English.................
I was going to spend a few minutes amending my profile, trying not to catch my own reflection in the monitor lest I gaze deeply into my own eyes and marvel at the sheer aching pointlessness of the task.
Anyway, what is wrong with the television news media? It's just amazingly, hideously, unacceptably, reason-defyingly awful: one prolonged vomit of mirthless shit, propagated squarely by the kind of cow-brained retards who spend 98% of their waking life wondering which ringtone to download next. We should be rounding these people up and chemically neutering them, not giving them time and space to air their facile thoughts and predjudices.
"your annoying."
If having read that, the words "your annoying what?" or "you drooling imbecile" popped straight into your head, then perhaps you should read on.
If you spend more than a few minutes sifting through the posts on here, like some doomsday tsunami of illiteracy, you may, like me, have to repeatedly stab yourself in the hand with a fork to calm yourself.
It gives me a feeling of despair for the future of mankind not dissimilar to that I experienced as I sat up all night watching the results of the last US Presidential election roll in. However, this is not one individuals' aberration, no, this is far more sinister.
Well, perhaps we aren't all pedantic fuckers like you? I hear you ask. Yes, I may be the sort of annoying pedant who will point out that octopi can't be the plural of octopus, as the origin of the word is Greek rather than Latin, but just because I'm a hypocritical pedant, doesn't make this any less sinister.
Neither are they careless typos, the kind we are all prone to. As I say, it is something far more sinister than that. Yes, it is careless, but a very different kind of carelessness; a carelessness toward language. The kind of careless attitude to the English language that is destroying it. I am overstating the case? I think not. I'm not even talking about a semantic argument about the respective merits of the English and American forms of language. Whether you spell colour with a u or not is neither here nor there; the destruction of our language should matter to one and all.
It is under threat from people simply not caring. Of people adopting an attitude that "it's just the internet" or should that be "its just the net"? Text messaging (far more evil and a far greater threat to civilisation than terrorism ever will be) and the internet have a lot to answer for if you ask me. Before either was in such widespread usage, "lets" had an apostrophe and "alot" was two separate words. Take "let's" for example, now it's just "lets". I don't expect everyone to know (although I would swoon if they did) that it's a verb plus a pronoun, but I would expect people to know that as it's an abbreviation of "let us" and thus it demands an apostrophe. But these examples are random, I could think of countless more, but my point is not to try and produce a pedantic list of misuse that irritates me.
My point is about the importance of language. It's not something that should be a treated as an afterthought to the content or message you are trying to convey, it should be integral to it. In my view the language you choose to communicate with illustrates and expresses far more about you than anything else. People take vast consideration over their physical appearance, lavishing hours of their time upon it, yet are prepared to take a lesse faire attitude toward the language they use.
Hours spent staring angstily into the mirror at perceived imperfections. Droning away about it, whining and grousing about the petty injustice of it all, in the vain belief anyone else really gives a shit. Ignoring the fact that their destiny consists of grey hair and liver spots. That one-day they'll have a face like an elephant's kneecap and an arse like a chamois leather drying on a radiator. A hideous, puffy-eyed, bloated, blotchy-faced organism with dry hair and lips as thick as forearms, waving an angry fist heavenward, loudly demanding to be told why God saw fit to curse them a face like Marlon Brando's scrotum.
That's the future for us all, and no amount of complaining about it is going to change that fact. However, the language we choose to commit ourselves to will be with us forever. It is also something we can do something about. We can change how we express ourselves, we can change the language we choose to do it with. But above all, we can change the attitude we take toward it.
The English language is a beautiful thing, don't let it die.
Anyway, what is wrong with the television news media? It's just amazingly, hideously, unacceptably, reason-defyingly awful: one prolonged vomit of mirthless shit, propagated squarely by the kind of cow-brained retards who spend 98% of their waking life wondering which ringtone to download next. We should be rounding these people up and chemically neutering them, not giving them time and space to air their facile thoughts and predjudices.
"your annoying."
If having read that, the words "your annoying what?" or "you drooling imbecile" popped straight into your head, then perhaps you should read on.
If you spend more than a few minutes sifting through the posts on here, like some doomsday tsunami of illiteracy, you may, like me, have to repeatedly stab yourself in the hand with a fork to calm yourself.
It gives me a feeling of despair for the future of mankind not dissimilar to that I experienced as I sat up all night watching the results of the last US Presidential election roll in. However, this is not one individuals' aberration, no, this is far more sinister.
Well, perhaps we aren't all pedantic fuckers like you? I hear you ask. Yes, I may be the sort of annoying pedant who will point out that octopi can't be the plural of octopus, as the origin of the word is Greek rather than Latin, but just because I'm a hypocritical pedant, doesn't make this any less sinister.
Neither are they careless typos, the kind we are all prone to. As I say, it is something far more sinister than that. Yes, it is careless, but a very different kind of carelessness; a carelessness toward language. The kind of careless attitude to the English language that is destroying it. I am overstating the case? I think not. I'm not even talking about a semantic argument about the respective merits of the English and American forms of language. Whether you spell colour with a u or not is neither here nor there; the destruction of our language should matter to one and all.
It is under threat from people simply not caring. Of people adopting an attitude that "it's just the internet" or should that be "its just the net"? Text messaging (far more evil and a far greater threat to civilisation than terrorism ever will be) and the internet have a lot to answer for if you ask me. Before either was in such widespread usage, "lets" had an apostrophe and "alot" was two separate words. Take "let's" for example, now it's just "lets". I don't expect everyone to know (although I would swoon if they did) that it's a verb plus a pronoun, but I would expect people to know that as it's an abbreviation of "let us" and thus it demands an apostrophe. But these examples are random, I could think of countless more, but my point is not to try and produce a pedantic list of misuse that irritates me.
My point is about the importance of language. It's not something that should be a treated as an afterthought to the content or message you are trying to convey, it should be integral to it. In my view the language you choose to communicate with illustrates and expresses far more about you than anything else. People take vast consideration over their physical appearance, lavishing hours of their time upon it, yet are prepared to take a lesse faire attitude toward the language they use.
Hours spent staring angstily into the mirror at perceived imperfections. Droning away about it, whining and grousing about the petty injustice of it all, in the vain belief anyone else really gives a shit. Ignoring the fact that their destiny consists of grey hair and liver spots. That one-day they'll have a face like an elephant's kneecap and an arse like a chamois leather drying on a radiator. A hideous, puffy-eyed, bloated, blotchy-faced organism with dry hair and lips as thick as forearms, waving an angry fist heavenward, loudly demanding to be told why God saw fit to curse them a face like Marlon Brando's scrotum.
That's the future for us all, and no amount of complaining about it is going to change that fact. However, the language we choose to commit ourselves to will be with us forever. It is also something we can do something about. We can change how we express ourselves, we can change the language we choose to do it with. But above all, we can change the attitude we take toward it.
The English language is a beautiful thing, don't let it die.