In the Trimbur, Baron, and Stroupe articles, the most prominent theme shared by all three is a general fear of change in the technology and typography of writing. And, once again, this idea of the importance of visuals and photos and pictures and images that has been beaten and pounded into our heads from the first day of this class comes out and smacks us in the face again. Intellectuals fear the dumbing down of society by the mass acceptance of what they see as children's picture books. But, as we've seen through the studying of those comics, to slogging through lengthy, wordy articles like the ones we just read, images are often more effective for the taking in of information in general.
On another note, the Washington Redskins lost to the Dallas Cowgirls last night, and I am highly disappointed and a little (well, maybe more than a little) hungover. So, I hope my brevity in this post will speak the volumes I intended.
Only time will tell if the dumbing down of society is taking place. My opinion is that it IS happening, especially with grammar and spelling. Where would we be without spell check, I take a small amount of pride in my ability to sound words out and make an educated guess, but spell check still catches the ones I miss. I would really love to know why words are what they are, to basically understand the greek and latin roots of the words and be able to piece them together based on that knowledge. This is an esoteric art and one that is not offered on this campus. I guess I am basing this opinion on Youtube posts, where the millions of adderol prescribed youth babble about whatever, with terrible punctuation and spelling. Is this because there is no spell check, or does this next generation of kids, who are even more connected to this hypertextual world just shrug off english and it's prescribed rules? I am sure those same people who are commenting on youtube posts, are writing english papers as well. I was a big fan of AIM instant messenger, and the slang I developed on there was pretty terrible. Now the only ways I greet people is by Hey, What's up (maybe AIM engrained this into my brain)? If i would have spent that time studying classical lit, do you think I would be smarter better off? (serious question I find has multiple answers, and more questions such as what does one mean by smarter)
ReplyDeletePittsburgh pulled off a victory so I am stoked!