A Requiem for Language

[cabinfever]

Punctuation is huge for me. If I have to figure out where a sentence ends and the next one begins, I usually just skip over it. People pause naturally at the end of a sentence before starting the next one. A period does the same thing. It doesn't seem like too much to ask.

It might not seem like it is too much to ask for you and maybe it isn't if it bothers you. English was my least favorite subject in HS and in college I avoided it. I don't like the Miss Manners vibe too much but when I have a problem for whatever reason and I don't want to deal with someone else's content or behavior or attitude or manner of speaking I just use the ignore button.

 

[gsdx]

^ It isn't that it bothers me. It's more that I have better things to do than to spend my time trying to figure out what the person is trying to say. When it is all one long sentence, I don't bother deciphering it.

 

[cabinfever]

^ I understand.

I wish I hadn't opened this thread.

 

[johaninsc]

Expressive Aphasia

 

[cabinfever]

Expressive Aphasia

Thanks for posting that! I had no idea there was a name for it. I did have a stroke in 2020 from covid and it changed the way I think and speak - I apologize alot when I can't remember words - it is very frustrating.

I will try to remember when/if I am posting here that it bothers people.

 

[gsdx]

^ There are times here when the language here cannot be prevented. Yours is one such case. However, there are other times when it can be prevented and, for one reason or another, it isn't.

 

[belamyi]

A few weeks ago I realized that the only bound, paper volume in English language that I keep in my library is one like this:

The rest, apart, of course, of Latin and Ancient Greek, and some testimonial Spanish, Hebrew and Sanskrit, is all 'Axis-of-Evil' literature: Russian, French, Chinese, Persian, Arabic, German and even some Japanese and Vietnamese.

Requiem indeed

 

[belamyi]

^ "OF" ... Reee-quiem..

 

[frankfrank]

I also agree with Frank, no one uses the correct “brake(s)”. I see it all the time in the comments on Instagram reels. I roughly estimate 90% use breaks instead.

The weird part, to me, is that the usage seemed to appear OVERNIGHT, like a light switch being flipped. Other mistakes have gradually appeared over years or decades.

Punctuation is huge for me. If I have to figure out where a sentence ends and the next one begins, I usually just skip over it. People pause naturally at the end of a sentence before starting the next one. A period does the same thing. It doesn't seem like too much to ask.

When I type, I still put TWO SPACES after every period - and likewise on the rare occasions that I use a colon. (It doesn't show up that way on JUB, because it doesn't allow the two-spaces option...unless you type one character in white so it's not seen.) With the tradition now being one space after a period, text can now often resemble a run-on sentence, and indeed the beginnings and endings of sentences aren't nearly as obvious. WHY has that changed during my lifetime? I was TAUGHT to double-space, always, after the end of a sentence, unless of course the next sentence starts a new paragraph.

I've also seen defaults which don't allow spaces between paragraphs even if you're trying to do that. I used to, long ago, indent the first word of a new paragraph, and I'd have no space between paragraphs. Nowadays I am much more likely not to indent, and to put a blank line between each paragraph.

 

[Peloso]

 

[belamyi]

For fuckeddammfuck's sake, the language is being mistreated just as much as it ever was: the only difference is the PUBLIC display, register and perception of it.

It's the same as with elocution and accents, and it is all ultimately a sign of the progressive "de-elitization" of society..: there used to be a strict standard for everything being imposed by the very hapy chosen few upon the rest of the human zoo, and now those cultured frills gone in the name of the core of gentry: money. Hence the gentrification, burgeois, cheap version of old aristocratic "elite".

 

[Latimer]

^
From the BBC History magazine:

Most historians believe that punctuation as we know it today was invented to show how a text should be read aloud.

By the fifth century BC, Greek playwrights were using some basic symbols to show where actors should pause, and the scholar Aristophanes of Byzantium (c257– c185 BC) invented a formal system of punctuation. He also designed accents to aid pronunciation.

Most other ancient written languages in their original forms – Sanskrit, Arabic, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, etc – used little or no punctuation, though some Chinese scrolls from around 400–300 BC sometimes used symbols to denote chapter and sentence endings.

Punctuation in its modern form owes a lot to the Renaissance and, particularly, the Italian scholar and printer Aldus Manutius (1449–1515), but also to the Reformation and the printing of Bibles in local languages. These were, of course, intended to be read aloud. Our modern system of punctuation didn’t emerge till the 19th century.
English/American punctuation is now used more or less wholesale across Europe; aspects of it have been adapted in most other parts of the world.
Answered by Eugene Byrne, author and historian
This Q&A was first published in the April 2013 issue of BBC History Magazine

(For some time now the Brits, as some of you may have noted, have dropped the use of some commonly used periods, such as in cf., e.g., i.e., etc., fig., tel., Dr., Ltd., Mr., no. My American English spell check has underlined the etc without a period in the second paragraph above.)

 

[Kahaih]

For fuckeddammfuck's sake, the language is being mistreated just as much as it ever was: the only difference is the PUBLIC display, register and perception of it.

It's the same as with elocution and accents, and it is all ultimately a sign of the progressive "de-elitization" of society..: there used to be a strict standard for everything being imposed by the very hapy chosen few upon the rest of the human zoo, and now those cultured frills gone in the name of the core of gentry: money. Hence the gentrification, burgeois, cheap version of old aristocratic "elite".

Globalization - the interconnected world - instant digital communication.

All new and shiny.

To better communicate with the rest of the world, the common man needs to learn and abide by a few simple rules. This has absolutely nothing to do with elitism.

 

[belamyi]

Globalization - the interconnected world - instant digital communication.

All new and shiny.

To better communicate with the rest of the world, the common man needs to learn and abide by a few simple rules. This has absolutely nothing to do with elitism.

[First] Globalization: 1880s-1939
[Second] Globalization: 1989-2020s All new and shiny.

Simplification can be achieved sloppily or accurately... to better communicate with the rest of the world.
This has absolutely nothing to do with "the common man", but with what rules are set as "the common rules": whether for the commoners or for the elites.


"The rest of the world": speaking what language, or following what communication code? Again, simplify sloppily (relying on unshared asumptions), and rules are dissolved, and the ensuing chaos and misunderstanding makes "communication" impossible.

 

[belamyi]

^ Yes, 1991 rather than "1989"...

And maybe "1890s" and "2030s..?

 

[rareboy]

View attachment 1903672

 

[belamyi]

That we have no century-old pics does not prove that it never existed before... not even in "quality" manufactured signs.