Eclipses, Ellipses and Lisps.

There are things in modern, casual communication today, that I like to call texting lisps. One of them is the ellipses. Like Matthew J.X. Malady, I find that a person that uses ellipses, either uses them extremely frequently or extremely infrequently. And the bad ellipses habit described in the article What the ... is what I call a texting lisp.

I have a friend who has a bad ellipses habit. She uses ellipses ALL the time, and I'm not exagerating. It can be a happy text, a sad one, an angry one, an exasperated, stressed, or indifferent one, and the only thing they have in common is the ellipses, which she never fails to include. It gives all her texts a sense of insecurity, of indesicion. It's like she's open to other views. Like she's not sure how you will take it. I understand her ellipses as a way to cushion the impact whatever she is saying will have on you. A way to give her argument the benefit of the doubt, to emphasize that whatever remark was made is open for interpretation.

I'm not a particular fan of ellipses and I can confirm it is because of my personal hate for indesicion. But I understand how ellipses can work in other ways. And yet, when I do bump into ellipses, whether in a memoir, a novel or a text, they seem to exude the same aura of insecurity in what is being proposed or said by the narrator, the character or the person.

Ellipses seem to eclipse whatever is being truly meant. A way to cover up true intentions for fear of negative reactions from the receiver. Ellipses bother me so much, that with my friend with the bad ellipses habit, I am convinced I can sometimes hear her using ellipses when we speak face to face.

So in a way ellipses eclipse the truth and become a lisp. Atleast to me they do...

Commagain?

Comma this, comma that. Oh wow! I used a comma. But then again, I probably misused it. Or did I? Oh no! I did it again, like lovely Britney when she was young and somewhat innocent.

Despite the fact that Matthew J.X. Malady didn't use a single comma for his article Will We Use Comma's in the Future? which can indeed be considered to be a formal piece of writing, doesn't really mean anything. The same way that if I do or don't use commas for my blog post doesn't matter. Comma's exist, they are used, they are neglected, they are "being purged," as Malady claims, and yet they don't seem to make a difference.

This makes up my defiinition of trivial things that don't matter. Like a stranger gossiping about you or Icona Pop crashing their car into a bridge. I don't care, so why should you? And let me tell you something: I doubt comma's care. Let those who use commas use them, as long as they don't make a mess of their writing because of them.

The usage of commas depends on the writer, and the writer depends on his or her social context, their target audience, their purpose. Looking back to something that all students taking the AP Lang. course know about, (that demonstrates the vitality of commas in writing) is parallelism. How can parallelism, with a rhetorical purpose in mind, work without commas?

In the article it is claimed that media today doesn't leave room for commas, whether it's because they can cause misunderstanding in tone by making the user of commas seem less casual in a text or because there simply isn't any room for them in a sub-140-character tweet. It claims that they aren't a necessity for easier reading. But does this mean that commas are doomed to die prematurely? Because if comma usage ceases to exist in a couple of years, then I would denominate their (commas) death as premature indeed.

Also, I have a question for Professor McWhorter: are fashion and language that similar when it comes to evolution through time? Because regardless of the fact that I understand that they're both tools that are subjected to change based on human whims, they aren't things that I would ever think of pairing together to get a point across. It seems as ridiculous and absurd as pairing apples with celery. They're both vegetables, but they serve completely different purposes. The former are for keeping the doctor away by eating one a day, and the ladder for gaining negative calories.

I guess the comparison between comma usage and fashion caught me a little off guard. It seems unfair to think that the way we dress is as important as the way we write. An educated man with an outdated or horrible taste in shoes is more likely to write a brilliant paper than a prep school boy that dresses inmaculately. You don't have to be fashionable to write well.

And most importantly, you don't have to write just like everyone or anyone else. So in the end, if commas do die (which I don't beleive they will), it will seem to me like the loss of an opportunity to be different and unique in writing. Becasue commas are, like sentence structure and length variation among so many others, a tool for shaping most of the characteristics of language that we have seen in class: purpose, tone, register and rhetoric.

Oops! I did it again and again and again.
I used a whole lot of commas.
Sue me.

How About No?

I find that if you want it bad enough, anything can be compared to The Hunger Games. Like people blaming they're every problem on bullying, it's a hasty generalization (an unoriginal one at that): a way for people to feel like they're thinking outside the box and being special or different.

How about no?

Call me a hipster, or someone who simply wants to criticize, but the title of Why the Olympics Are a Lot Like 'The Hunger Games' bored me. Unfairness, exploitation and the flaws of society, are so much more than themes of the popular bluckbuster and New York Times Bestseller. Am I unaware of the fact that it's the first creation ever to have these subjects as themes? The first to point them out metaphorically or directly?

How. About. No?

With the Olympics raging right now, I think about how it's pretty obvious the mechanism and system that stands in charge behind the curtains. I guess it's mean to criticize an 11 year old for not knowing exactly what she was getting into, but did Retrosi figure it out only when she saw or read The Hunger Games? Is that really what it took? A dystopian novel of the 21st century?

Wow.

I've come to learn that the world revolves around money and those who have it. This to me is the most basic definiton of capitalism. If I were a grade school teacher, I'd explain it like that, not going into detail of course, because I'd probably get called out for it by angry parents.

Call me a communist, but like everything, capitalism has its good side and its bad side, and I don't think they cancel out. The bad always weighs more than the good for me.

Now you can go ahead and call me a cynic.

I don't claim to be an expert on the subject, but I thinks it's safe to say that Retrosi is. She has lived most of her life under the regime of sponsporship and its peer pressure, and all of its consequences. Being an Olympic aspiring athlete seems to entail the ultimate form of peer pressure, where insecurity is instilled for manipulation to flow freely and undisturbed. Through it, you become an animal with a single ability that can be milked incessantly to fatten others with millions (of dollars, not calories from dairy products).

But isn't this how the world works? Whatever it is that you do, it's only viable if it produces profit, be it for you or for someone else. Why? Becasue the dairy products you need to survive aren't for free, are you crazy? Whether it's fair or unethical is also irrelevant. You really think that because you have an ability that makes you worthy of a gold medal in the Olympics, that you get to escape the ways of the world?

News flash: athletes, tycoons, hobos... everyone, is part of the world.  Because "we are the people who rule the world" and therefore we are the world. We make the rules and we follow and break them. We fight them and live by them. We are to blame for the exploitation, the unfairness, the flaws of society.

Don't wait for a book to realize it.

Do We Wanna Know?

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9VdtBZwYNR2ZFBpS3d4NGpkU0E/edit

Not Reading For Dummies

Now that I have read about the obsolete importance of orientation in the so called "collective library," a concept that consists of books being part of a systematic map, I am ever more convinced and simultaneously troubled by the idea that 'not-reading' is preferable for the cultivated man than reading. As is argued by Pierre Bayard, the understanding of this map is what makes one cultivated or not. The emphasis of this first chapter lies in that reading is in reality not a necessity when it comes to fighting ignorance. Rather reading makes the reader ignorant, for instead of seeing reading a single book as an activity that "cultivates" it is seen as one that simply proves and represents that when choosing a book, one is neglecting the rest. Bayard argues that it takes only to know the name of the book to discuss it in an intelligent way, something I relate and find true when it comes to people. You need only to know the name and where the person goes to school to embark on a conversation solely about them, without even knowing what they look like. And while this concept may be true, I remain unconvinced that not reading can result in knowledge rather than ignorance. I argue with myself that books and people are simply not the same, but find myself conflicted. I try to name the similarities and differences between them and find that there are more similarities than differences.

People        vs.      Books
Complex              Complex
Living                  Aren't the characters of any book alive as well?
Conflicted            A book can indeed be very conflicted through its characters or its plot

Regardless of the fact that I can't find a way to convincingly argue how books and people can't be compared, I still believe it's true and as a result disagree with Bayard. Be that as it may, Bayard insists that reading is a "dangerous activity," embarking on more reasons why throughout the next chapter. In it he explains how a full on article can be written and efficiently argued about a book without having read it but rather just skimmed it. We step from discussing orally to writing publicly about it, a big step when it comes to voicing opinions if you ask me.

That the reader should avoid linking the author's life to his or her writing is a completely foreign concept to me the first time I read about it in How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read. It is one of the many concepts argued by the author by using the examples of great literary critiques such as Paul Valery, the "master of non-reading," as he talks about how to talk about books that you have skimmed as opposing to the ones you haven't even cracked the spine of. While for the ladder one must learn to navigate the collective library, the former consists merely of perspective. By perspective, Bayard means applying the recently acquired orientation skills to a single volume instead of to the whole collective library. In order to do so I can attest that the only thing needed for the so called reader or critique is a few 'pin points' throughout the book that enable the reader to grasp at the books' "inherent depth and richness without getting lost in the details." This unfortunately is something that I can not only not argue against, but practice over and over again. I find myself realizing that this may not be the best book for me to read, since it will only encourage me to not read the books that are assigned to me in my various languages classes.

It's influence has been so far to confuse me and slowly make me realize that the only reading worth investing time and energy in, is the chick lit that I enjoy and love. The books that I have been educated to believe have no literary value whatsoever and are therefore simply objects to sill up excessive free time with. Things that keep me occupied and entertained at a low intellectual price. I also wonder if the only thing I need to do to continue writing blogs about this book is to skim it and read its table of contents.

The vital questions are: Should I and am I ready for that level of 'not-reading'?

Vocabulary
Eulogize - to praise highly in speech or writing

Multifarious - many and of various types

Fallacious Commercial

https://docs.google.com/a/cng.edu/file/d/0B0liDXUjLAa8NGtuc3E5Q1k2aWc/edit

Bring it On

As I begin reading what is probably the most bizarre book yet (and trust me when I say I've read some pretty weird things), I find myself fascinated by nothing more and nothing less than its title.  Despite the fact that I'm barely beginning to grasp the idea explained by Bayard in the first chapters of How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read, I find myself thinking about the title and how I can relate to it. And here it is, the word that perfectly fits my necessities: Improvisation.

Improvisation is key to life. Or at least I've found it to be.

What do I do when a stranger comes up to me and sends their love and greetings to my mother?

I improvise. I smile and nod, reassuring them that I will and that I'm sure my mom will call them. But while that's my exterior, my interior is something more like this: 

Why is this stranger smiling at me? 

Oh no, he's approaching me now. 

He's waving. 

Am I about to be kidnapped?

Just go with the flow and smile back Barb. 

He probably knows your -- 

"Oh my God! How's Elisa doing? I haven't seen her in so long! You are so grown up! Are you the eldest? No, the middle one! Of course, of course. Well say hi to Diego as well, won't you? Right. Good to see you! Send them both my love!"

Notice how he doesn't mention his name? Normally they're so wrapped up in remembering, that they forget to remind me who they are. But I have no choice. For my parent's sake I have to improvise, otherwise my mother's fall from society will be on me, and God knows she will never let it go. 

If you ask me it's all about keeping up with appearances.

What do I do when everyone in the room read about the Philippines Typhon, while I was busy being an ignorant sloth?

I improvise. I nod when asked if I saw the pictures from El Tiempo. 

How about when I've been talking the whole time in Film Critique while supposed to be thinking about what I'll do for the next proyect and Cata puts me on the spot by asking me about it in front of everyone? 

I improvise. I blurt out and start talking about techniques and ideas that I think will impress her. Things that sound like they've been thought through meticoulously. I dig for the cinematic vocabulary I know, and I talk as if I've been waiting for this question since my birth.

Now the big question: why? Why go through all the trouble? Personally, because I don't want to immediately admit that I have no idea who you are, that I didn't even glance at El Tiempo on Sunday and that I didn't follow one simple instruction. I don't necessarily feel ashamed, but nevertheless obligated to do so out of pride. I'd rather improvise and attempt at making you think I have a great memory for faces, I read the news religiously and that I did you as you instructed.

If I have found improvisation to be a technique for the art of keeping up with appearances, will I find Bayard to think so as well? Will I find within How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read, that improvisation is key? Can this book become my manual of life? Because frankly, I won't deny that I enjoy improvising a teeny weeny bit. It's a test I'm willing to kick ass in, and what's more, rhetoric even plays its part. 

Strangers that aren't strangers: ethos. Act like you recognize them and reassure them of your good manners and excellent memory.

Pathetic ignorance: pathos. Just nod, frown and empathize you lazy pansy.

Suspicious vengeful Cata: logos. What's that angle Mr. Tangen said is the opposite of the wide angles' effects? Ah yes! Telephoto. 

Oh, Heart of Darkness? Of course Mr. Ferrebee, the irony is undeniably obvious. There's so many examples of it, I don't think it's fair to choose just one!
That's how I talk about books I haven't read. Pierre Bayard: bring it on and show me what you got.