuster.) Because of this, it's really easy to assign new meanings to old words.

This is exactly where culture jamming comes in, and it's one of the best ways to fight the power of meaning.

This, yes.

[Manta Obscura]

to navkat
and to LMNO too

I don't think people are worried enough about the perversion of language. You make some good points about the word Terror... the phrase "Department of Homeland Security" is another piece of brilliant word play. Individually, those are all words with strongly positive connotations.

I think this is a symptom of the Strange Times. Everything gets recontextualized every time it's used. (Like how I can't think of the Transformers I played with as a kid without also thinking of last summer's blockbuster.) Because of this, it's really easy to assign new meanings to old words.

This is exactly where culture jamming comes in, and it's one of the best ways to fight the power of meaning.

What do you mean by preservation of language?

I wrote "perversion of language", not "preservation". 
---referring to semantic repurposing meant to obfuscate the original meaning

The first gothic-style cathedral was described as "awful, artificial and amusing." All three adjectives were complimentary.

[Not as certain about this example; please correct me if I'm wrong]: The swastika was originally a symbol of peace.

The perversion of language and symbols occurs all the time in linguistics, literature and various forms of mediation, and often accounts for the transition from one linguistic system to another. For instance, the Great Vowel Shift (or, as I prefer to call it, the Great Vowel Movement) of the early Middle Ages irrevocably shifted the pronunciation of almost all the words in Middle English. The interplay of Greek, Carribbean pidgen and other linguistic systems added thousands of new words to English throughout its evolution.

My point is, dozens of new changes are introduced to a linguistic system every day. Like our limited perception of everything else, we only perceive or encounter a small, minute fraction of all the changes that happen but, like it or not, things are changing. Some of the changes occur due to random memes being introduced and some are forcibly introduced as new terms, like the Dept. of HLS, as you said. Similar things have happened (assigning positive or negative spin to formerly neutral or ambivalent words) with words throughout history in ALL languages. Shakespeare was a major player in this. Popes did this during the Crusades. Protestants and Catholics alike did it during the early Schism days and the discussion of transubstantiation.

In a few hundred years (nuclear holocausts and other doomsday scenarios notwithstanding), our language is going to be radically different from what it is now. Maybe sooner, given the speed of communications nowadays. There is no way to permanently preserve language, or prevent its perversion; culture jamming will prevent the change/perversion of the linguistic system about as efficiently as advocating anal sex will prevent the production of offspring, culture-wide. It might feel good for awhile, but after awhile people will roll over and start doing what gets the job done.

Short story long: it's frustrating as hell to see language misused/abused nowadays, and we can, in the short run, culture jam to alleviate some of the frustrations. But in 100 years, or 500, or 1000 (who knows, really?), we might not even have the word "terror" anymore outside of history books. The word "foozleflop"* might be the new indicator for "terror." Just like the Victorians and other traditionalists were worried about the "dissolution of forms" with the Imagists and Post-modernists, we're worried about the dissolution of ascribed meaning with the advent of new media social structures. The old forms survived, and the power of language will, too.

[Manta Obscura]

*foozleflop (foo-zul-flop) - v. A small, fluffy dog going doing the stairs. E.g. "Fluffy foozleflopped onto the landing."

A Greek foreign-exchange student offered this as an entry for a "New Word Dictionary" that my high school was thinking of putting together during my senior year, as part of our yearbook. Regrettably, the idea was canned.