I can just see it, Shakespeare cruising down the cobblestones on his sleek mare, taking the corners as one might take a fair maiden. He pulls up to an inn so that he may feast upon a fine mutton stew, and asks the stablehand "Wouldst thou stable mine horse, fine sir?"
I was thinking this exact same thing yesterday: about the immense frustration and aching hole in companionship I feel when my words are met with an open-mouthed gape of confusion. I even began to wonder what the point may be of knowing so many beautifully specific words if no one I speak to can understand them.
Well, four clicks of my mouse shows me that you live in the United States, which might play a role in this; I've found the hostility and open aggression I've received as a product of my gift for language has been many times more severe while traveling south of the border than it is in my home and native land.
Might I ask what part of the country you live in? Obviously, there are some which are less prone to both xenophobia and anti-intellectualism than others.
Edit: Ah, never mind. A quick IP search (not spurred on by you, but by the trollish anonymous comment down below there) shows me you're in central Florida. A tad bit in the deep south, I should say. This may go a ways towards explaining things.
Actually, I had meant to ask in my post: Is there a cultural parallel to this in Spain? Is there some archaic exemplar of the Spanish tongue which all modern men and women of eloquence are automatically compared to by this sort of person?
Or is this an English-specific (or perhaps merely Shakespeare-specific) phenomenon?
Have to think about this... but not really... Lope de Vega would be the Spanish Shakespeare, and plays from that time sound archaic, but in a way Latin american people talk with forms that are similarly archaic to the ear.
There's words for pedant and the like, of course, but people do tend to fall into extremely formalized and uh, baroque language when writing anything the least formal, it's part of the educational system.
I think you'd be more likely to be corrected for using slang or excessive localisms, I actually don't read too many spanish forums because everyone speaks so fucking stilted all the time, come to think of it.
Mostly I do. Mostly. But there's always that segment that seems to feel threatened or hostile or even condescending towards it. And it's the reactions of the former who make that of the latter that much more troubling to me.
Personally, I find this to be far from accurate. I have great difficulty in reading Shakespeare, as he, predictably, tends to use a style of speech that was only common four centuries ago. In contrast, I have no difficulty whatsoever in understanding whatever you write, which is a writing style I myself seek out with only the beauty of that literary dance as a needed impetus for me to seek it out. I can think of two others who write in such a way just off the top of my head; the first being dwaleberry, whose link to your blog in his blog brought me here as you already know, and the second being Jerry Holkins, the writer for the popular webcomic Penny Arcade. Indeed, if the people who assailed you were to expand their horizons just the tiniest bit, they might instead compare you to Holkins, as I would expect he, and his literary style, to be quite popular amongst any subcultures involved with gaming or the internet.
WRITING. Shakespeare tends to use a style of writing that was only common four centuries ago. I feel I must disabuse any potential readers of that comment of the idea that I have spoken with Shakespeare.
I've often admired Tycho's talent as a word-smith, and I honestly wish he would write some genuine prose at some point. It might be so dense as to be inaccessible to the sort of people who I make reference to above, but to those who have come to appreciate his vast body of work and those who enjoy that sort of almost-flamboyant verbosity, it would be a real treat.
Which is to say that I'm willing to take this as high compliment.
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inb4 wherefore being used as a word denoting position
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"Why yew talkin' like Shakespeare ya fruit?"
Oh! The outrage!
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Might I ask what part of the country you live in? Obviously, there are some which are less prone to both xenophobia and anti-intellectualism than others.
Edit: Ah, never mind. A quick IP search (not spurred on by you, but by the trollish anonymous comment down below there) shows me you're in central Florida. A tad bit in the deep south, I should say. This may go a ways towards explaining things.
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Actually, I had meant to ask in my post: Is there a cultural parallel to this in Spain? Is there some archaic exemplar of the Spanish tongue which all modern men and women of eloquence are automatically compared to by this sort of person?
Or is this an English-specific (or perhaps merely Shakespeare-specific) phenomenon?
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There's words for pedant and the like, of course, but people do tend to fall into extremely formalized and uh, baroque language when writing anything the least formal, it's part of the educational system.
I think you'd be more likely to be corrected for using slang or excessive localisms, I actually don't read too many spanish forums because everyone speaks so fucking stilted all the time, come to think of it.
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Which is to say that I'm willing to take this as high compliment.
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