x, n.
Doesn’t it strike you as strange that we have a letter in the alphabet that nobody uses? It represents one-twenty-sixth of the possibility of our language, and we let it languish. If you and I really, truly wanted to change the world, we’d invent more words that started with x.
There is an old joke that professors grade essays on their heft. The weightier the paper, the better the grade. Drawing from the idea that the longer the work is, the more time was put into it and the more deserving it is of a higher grade, the concept brings the flaws of human grading into focus.
Which brings us to a recent study evaluating the accuracy of computer programs created to score essays. These programs are by no means new- they have been in use for years, particularly in the world of standardized testing. With so many short essays being churned out by test takers the world over, it seemed a simpler solution to automate the grading process.
Of course, while automated grading of multiple choice tests is simple enough, cost effective, and accurate, can we really say the same for automated essay grading?
According to a study from the University of Akron and a consultancy called The Common Pool, the answer is a resounding yes. They took something like 16,000 essays (with sets that included different lengths, different rubrics, etc.) that had already been scored once by a human, then let a computer (well, several programs, actually) grade them again. The results were almost terrifyingly similar. Want proof? Here’s a chart of the scores on mean estimation… they are all so close that the lines all appear to be one goddamn line:
Of course, charting out other factors yields less impressive-looking graphs, but fuck truth when we have visual impact, right?
Regardless of potential data skew based on the most widely circulated chart from the paper, the study really did find a striking similarity between the human and computer graders. This is the first time a study like this has been done on this scale, and it does a lot to address the many flaws in computerized essay grading. Many programs favor essays with more complex lexical choices, as they are representative of an advanced vocabulary (never mind the fact that one can easily toss around a word without knowing the finer points of its meaning, i.e. thesaurus junkies). Programs also favor length, in both the entire paper and in the sentences in themselves. And, of course, they prefer proper grammar.
However, programs have been ridiculed for favoring these technical aspects at the expense of actual content. Can we honestly dole out high marks to students spouting eloquent garbage? The programs are those theoretical professors grading papers by weight, with no regard for the actual information within. A problem, to be sure.
As artificial intelligence technology advances, though, the programs have become more complicated. They are able to discern some relationships between words and phrases that help them “understand” the meaning of the essays. Last year, the University of Florida did some research on the usage of automatic grading systems using AI technology. The system in place was able to look at something like “the heart pumps blood” and find a relationship between the words “heart” and “blood,” essentially finding the meaning of the sentence by piecing together word relationships built through the rubric created by the teacher.
Interesting, to be sure, but it’s still a crude system that can, seemingly, be easily exploited by a moderately clever student. Like a child beating the square peg into the round hole until the corners break, the systems might be able to hammer out a rudimentary “understanding” of the essays, but just as that mangled square peg will never be a perfect fit for the round hole, so too will these programs never understand complex, intricate writing.
Why, then, would we let these systems do our grading for us? There are many purported advantages to removing the human component in grading. It does away with biases (personal, racial, gender-specific), which curbs grade inflation. It alleviates teacher fatigue (from which can stem errors).
There are pros and cons to both methods of grading, to be sure. And this study seems to add another entry in the pro column of computerized grading.
***
My issue with all this isn’t whether or not the Akron study is accurate. They obviously found a strong similarity between human and computer grading of these essays. To me, this is indicative of a far greater problem.
I am mere days away from completing my English degree, and there is a problem that has been gnawing away at me for the majority of my school-going years. A problem I assumed would vanish when I entered the collegiate world. But it didn’t. It continued on, this relentless march toward mediocrity.
It is a problem with the formulaic nature of writing education.
If a computer can grade an essay with nearly the same degree of accuracy as a human, this says less about our marvelous technology (sorry, but I follow AI research and know even the most cutting-edge experimental programs are nowhere near as impressive as any human mind) and more about the shabby state of our student writing. We teach our students the fucking five-paragraph essay, the rote rehashing of theses to form concluding statements. Pick a topic, back it up with two or three points, wrap it up. There is no room for creativity, for real cleverness, for anything that makes writing art and not just a series of rules to be regurgitated from the tip of a pen or onto a computer screen. As Alexander Pope wrote,
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learned to dance.
Our students are less concerned with writing interesting, engaging pieces exploring novel ways of thinking or delicately bending the rules- they instead hammer out blocky, mechanical essays. They present bland topics with just the right number of supporting facts to net them a decent grade. That’s it.
I have had many professors, and I have never had one that really inspired me to be a more creative, interesting writer. There was one who broke the mold slightly, but even she wasn’t really a powerful force in my academic career. I know that many others have those professors that shaped them, that really touched them, that showed them something about themselves or their course of study or the world that makes the student grateful and better for having known them. I understand that, I respect that, but I neverhad that. My thirst for knowledge, information, and creativity has always best been sated on my own, outside a traditional classroom.
And while I’m sure there are many English professors [And since when are English professors the only ones expected to foster strong writing in their students? You might have a great idea, oh mighty chemist, but if you can't write a goddamn elucidatory (...fuck you, WordPress, that's a word) paper to share that work with the rest of the scientific community and the world, then you are shit out of luck, now aren't you?] out there who really work to engage their students, given my own experiences and the fact that most students, if they had an “inspirational professor”, only had one or two… statistically, most professors just teach their students that mechanical, boring writing.
I suppose it is time for me to clarify a few points here, particularly for those of you who know me and are pointing at the screen in horror, screaming about my hypocrisy. I am aware that I am known for being an exceedingly technical proofreader. Am I not just perpetuating this system I purport to despise? Well… yes, I am. Because there is technically nothing wrong with writing this way. And, in fact, I am a firm believer in understanding and utilizing technically sound writing, particularly in formal settings. And those five-point essays I was harping on about? Well, they are actually a very useful tool to teach young writers about structure. I do not think they are so much the devil as I find them a despicable crutch we are not only allowing older, more advanced writers to use, but we are actively encouraging this kind of lazy writing. While there is less room for creative flair in formal, academic papers, there should be breathing room for a personal voice to show through the formal technical aspects. It’s a delicate balance, tying the writer’s soul into the formal rules… but it’s certainly possible. But we are not teaching (or even encouraging) this kind of skillful writing. Which, I believe, is a travesty.
More on that in a second.
Just last night, I was teasing a boy for marking a diaeresis, as it’s considered rather archaic in modern English. That being said, I was only poking fun because I am a right and proper bitch (and because the two of us seem to communicate primarily in taunts, mockery, and faux arguments). In all actuality, I found the use of the diacritic strangely charming. I have always enjoyed people who strive to plumb the true depths of the English language. Perhaps that’s an English major thing.
But these finer points of language… they are not taught anymore. Or, at least, not to any real degree. Why did diaeresis diacritics fall out of vogue, anyway? Because the variants, sans markings, became more popular. And our schools teach what is popular. Which is fine, which is useful, but which becomes more and more diluted. Our vocabulary shrinks, the finer points of our language get lost, and then where are we? The loss of the flavorful bits of language, those accent marks and mellifluous phrases and cheeky verbage, cripples us. We lose more than just words, we lose imagination and creativity. And as those slowly degrade, so too do advances tied to them. Invention, discovery. This destroys us slowly, across all aspects of human knowledge and progression.
And we just allow it. That is what I have such a problem with.
Formula is a base, just as we have basic vocabulary. But as we continue through our education, we need to be advancing. We build on the base. We learn the rules, then we learn how to break them. Instead, we stop at a simple formula. After we’ve mastered this, we are done. The end of the line for our writing education. Oh, there’s a bit picked up here and there. But there’s no longer any real push to expand your skills.
Not even for English students, sadly.
Our writing can be graded by a computer program. That’s how basic it is, how fucking systematic it is.
Congratulations to us.
***
I don’t have a quick fix solution to this perceived problem. Perhaps you don’t even agree with me that this is a problem. So be it. These were just my bitter, scattered thoughts as I read about the Akron study.
Take this with a grain of salt, like you should all my posts, dear galleons.
As the tongue speaketh to the ear, so the gesture speaketh to the eye. ~Francis Bacon
Galleons, the last time I bothered with so much as a mention of the Kinect and… whatever-fuck-name the PS3 version is sporting was back after E3 in 2010. So, back when these were both being unveiled. This is because I have little-to-no real interest in the systems. Having since tried the Kinect, I can say that I felt the same way about it that I did with the Wii. At first, it was mildly interesting due to its shiny newness. But as the novelty wore off, so did the appeal.
I’m a gamer. I wanted to like them. I wanted to welcome them into my world, to frolic hand-in-hand with the Kinect through a field of slaughtered zombies while Sister Hazel plays.
Alas, that was not to be.
And while I could spend all day lamenting the wasted potential of the systems (or, perhaps, arguing the point that the lauded “potential” of these systems was nothing more than a slick veneer on an idea that always had far more flaws than anyone was willing to admit), the Kinect and Wii particularly (I hear less and less about the Playstation… whatever these days) have carved their own little niche in the gaming market. And, naturally, any small technological success leads to progressive leapings-off in new and exciting directions.
So, it was only a matter of time before someone decided to take this motion-control tech and apply it to other facets of life. To be fair, video games are far from the first to attempt motion-control, but they rank as among the most commercially successful. And certainly the most visible in the current market. As such, it can be argued that it was their success that has opened the floodgates, and thus why I’m not going to spend time tracking back through the history of motion-control.
Anyway, the latest offering to the humble altars of Finicky Public Opinion and First World Laziness is the slaughtered corpse of the classic television remote. At the Consumer’s Electronics Show in Las Vegas happening this very week, one of the big themes is going to be companies showcasing their work on motion-controlled television.
It’s shiny. It’s new. It’s got flash and style and a sexy tech allure. It’s the future.
And I don’t like it.
This is why.
***
For years, we’ve been waiting for all those science fiction dreams to become a reality (while tending to ignore the fact that so many have- look at your cell phone, with its likely camera and music and video and web capabilities, and tell me that’s not some goddamn “future tech” right there). “Where are the flying cars?” the public laments, despite the fact that Americans alone get in about 11 million traffic accidents a year just on the goddamn terrestrial roads (I’m not giving anyone license to use the airspace, too). And while physics keeps teasing us with glimpses of quantum teleportation (and telling us to STFU about goddamn time travel), we find ourselves yearning for the sleek and shiny world of the future promised us by authors and filmmakers (though why we want that is beyond me, seeing as how those future worlds are never the utopian societies they seem- it’s always “totalitarianism this” and “soylent green that” and “Carrousel all up in this shit”).
And a staple of this magical future world is always voice and motion control. With a command, food is on the table. With a wave of the hand, you’ve minimized a window on a transparent display. Pretty tricks on the big screen, but now we’re striving to make them real.
The tech is, of course, mired in problems. The primary one being that, much like all attempts at voice activation, motion-controlled electronics have no way of distinguishing between conversational gestures and deliberate ones. And while this seems like a serious obstacle toward ever making this tech a workable reality… there is, of course, an option. And that’s a censorship of gesticulation, a refusal to move unless it serves a purpose.
I shudder at the thought.
In order to make motion control work properly, we would have to stifle all extraneous movements. Which may seem like a piece of cake to you more stoic and reserved sorts, but for those of us who have been described as creatures with a tendency to “do flaily things with our arms,” it’s a terrifying prospect. Not just because of the amount of work involved in training years of wild gesticulation out of us, but because of what we will lose in the process.
Communication is about more than just the sounds we utter, more than the gargling, spitting aural cacophony jittering from tongue, teeth, and throat. It’s a combination of gestures, expressions, movements, words, and inflection. Hell, gesticulation is so much a part of how we communicate that it’s actually interpreted by the same areas of the brain as the spoken word- it is language. As anthropologist Adam Kendon said, “Gesticulation… is employed, along with speech, in fashioning an effective utterance unit.” Studies have shown that individuals glean more from speech paired with gestures than they do from speech alone. Not only that, but gesturing has been proven to help a speaker retrieve words from their lexicon more efficiently.
With gesticulation being such a prominent, useful part of our communication process, how could we justify technology that will force us to cease our spasmodic movements? To truncate our communication by eliminating gestures is a step toward the full-scale language overhaul imagined in George Orwell’s 1984. Without expansive vocabularies and methods of expression, our critical thinking and imagination whither. We lose our voices. We lose the ability to formulate arguments, to see mistreatment. We are dependent on language. And part of our language is our gestures.
These motion-controlled, remote-free systems being flashed about Las Vegas right now allow you to wave your hand or turn your head to manipulate your viewing experience. An errant twitch of the head could be interpreted as a change in channel. Frustrating, to be sure. We would train ourselves to stillness, and we would lose the vibrancy and depth of our communication. Even more so than the isolationism fostered by advancing technology, this communication degradation frightens me.
It’s an implication that few probably think about, but it’s been weighing on me since I read about this yesterday. Perhaps I have become a bit of a curmudgeon in my old age, unwilling to adapt to a changing world. I’ve already expressed my dislike of those goddamn e-readers, now I’ve hobbled onto my soapbox and bitched about motion control.
Well, if this is what it means to be old and set in my ways, so be it.
“You know, women shouldn’t swear as much as you do.”
So said a coworker to me today as I cussed a blue streak after an incident involving a rolling cart, my nose, and Newton’s first law. And while I will happily admit that I swear more (and more colorfully) than most women… nay, most people I know, I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing.
Society, on the other hand, thinks I’m a right twat.
And I have a problem with that. I have a mighty problem with the taboo nature of swears.
Time for a chat, dear galleons. Pull up a chair.
***
Swearing is present in all human languages. Which you may or may not find interesting. I certainly find the notion that swearing is a shared language convention to be of moderate note. Functions similar to swearing have also been observed in chimpanzees. How far the swear share extends through the rest of the world remains unknown, but the possibility remains that animals cuss just as readily as we do.
And just how readily do we swear? Out of the average 15,000- 16,000 words we each utter in a given day, about 80- 90 of them are swears. That’s 0.5% to 0.7% of your daily verbalization.
That’s such a tiny percentage of a person’s daily word utterage that it begs the question: Why do we make such a big fucking deal over a few “dirty” words?
***
Cuss words are some of the most emotionally volatile words available to a person. These words are linked to methods of release. Whether it’s the catharsis of uttering a stream of expletives when in pain or pissed off, or the ragged screams of a few well-chosen profanities while in the throes of sexual rapture, these words are our way of letting off emotional steam.
When we look at why these words are taboo, I think this is where the answer lies- in their emotional explosivity (yeah, it’s not a word, but I like it). In studies on the most infamous group of Tourette’s sufferers (those with coprolalia, the uncontrollable urge to cuss like a sailor), positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging were used to examine the brains of the patients. What scientists found was that, when these patients cursed, both primitive (the thalamus and basal ganglia) and advanced (the prefrontal and language cortices) sections of the brain activated at the same time.
Basically, what we have going on is a tug-of-war in the brain. We have our primitive, base side urging us on to give in to our emotions and let the swears fly, while we have our educated, civilized advanced side telling us to quell that desire. Our uptight, prudish need to be seen as classy, sophisticated, advanced individuals pushes us to view cursing (such a base desire) as wrong.
But, by doing this, our society seems to be forgetting why we curse in the first place. “People usually look at the bad uses of swear words rather than why we’ve evolved to use them,” says Timothy Jay, professor of psychology at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams. “Cursing exists because … it’s how [we] express anger symbolically. It’s much better to swear than to physically hit someone or hurt them in any way. Those people who lost their job at GM need to go to a bar and have a drink and swear. They need to be able to vent their anger.”
***
Now, what constitutes a swear? Depending on the situation and people involved, this can vary. Something as minor as “sucks” can be considered a naughty word to some. On the whole, however, there are a handful of words that most people consider to be “dirty.”
I could rattle some off, but I think it’s time I turn the floor over to the late, great George Carlin. After all, his “seven words” bit is kind of the definitive bit on cussing (and, frankly, always hilarious):
***
Anyway, I’m done playing nice now. Time for the rant.
I loathe the hypocritical nature of the cussing taboo. People are so goddamn quick to punish/judge you for letting “fuck” or “shit” slip, but these same people are then quick to turn around and tell you to find acceptable substitutes.
Don’t say “shit,” say “shucks.” Don’t say “damn,” say “darn.” Don’t say “bitch,” say “bich” (cause “bich” is Latin for generosity).
Which may seem like a way to solve the problem, albeit a pussy way to do so. However, I’ve always thought it was stupid as hell. You’re replacing one word with another… yet the emotion is still there. The new word is now a curse. Is it one of the taboo expletives in society? Perhaps not, but the meaning is the same. If the meaning is the same, what has really changed about the utterance? If we were to honestly, completely, 100% give ourselves over to switching all of our cuss words out for different words, all we would have is a whole new set of words doing the exact same thing.
Words that are taboo simply because of tradition seems silly. Actually, more than that, I find the whole concept of locking off part of our vocabulary distasteful. Who is the one to decide which words are better than others? Who weighs our words?
“People can feel very passionate about language,” said Kate Burridge, a professor of linguistics at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, “as though it were a cherished artifact that must be protected at all cost against the depravities of barbarians.”
I am a person who is passionate about language. And as such a person, I think using the argument that cuss words impoverish language to be a poor one indeed. Almost laughably absurd, when you consider it logically. How can cursing impoverish language, when what it offers is a unique lexicon for a set of strong emotions?
Though our snotty, civilized selves might rail against it, the fact remains that deep, base emotions like rage and frustration and fear aren’t going anywhere. We’re stuck with them, and to not have a way to express the feelings surrounding us when under the influence of these emotional states… now that seems like a crime against language. If we have language to tame and describe the world, how can we lop off a chunk of it just because we are ashamed of our emotions?
Society, stop acting like a bunch of East Coast WASPs and get your shit together.
I’m not advocating cussing in all aspects of life- each of us has a variety of specialized vocabularies for different situations. The words you use around your friends are different from the ones you use when with your lover, and those are different from the ones you use when speaking with your boss. The jargon of daily life changes depending on who you’re interacting with and where you are. So, while cussing might not belong in the office, it does have it’s own niche in our lives.
Fucking deal with it.
***
And to circle back to the beginning…
It’s true that, on the whole, men cuss more than women. But why should my vocabulary be pigeonholed based on my gender? I already get shafted in so many other areas… just give me this.
Or don’t. What-the-fuck-ever. I’m going to continue dropping strings of expletives like they are bowling balls, and my hands are covered in butter.
…That was a weird simile, even for me.
Galleons, it’s been a while since I graced you with one of my angry rants. This is a situation I’m about to rectify, because I have a teeth-grinding, rage-spiraling mess of a rant that’s just begging to be let loose.
We’ll begin with a brief (and recent) anecdote:
While at work last night, I was discussing something with Chris, a middle-aged WoW player who has a soft spot for me (for reasons I have yet to determine). During said discussion, I used the word “vigilant” as part of a description.
Chris proceeded to halt the entire conversation just to comment on my use of “vigilant.” He mocked me for it, while I proceeded to get flustered and defensive (my usual- the foot-stamping, blushing, high-pitched voice kind).
As I walked away, him still chuckling at me (the conversation we’d begun left to rot in the realm of “what might have been”), I felt an overwhelming wave of disgust and anger come over me. Who was he to tell me what words I could use?
If this were an isolated incident, I think I’d be more apt to shrug it off and move on. But this happens to me all the goddamn time. In the last few months alone, I have been asked to define a word I use at twice a week. Hell, I’ve even been challenged to spell the words a few times (as if that’s a fucking challenge). Inevitably, people either make fun of me for my vocabulary or they get irritatingly combative about it, acting as if I’m pretentious or haughty for absentmindedly using a word that they don’t know.
So, I’m curious, galleons. Is there some manual out there that defines the right and proper boundaries of a person’s vocabulary? Because I’d love to get my hands on this. It would save me a world of trouble if I had the SparkNotes guide to catering to wanton ignorance. Truly.
I mean, who needs an expansive vocabulary? I surely don’t need it to text my BFF if I wnt 2 go 2 da muvees Sat. So, why would this bother me? Why would I be concerned by what basically amounts to a terrifying diminishing of our society’s average vocabulary? After all, as the oh-so-wise Cecil Adams once wrote, “even if our vocabulary is dwindling, so what? English, having by some counts the largest vocabulary of any language, surely contains more words than we really need. We’d be no poorer if desuetude, for one, fell into a state of itself.”
Christ, I can’t keep up the snark. This is just flat-out sickening. If we let our language be eroded away, what are we left with? A colorless mass that’s merely functional. There’s no artistry in a language that has forgotten its roots. Because that’s what those obscure words are- they are the history of our language. They are the building blocks of today’s words. They are the bridges to our daily speak.
Even more than that, these obscure (…seriously, though, how the fuck is “vigilant” even remotely obscure?) words bring subtleties and nuances of meaning to our language. If our average, daily vocabularies are the meat and potatoes of language, these colorful words are the spices we use to season the meal. We do not have “more words than we really need.”
Don’t believe me? In George Orwell’s 1984, the totalitarian regime of Big Brother has grafted a new language from bits and pieces of our own. This new language (Newspeak), however, has a severely reduced, simplified, and restricted vocabulary and grammatical structure. By limiting the vocabulary of the people, the government curtails any “alternative thinking” (or “thoughtcrime”). If you don’t have the words, you don’t have the means to form ideas outside the norm. You lose your imagination.
So do not tell me we have “more words than we really need.” We do need those words. These words are what fuel and shape our thoughts, allowing us to create and explore and discover and learn. Without a large vocabulary, we are boxing ourselves in, limiting ourselves in the worst possible way- in our own minds.
Therefore, to all the people out there who make fun of my vocabulary, who ridicule me for knowing more than them, I can think of no better reaction than a hale and hearty fuck you. There’s nothing wrong with me knowing and using polysyllabic words. If you have such a fucking problem with this, maybe it’s time to tackle your own glaring ignorance. Get out there and fucking learn something. There are plenty of ways to expand your vocabulary, the easiest being to read. Drop your gossip mags and motherfucking Twilight and pick up a book.
And if you come across a word you don’t know… I’ll let you in on a little secret.
Come closer.
Closer.
Closer.
*whispers*
There’s this magical invention called a fucking DICTIONARY. Bust one out every now and then, you jackasses.
And get off my fucking back. *shakes head in disgust* Cocks.
[Oh, galleons, I missed this. I think we're going to be bringing the rants back.]
Please love this as much as I did, galleons:
*scene opens on Sam reclining in an oversized red armchair in the middle of a library, wearing a brocade smoking jacket and swirling a glass of scotch with one hand*
Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there, galleons. I mean, sure, technically I never see you there, as my stalking abilities are sadly lacking in the realm of teleportation… As an aside, I don’t think I’ve shared with you lot my new irrational fear- that, if teleportation ever becomes a reality, I’m going to get teleported while holding hands with someone and our hands will be permanently fused together.
I know. Silly, right? I don’t hold hands.
But now I’m just being a dork and getting entirely off topic. Also, I just shattered the super classy and cliche image I’d originally set in your mind. Balls.
Anyway, I’m here today, not just because I’m almost always here to talk about something, but because I’ve got a bug up my ass (christ, now that’s a truly terrifying/disgusting mental image) over something. And, frankly, I feel it’s worth ranting about.
Meet the exclamation mark:
Oh, you’ve met? Good to hear. That means you should be familiar with how to use this particular tool. I say should because it seems that 99% of the populous has forgotten the importance of the exclamation mark. They are whoring it out on all their sentences, dropping three or more at a time in a redundant display of adolescent fervor for something that makes them “LOL”. Probably a photo of a cat in a compromising position, captioned with something pop-culturally referential and riddled with misspellings.
Ah, memes.
Regardless, as a member of one of the first generations to be raised to suckle at the teat of the almighty Mother Internet, I have watched with morbid fascination as our language has been hacked, butchered, and desecrated for the world (and future generations) to see and emulate. It sends a bolt of fear through my spine- not just because of the slight Orwellian vibe to the whole thing, but because I am a logophile at heart. But it extends beyond just words and into the realm of grammar, the framework that language is built upon. A framework that is riddled with rot and rust.
In a world hell-bent on digitizing most forms of communication (a view that I’m not wholly opposed to, though nothing beats a face-to-face conversation with a friend or lover), we are having to transmute old grammatical standbys into a new system keyed toward the evolution of old forms of communication. As email replaces letters, Facebook/Twitter replaces postcards, texting replaces calls, we find ourselves adjusting to a new world, our words pouring down paths not previously planned for them.
It was only a matter of time before we needed some form of grammatical stylebook for the interwebs. Billed as the Strunk and White of internet grammar texts, David Shipley and Will Schwalbe’s Send: The Essential Guide to Email and Home seems to be the place to go to settle internet communication disputes. I imagined it as an oasis of reason, a place to send these teenage terrorists who drop exclamation points like curses on a dock.
I was sorely mistaken.
According to Shipley and Schwalbe’s little text, the exclamation point should be used with near-reckless abandon in emails (including, oh-horror-of-horrors, professional emails). “‘I’ll see you at the conference,’ is a simple statement of fact,” they write. “‘I’ll see you at the conference!’ lets your fellow conferee know that you’re excited and pleased about the event.”
I’m sorry… can we get a flag on the play here?
Thank you, Internet.
The exclamation point is not, contrary to popular belief, the be-all, end-all method of showing emphasis/pleasure/excitement/anger in writing. Even on the internet, this can be done in a wide variety of fashions, from subtleties in construction and style to the more flagrant and pointed emphasis of a simple change in the style of the typeface on a single word or phrase.
Remember Strunk and White? They’ve been telling us how to use an exclamation point for years: “Do not attempt to emphasize simple statements by using a mark of exclamation. ‘It was a wonderful show!’ should be, ‘It was a wonderful show.’ “
The exclamation point is akin to the English word love. Both are supposed to be used in only the rarest of situations. As Elmore Leonard said about the exclamation mark, “You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.” The exclamation point is a thing of power. It denotes, not just emphasis on a particular word, but on the entire emotion the statement evokes. It helps to convey the idea of shouting. It punctuates exquisite pleasure.
It does not belong at the end of, “I love broccoli!” It is not a slutty punctuation mark by nature, galleons. The exclamation mark does not wake up in the morning and hope to tap the ass of every sentence it passes. No. The exclamation mark is a discerning creature. It wants nothing more than the best. It wants true passion and fire. It wants to be part of that, to help convey it to the world.
It does not want to end up sandwiched among clones of itself at the end of some whiny girl’s Facebook post to her boyfriend:
O..M…Geee…I think I am going to post on your wall continuously until I see you!!!! I am so excited!!!! This may get old for other people to see me posting on your wall, but oh well. I know it will make you smile! 
…I SO CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU!!!!!
Yes, that’s real. I stalked my brother’s profile to find a gem his girlfriend left him. Not that it was difficult… their only communication with one another seems to be these maudlin exclamations (I remain unconvinced that two people who speak this way to one another can share any form of real and intimate connection beyond the genitals, but hey, what the fuck do I know?).
This is a gross misuse of the power of the exclamation point. This is wrong.
There is argument, in these days of dull internet communication, that the exclamation point is needed in greater force to give the color of wonderment to our communiques. Bah, I say. That is like saying, “Well, I’ve been eating very healthy lately, but I find the taste lacking, so I’m going to eat more chocolate to make up for it.” Nonsensical, no?
I think the problem of listless messages lies less in the notion that digital communication saps our words of their vitality (please, go read a good novel and then tell me that black-and-white print lacks passion) and more in the idea that our society has become cripplingly lazy with the spread of digital communication. Sending missives used to require more effort than they do today. It used to take longer to reach the recipient. As it would be days before the message would be read, we thought harder about what we wanted to say. We selected the right words, not just the convenient ones. We ensured that we really meant what we were saying.
Love letters were written, not on a whim, but with intent and purpose. A text reading, “i luv u babe” carries significantly less emotional weight than a letter detailing the overpowering desire a person holds for another, the winding paragraphs unlocking intimate chambers of the lover’s heart. Business memos were thought out before sent. Workers ensured what they said was necessary and appropriate, as there was such a measure of finality in the delivered letter (whereas, in email, where you can send a follow-up that fixes an error… or bribe the bloke in IT to delete a poorly worded memo before the boss can read it).
We zip off a simple, one-line response to questions instead of really thinking about them and giving an intelligent response. We value speed over content, quantity over quality (I feel this has led to a disturbing trend among young people in love where, as they are constantly connected digitally, they need to know one another’s whereabouts to a greater extent than ever before, undermining the foundation of trust that is so essential to relationships).
Instead of peppering our messages with the poor, abused exclamation mark, we should be devoting a greater amount of time to selecting the proper words, to formulating the right sentences, to thinking about our messages before we send them. We should be using all the tools at our disposal to convey meaning and subtleties, not just relying on the easy crutch of the exclamation mark.
The exclamation mark is special. It denotes something of truly significant emphasis. Overusing it undermines its power. Remember, when everything is emphasized, nothing is. If we wish to regain that sense of wonderment the exclamation mark is supposed to invoke in us, we need to stop whoring it out. We cheapen ourselves and our language with our laziness and disregard for the immense possibilities our gift of language opens us up to.
***
And now, for a final aside:
While playing ME2 this past week, I noticed one of the characters begins to affectionately refer to my character as “siha” if she shows any interest in establishing a relationship with him. This word, this siha, has been driving me crazy. Googling it gave me no answers beyond what the game provides.
But I knew it sounded familiar. And I couldn’t place it. It kept popping into my head at the oddest moments, causing me no undue amount of frustration as I tried to attack the problem from all sorts of angles, using every trick in my mind to find the link between that damned word and whatever lurked in the corner of my memory.
Then, in one of those coincidences that never quite feel like coincidences (The Drain, if you will), I picked up Dune Messiah today after work. Just a few pages in, Paul refers to Chani by his name for her- sihaya.
And that’s why the term siha felt so familiar- it was remarkably similar to an endearment I’d already encountered.
Anyway, they are both very pretty terms of endearment. And I’m glad the mystery is solved.
For the last two days, I’ve been simultaneously reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle and Josephine Hart’s Damage. I always do this- I read two or three books at once. I’m not sure why I do it, but it’s become habit. I suppose it’s to have a variety (as the tandem reads are generally quite divergent in tone).
It has obviously been some time since I read Cat’s Cradle. Pre-junior year of high school, I’d imagine. I say this because I had completely forgotten that the narrator (and various other characters) attended Cornell, and that Ithaca itself is mentioned in the text.
…if the sun comes out, maybe I’ll go for a walk through one of the gorges. Aren’t the gorges beautiful? This year, two girls jumped into one holding hands. They didn’t get into the sorority they wanted.
When I was in Ithaca, the gorges were pretty inaccessible. You could walk alongside them, to an extent, but there were fences in place to prevent people from doing that very thing- jumping in. Apparently, it’s been a problem for years (they told us stories about it on our first day there, warning us to be careful as we were wandering campus).
They really were beautiful, though (inspiring the humorous/idiotic “Ithaca is Gorges” t-shirts… of which I own one, because Becky made me buy one to match hers when we found a shop selling them for $5).
Plus, I had forgotten that the scientist who creates ice-nine was “the father of the atomic bomb.” Which further proves the point that I’ve had a sick fascination with the subject for many, many years.
I suppose, more importantly, I want to talk about the fact that, for once, the books I was reading in tandem converged upon the same topic. In this case, it was the concept of truth. Both novels featured the concept of truth and the search for it very heavily. However, they were radically at odds with one another.
It made for interesting reading.
Damage has the main character, apparently, discovering the truth about himself and his existence, for the first time, through his disastrous affair with his son’s fiancée. There’s a great deal about the solid reality of truth, and about how difficult it can be to find and/or to come to terms with. At least, on the narrator’s end. Anna, the object of his affection, sees truth a bit differently:
Him: “And if he found out the truth?”
Her: “What truth?”
“You and I.”
“That truth. There are other truths.”
Anna’s very subjective world was constantly at odds with the objectivity the main character saw in the idea of truth, despite the fact that the two characters were supposed to be kindred spirits.
“It’s a cliché, of course, but I find there are so many versions of truth. Versions of the truth may be perfectly acceptable, as most of the time nobody knows the whole truth, do they?”
Subjective truth. Objective truth. What we believe, what we strive for… to me, the search for truth (and the definition of it) is one of the few interesting philosophical ideas (on the whole, I dismiss philosophy and philosophers as grand wastes of time). I think that all artists, of any medium, are concerned with the question of truth. It’s what we grasp for in our paintings and songs, in our poems and sculptures. Some facet of truth, some bridge to that most sacred of ideals.
By contrast, Cat’s Cradle scoffs at the notion of there being any real truth. The whole concept is treated with utmost disdain by Bokonon. His whole religion (Bokononism) is built on a fabric of lies, which he admits to his whole following. Truth is meaningless- all of reality is based on lies. Like the string configuration known as a cat’s cradle:
Where’s the cat? Where’s the cradle?
Anyway, the idea of truth. It was something John and I used to talk about for hours as we polished off a bottle of scotch and lounged on his balcony. Something that haunts most of us wherever we go. We search for it in science, in religion, in philosophy, in art.
It’s something I think about often, in various capacities.
In Damage, there was an interesting line:
…sometimes the discipline of another language reveals the truth more clearly.
I don’t know why this snippet caught my attention with the intensity it did (and it wasn’t the only thing that did, in either book, but it’s what I’m going to talk about today- maybe I’ll share some more of my thoughts on other quotes later). But it did.
For much of the drive home from work today, I mulled over this idea.
I’m a student of English. Not just of the literature (as so many English students are), but of the language. A practitioner of grammatolatry, I find myself enraptured with words. With the shape of letters, the combination of sounds, the subtleties of definitions. This is something I’ve devoted myself to since I was a child.
But…
There’s a truth in that quote, I think. While still the object of my adoration, the English language (like any language) is imperfect. There are concepts so specific that we lack words for them. Other languages, however, often have the words to describe what English cannot. Concepts foreign to our tongue burst forth in another.
We shape our world, and are shaped ourselves, through words. It’s why, in the Bible, Adam’s first task is to name the things of the world. It’s how mankind orders the chaos around it.
So, to be limited to just one language’s worth of words… does that not, in itself, limit how and what we think? Without realizing it, we’re boxing our minds in. Through the mastery (emphasis on mastery, here- as Alexander Pope said, A little learning is a dangerous thing. Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.) of even one other language, we throw our minds open to ways of thinking previously denied to us.
I wonder if I’ve boxed my thoughts in because I lack the dedication to truly master another language…
Then again, there’s still the part of my brain that tells me that I’m wrong. That still believes, as I did when I was younger, that if I can learn everything the English language has to offer, that I’ll have all the words I need. That the right combination of words (when you know those delicate shades of meaning) can describe anything. That all I need to do is master the tools I already wield.
I don’t know if mastering more than one language really makes truth clearer (truth, which is already such a murky area). While I can see how it could, I want to believe there are other routes.
So, I guess I’ll continue to let my brain argue with itself, as it is wont to do (conversations with others on this subject have yielded nothing I hadn’t already thought of… which is depressing, because I crave fresh input on the musings of my mind, but is also just fine, because people won’t [and shouldn't] jump through hoops just because I set them up). Good night, galleons.
Song of the moment: Maenam Jami Sieber
When I’m reading, I have a tendency to share quotes and tidbits with the people I know. There’s a part of me that enjoys this because it feels like, by sharing these things with them as I read, they are reading along with me. It makes a solitary activity feel… like a connection.
Silly, no?
I don’t… I don’t really talk a lot with people these days. I feel awkward starting conversations, and nobody goes to the effort to start them with me. The lump sum of my communication with people outside my family are a few short Facebook messages and the occasional stilted AIM chat.
It’s hard. How can a friendship survive when they don’t need you anymore, when all you have to offer them are words? Even if that’s all you want in return…
And that’s why I’m going to share some quotes from the book (and my thoughts on them) with you, galleons. Because we’re not friends. We’re something else.
And words are enough for us.
***
Quotes on Love:
~That almost made the tears start up behind my eyes, but his next words dried them before they had time to form. “At least we’ll have time for lunch before we have to catch our next train. The Gare du Nord has the most delicious sandwiches and we can use up my francs.” It was the choice of pronoun that warmed my heart.
I love this one for the last line, for the power and simplicity of that little statement. I gave you the lead-up for context and to really convey the emotion in that short sentence.
~Today I will go out to wait for her again, because I cannot help it, because my whole being seems now to be bound up in the being of one so different from myself and yet so exquisitely familiar that I can scarcely understand what has happened.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the concept of being “bound” to a person. Mostly because I just watched Of Human Bondage. But you find it to be true. At least, I know I have. Sometimes you find yourself tied to a person, whether you want to be or not. It’s maddening, but it can be beautiful, too.
~Oh my love, I wanted to tell you how I have thought about you. My memory belongs entirely to you, because it reverts constantly these days to our first moments alone together. I have asked myself many times why other affections can’t replace your presence, and I always return to the illusion that we are still together, and then- unwillingly- to the knowledge that you have made a hostage of my memory. When I least expect it, I am overwhelmed by your words in recollection.
Lovely. Simply lovely. Despite my initial deep reservations about Kostova adding a love plot to her story, she handles it with exquisite gentleness and poise. It’s never overpowering, but often extremely touching, as with this letter.
It doesn’t hurt that this little missive really hits home for me. Doesn’t hurt at all.
Quotes on Life:
~I reflected, as we went out into the golden evening of the Byzantine streets, that even in the weirdest circumstances, the most troubling episodes of one’s life, the greatest divides from home and familiarity, there were these moments of undeniable joy.
I know I’m a cynic by nature, but even I have moments of happiness and optimism. Is this little passage revelatory in any way? No. But then, I think some of the things that resonate with me longest aren’t new ideas, but old and familiar ideas finally put into words.
~There is a Hungarian proverb that says, ‘The Magyar takes his pleasures sadly.’
No real description here. I just really like the proverb.
~I saw on the older woman’s face the gleam of a single tear. I’ve read that there is no such thing as a single tear, that old poetic trope. And perhaps there isn’t, as hers was simply companion to my own.
As a person who spends much of her time immersed in poetry (either in my own head or between the pages of numerous books and literary magazines) and poetic prose, the concept of the “single tear” is one of those horrible tropes that surface time and time again. It’s lazy to use such an overused idea, but Kostova gives it a nice twist. She acknowledges the inanity of the idea while breathing fresh life into it at the same time. Amusing and effective.
Quotes on Language:
~He pointed to a page of beautiful Arabic, and I thought for the hundredth time how terrible it was that human languages and even alphabets were separated from one another by this frustrating Babel of differences, so that when I glanced at a page of Ottoman printing, my comprehension was immediately caught in a bramble of symbols as impenetrable to me as a hedge of magic briars.
As you may or may not know, I am abysmal at languages. I know snippets of Latin, some German, and a mere handful of words in Russian, French, Spanish, and Italian. And I absolutely hate it, because I want to learn these beautiful languages (except Spanish- I hate that damn language), but they never seem to stick in my head. My mother used to joke that I only had room for English in my head simply because I knew it so well. Which is bullshit, but it is the only language I know. Sadly. Anyway, this passage sums up my frustration pretty well.
~We took an express train south through stations whose names were posted in both Latin and Cyrillic letters, then through stations whose names were posted in Cyrillic only. My father taught me the new alphabet, and I amused myself trying to sound out the station signs, each of which looked to me like code words that could open a secret door.
I like this because, like the above passage, it captures the magic and beauty I see when I look at other alphabets… along with the confusion.
~”Nu va suparati…” I learned this delightful phrase, with which one interrupts strangers with a request for information, from the concierge at my hotel in Bucarest. It means, literally, “Don’t be angry”- can you imagine an everyday utterance more redolent of history? “Don’t pull out your dagger, friend- I’m simply lost in this wood and need directions out of it.”
I mostly just find this one amusing and pointed.
~Tomorrow is the day of Kiril and Methodii, creators of the great Slavonic alphabet. In English you would say Cyril and Methodius- you call it Cyrillic, do you not? We say kirilitsa, for Kiril, the monk who invented it.
This one goes with the next passage. Both deal with the feast day celebration of the creators of Cyrillic. I liked the little history lesson on the origins of the Cyrillic alphabet (seeing as so many people I know use it and it has become a maddening part of my life), but I really enjoyed the next passage, where we hear about the focus of the celebration being on language and literature, not just the saints.
~You know, this is my favorite holiday. We have many saints’ days in the church calendar, but this one is dear to all those who teach and learn, because it is when we honor the Slavonic heritage of alphabet and literature, and the teaching and learning of many centuries that have grown from Kiril and Methodii and their great invention.
It would be my favorite holiday, too.
Quotes About the Study of History:
~As a historian, I have learned that, in fact, not everyone who reaches back into history can survive it.
This line has haunted me since I started the book. It’s at the end of the first paragraph of the text, and I think it really sets the tone for the whole story. Like in House of Leaves, the author has done a great job of immediately getting the reader into the proper mindset.
~For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history’s terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he never could have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth. And once you’ve seen that truth- really seen it- you can’t look away.
Too true.
~It is a fact that we historians are interested in what is partly a reflection of ourselves, perhaps a part of ourselves we would rather not examine except through the medium of scholarship; it is also true that as we steep ourselves in our interests, they become more and more a part of us.
This isn’t just true for historians. It holds true for people who dedicate themselves to literature or science or math or film. I think it’s the universality of the statement, and the quiet warning hidden within the seemingly innocuous words, that make this one of my favorite passages in the novel.
~I’ve always been interested in foreign relations. It’s my belief that the study of history should be our preparation for understanding the present, rather than an escape from it.
Again, too true.
Quotes on Communism/Communist States:
~She stared. “Oh, the West is such an innocent place,” she said finally. “Do you think she has a telephone? Do you think my letters are not open and read every time?”
I’m including these quotes in here because I think that Kostova setting her story (well… part of it) during the days of Communist Eastern Europe is particularly fascinating. Not only do we have the stark comparison of the modern totalitarian government to Vlad’s brutal reign and the conquering forces of the Ottomans, but we instantly add an element of danger and suspense to the story. We’re drawn further and further into these worlds where you have to watch your every word, where you can’t move freely. Strangely, this is an echo of the restrictions on traditional vampires, and it makes the supernatural feel all the more intertwined among the real in this story. Extremely effective.
Or, as they’d say in the land of Pokémon: THAT WAS SUPER EFFECTIVE!
~”Oh, we will find a way to put in some labor issues. That is the beauty of the solid Marxist education you did not have the privilege of receiving. Believe me, you can find labor issues in any topic if you look hard enough.”
Mmm, Marxism.
~At the city’s center, we toured a grim mausoleum that held the embalmed body of the Stalinist dictator Georgi Dimitrov, who’d died five years before. The dictator’s face was waxen, with a heavy dark mustache. I thought of Stalin, whose body had reportedly joined Lenin’s the year before, in a similar shrine on Red Square. These atheist cultures were certainly diligent in preserving the relics of their saints.
Again, I’m a big fan of the final line. The rest is just context for it.
***
On a completely unrelated note, I find dying my hair red to be extremely fun. Because when I go to rinse the dye out, I get my hands coated in this viscous crimson liquid. And then I make a ton of Lady Macbeth jokes.
One time, when I was a freshman in high school and at the University of Wyoming for a summer program (where a boy named Kevin outlined the holes in my fishnets and my roommate spent the entire three weeks singing Yeroushalaim Chel Zahav), Sabrina and I dyed our friend Bird’s hair a bright red. And so I was wearing these latex gloves covered in red dye and looking for all the world like a serial killer… and Sabrina and I decided to have some fun.
First, we went down to the lobby, which had a decent amount of people milling about in it. And I proceeded to chase Sabrina all around the lobby, with the two of us screaming and carrying on and genuinely terrifying everyone around us. Then, we both stopped and calmly waited for the elevator. When it arrived, I chased her onto it. We calmly rode it up to the 11th floor (our floor), got off calmly, and went to Sabrina’s room. We blasted really goth music, stuffed a pillowcase with some old sheets, then Sabrina donned the dye covered gloves and carried the pillowcase to the trash down the hall. To the gaggle of girls who stared at her as she passed, she calmly explained, “Dead cat.”
How we didn’t get in trouble remains a mystery.
Song of the moment: My Black Widow People in Planes
I fell in love today, blogorealm.
Well, in so much that I am capable of doing such a thing.
I was reading the US LHC outreach blog today (as I do every day, because I’m a geek), and today’s blogger was… incredibly entertaining.
His name is Philip (nicknamed Flip). He’s adorable. He’s a particle physics PhD student at Cornell.
As I said before, I am in love.
Of course, I’m just kidding (mostly). One thing dear Flip talked about in today’s little post on television and the scientific community was about the return of Doctor Who. Which startled me into realizing that the 5th series begins at Easter. Which is right around the corner.
Matt Smith, your time is coming. Prove yourself worthy of the shoes you are filling.
On a completely unrelated note, I hate Rush Limbaugh more than words can ever say. But you know what I hate more? I hate conservatives who blindly latch onto Limbaugh’s words.
While not a Republican, I have no problems with an educated individual sharing differing beliefs from my own. So long as they’ve done their research and know their shit, they can have whatever opinion they want. I’ve never said mine was right, it’s just what I believe.
What I fucking cannot stand are blind believers in their political parties (Republican and Democrat alike- I say Republican here because they are the ones I’m dealing with more regularly at the moment). People who don’t actually know two shits about politics, government, or how the world operates, but who happily follow whatever their party’s candidates say. Fuck, they don’t even know the platforms these candidates are running on.
While we have two primary political parties in our system, that does not mean every candidate within a party believes precisely the same thing. They have similar overarching ideals, but the details can vary enormously. I have absolutely zero respect for people who come out preaching to me and shoving their views down my throat when they don’t actually know what those goddamn views are. They don’t know what their own words mean. And these people are voting and running for office.
How fucking terrifying is that?
It’s funny- in the advent of the digital age, with all this information at our fingertips, I’m starting to feel people are dumber than they ever have been in the past. Access to such a wealth of information leads to a lack of actual learning.
You’d think it would be the opposite. That access to material would lead to increased knowledge and wisdom in the populace. In an ideal world, this would be the case. But here in reality, we’ve forgotten how to learn. As a whole, we don’t actually know how to learn.
Now that’s more terrifying than anything.
We keep “raising the standards” in our education system, but what does that really mean? On the surface, it sounds lovely. It sounds like we’re bettering our education system and doing a better job of teaching our children information that will serve them later in life.
But we’re not, are we? Forcing students to memorize pages of notes is not teaching them to learn. The only students who are getting anything substantial out of lectures are students who already know how one acquires knowledge. The students who want to know things, because they’ve discovered the intoxication of discovery.
Despite what people seem to believe, the ability to learn is not limited to academics. Our ability to learn is what drives our culture. It’s how we succeed in life. Our ability to learn and grow is what helps us to not repeat mistakes.
In the long run, it is through learning that we achieve any semblance of meaning in this life. So the fact that we are stunting that development is detrimental on more fronts than we can easily imagine.
You see it all around you. Every day. Let’s take a simple example. How many people do you know that honestly hear/read a word they don’t know and go and look up the definition? If you are answering truthfully, the answer is a very small percentage.
But instead of looking these words up, people the world over accuse the speakers of these words of “muddying the issues” and “misdirection.”
What the fuck? They aren’t deceiving you- they are actually clarifying their point better than you realize. See, there’s a reason we have such a myriad of choices when selecting our words- it allows for shades of meaning. “Pretty” and “beautiful” mean similar things (that something is appealing or desirable), but calling a girl beautiful is not the same as saying she’s pretty. There are levels of meaning within each cluster of words.
So when you refuse to learn your own goddamn language and then yell and scream that nobody makes sense, you are actually destroying that language and the finer points of communication. Because the folks you are hollering at will eventually “dumb down” what they are saying, choosing less adequate words to try to convey to you what they are saying. And the words that mattered, the words that meant exactly what they originally intended, are lost in the aether.
And this only leads to greater and greater miscommunication because the clarity the right words bring has been lost.
Way to go, people. Way to fucking go.
So… I really didn’t intend to rant here. I was just going to declare my love for good ol’ Flip and be done with it. Sorry about that.
Here’s some Left4Dead humor to make you feel better. It’s been some time since I tossed some zombie goodness in here.
