Incanus
Posts: 15971
Joined: 23/7/2008
From: Winterfell
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Like the Oracle said to Neo -- since this remains a films' forum -- "everything begins with choice."
One can choose to write in whatever way one sees fit depending on circumstances, naturally. Text-messaging and e-mails present one with certain problems, those being primarily only a very little space to fit several sentences and a very short time to write them, so, in such cases, it's not the form of the text that matters, as long as the meaning of the text gets through.
But one needs to know first, how the perfect and complete sentence should look like, before choosing to write it in abbreviated forms, the way a modern abstract painter would be well-served, if he / she were first familiar with Art History and all the previous forms of typical naturalistic painting. It is very handy to know how to draw a perfect naturalistic tree, if you wish to ultimately trim your sketch to simple, abstract lines.
The right to this choice is not given to school-children, if their teachers do not bother to explain to them, what a proper or complete sentence should look like. For example, where the comma should be placed, or what the purpose of the apostrophe is supposed to be.
Of course, our brains are well-conditioned to cmoperhend even this highlighted word, though comprehend should have been the correct form. Again, it is a matter of choice. I could write words like this, you would be able to understand, perhaps not easily at first, but pretty soon you'd get the idea.
The write /rite /right thyme /time is /ease now.
If, however, we decided to begin writing words the way we understand them phonetically, which would end up being in a rather arbitrary manner for almost each one of us, and not the way linguists had agreed to spell them in dictionaries [for there was a time when the spelling of "time" was debated between "teim," "taim," "thime," "thyme" and several more], then people would think that the proper way is not a uniform way, but one depending on the special accents indigenous to each part of the country. Pretty soon we'd all wish for uniformity, since we tend to organise all things related to our civilisation, though we do enjoy the occasional exceptions to our heavily regulated lives.
One might say, "are you so dumb, to not understand an abbreviated word?" A nasty example is "through". Th- and -r- are necessary, especially th- since it cannot be duplicated by a shorter form, unless we began to use the Greek alphabet, which has the letter Θ (/theta/) to depict that sound. But -ough instead of a simple -u? The mute -gh represent a phonetic value, which elongates the sound of -ou-. But the American form thru is still not a terrible solution.
How about serviceable? Why not sirvicibl or cervicibl? Manuv'r instead of manoeuvre? The way words are spelt demonstrates the origin of these words: service+able, while cervix (plural cervices sounding remarkably like services) is the narrow passage at the opening of a woman's womb. Mano (=by hand) + oeuvre (= work), the work of one's hand originally, is the way one steers a vehicle or vessel, then extended into the way one performs skillful movements, like the way an army team performs military manoeuvres, or even the way in which one devises careful plans by guiding one's thought through a mental road riddled with problems.
Again, if we chose to abandon that use of the proper spelling (which indicates to linguists the history of the words) and decided to keep only those phonetic values that get the message through / thru, we would still be in need of a codification of the new spelling rules. So, new dictionaries would be necessary. Chaos would not hold sway for much time /thyme /teim/ taim / etc.
But is the history of a word any use to me or any other common folk? Words are not mere sounds. Words are the fundamental way our mind forms basic thoughts, grammar and syntax help construct more complex thoughts. When I think the idea of "tree," I do not need to think of any specific tree in my back yard, a linden tree or an oak, etc. I simply conjure up the word "tree" in my mind. A person becomes poorer in their mental appreciation of the world, unless they possess the proper words to describe this world. Our thinking is most powerful when it is abstract, and words (oral sounds, depicted or not in written symbols) provide this abstract quality to our thoughts. Now, if I were to take away from a word its specific spelling, in order to make things easier for say school-children, I would not be subtracting from their appreciation of the word's history, since they could not care less at their age, but I would be severely hampering their future ability to comprehend the fashion an idea had been formed in the distant past that resulted in the formation of that word. I would be purposefully doing damage to their way of thinking.
Words that sound similar, albeit different in meaning, are varied in morphology because the original idea that gave rise to them was different, i.e. they came about to describe a different thought / notion, etc., and because they originated from different lanugages, the speakers of which had come up with that idea in a form that had prevailed later on over the rest of them. So, if I were to simplify things phonetically, then time deriving from the Latin tempus, and the herb thyme deriving from the Greek name for this plant, would be one and the same, though they are not related in any way, nor do they denote the same thing, not by a long shot. Imagine the large scale confusion, if this would become the rule about spelling. Of course this could not prevail in the long run, since very soon people would begin to invent new words to describe things and differentiate between them.
The same goes for grammar and syntax. The more complicated a thought is, the more complex the syntax is. Why? Because, if our thought is formed to make use of a lot of interrelated material (verbs to describe the action, adverbs to describe the manner / time / place, etc, clauses to describe the purpose or cause, etc.), one relying on the other, then our sentence might end up holding together several clauses, one being closely connected to the rest, to represent our original thought. Now, a trained mind has made so much progress in this, that it is able to formulate long but simple sentences. Abstraction. A less trained mind possesses no clear idea of what should end up in the sentence, so it throws in all the material it considers necessary. But in order to learn and train in how to manage abstract thinking, one must first learn how to formulate full, longwinded, complicated, boring thoughts.
You need to have something first in order to end up with the gist of it.
So, one would be better served if they learned more and more words, to describe more precisely what they have in mind, to make sure all the fine nuances are there for anyone to see. One thing about abbreviations, like lol, btw or wtf is that they tend to perniciously become part and parcel of everyday written speech in a way that makes people feel comfortable around texts loaded with such abbreviations. To a certain extent they serve their purpose well. But there is also a trap: some people may begin to like this form of communication so much, that they might tend to feel a subliminal aversion towards extensive and more complete forms of communication. Literature suddenly becomes a bore, and a large number of people find it hard to flick through the entire newspaper article, sticking instead to the head title and perhaps the first and last paragraphs, skipping and scanning through the rest of it.
We are creatures of habit. If we start to like a certain way of eating, walking, driving, speaking, then this tends to become the norm in all parts of our life. If we start to like a certain way of thinking, the fast and short one, and act upon our impulse, say condemning those who think or write in a different way to ours, then we may find that the road back is not so easy to take.
< Message edited by Incanus -- 19/11/2008 4:14:35 AM >
_____________________________
WINTER IS COMING
T h e 2 4 t h F r a m e . c o . u k
Cuiva Olorin
Narendur.
Tira nottolya
Tulta tuolya.
An mauya mahtie
Ter oiomornie
Ter ondicilyar
Mettanna.
Nurunna!
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