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we need to talk.... [was: is "technologies" a word?]
Subject:we need to talk.... [was: is "technologies" a word?] From:Sankara R <ss_rajanala -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 6 Oct 2005 06:20:22 -0700 (PDT)
> > Our job is to communicate. I don't care if I
> do it with "The Queen's
> > English", common American usage, Ebonics, Pig
We don't (can't) communicate using the Queen's
English with someone who only knows pig latin. It
maybe that someone who is strict about the
Queen's English will think one is illiterate if
they see 'technologies' (what one is
communicating then is a bad impression of
oneself).
> > the English language gatekeeper?
Also, as users of the language, we are all
gatekeepers: just as good currency is driven out
by bad, bad usage can drive out good. Already, we
see that 'then' and 'than' are used quite
interchangeably. In a generation or so, the
distinction may be obliterated; I am not saying
it is good or bad - as a non-native speaker/user
I have no locus standi in the matter. One has to
be aware of such (their/there is another example)
blurring distinctions, and where it matters -
maybe not in these cases - be a gatekeeper. In
the end, the linguists rely on the native
speaker's judgment and intuition. They don't
(can't) anyone saying anything they like.
> gatekeepers of our own writing. Macluhen's
> hyperbolic statement "the
> medium is the message" applies as much to
> language as any other
> medium:
While I agree with the statement below, in the
communication matrix 'medium' refers to the
physical channel (carrier) of the message;
language or smoke signals or any system of
symbols are subsumed under 'code' [a shared set
of rules for encoding and decoding]
> to communicate well without looking fairly
> deeply into the language.
>
Deeply or otherwise, one has to look into the
language. Recently, some friends were trying to
pull my leg saying - 'do you want to talk about
it' (which seems to be their way of saying - or a
recent slang for - 'you seem to have a problem
there') and I didn't get it. Now, I don't know if
it is FinnGlish or Am usage, they kept saying it
and I was like: nah, i am trying to forget it, I
don't wanna talk abut it.
We need to talk
about language,
to be able to talk
and be understood.
Thanks and regards,
Sankara S Rajanala
Citec Information
+358 50 428 0702
----------------
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==
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