Friday, October 08, 2004
Grammar by Grampa
Why do people feel empowered to discard everything they were taught regarding the basic rules of composition? Instead of bastardizing our language, we should preserve it as one of the important mechanisms that embodies society.
Junk and clutter like Hip-Hop and Rap inveigle themselves into our popular culture based on sounding "cool" and informed. A dissection of the medium reveals a chanting, rythym-based melange of crude utterances. I will, readily, admit that my generation's Rock and Roll had little positive statement to make, but it really didn't pretend to. Nor was it scatalogical and misogynistic, rather it reveled in the adoration of the opposite sex. Such indictment is a bit off the beam of this piece, but it does point up the insidious nature of "pop" culture (adding culture to that phrase is strectching things a bit thin.)
I have always appreciated fine communication, whatever form it may take. The written word, an eloquent speech, a powerful painting or a haunting melody has held each of us in their sway (at least once.) Why do we feel compelled to cheapen our attempts at communication by treading the paths of "modern" shorthand. Such garbage as failing to punctuate, spell properly and use correct grammatical constructions are killing and perverting a system which has had a long and difficult evolution towards clarity and beauty.
If we all took a few extra seconds to do our part in regaining good communication skills, we would, at very least be taking a stand for something worthwhile. Let's be honest, to do anything else can only be the result of extreme laziness or obsequious pandering to the god of Now.
Junk and clutter like Hip-Hop and Rap inveigle themselves into our popular culture based on sounding "cool" and informed. A dissection of the medium reveals a chanting, rythym-based melange of crude utterances. I will, readily, admit that my generation's Rock and Roll had little positive statement to make, but it really didn't pretend to. Nor was it scatalogical and misogynistic, rather it reveled in the adoration of the opposite sex. Such indictment is a bit off the beam of this piece, but it does point up the insidious nature of "pop" culture (adding culture to that phrase is strectching things a bit thin.)
I have always appreciated fine communication, whatever form it may take. The written word, an eloquent speech, a powerful painting or a haunting melody has held each of us in their sway (at least once.) Why do we feel compelled to cheapen our attempts at communication by treading the paths of "modern" shorthand. Such garbage as failing to punctuate, spell properly and use correct grammatical constructions are killing and perverting a system which has had a long and difficult evolution towards clarity and beauty.
If we all took a few extra seconds to do our part in regaining good communication skills, we would, at very least be taking a stand for something worthwhile. Let's be honest, to do anything else can only be the result of extreme laziness or obsequious pandering to the god of Now.
