Re: Meditations/Sat AM Cartoons/E Literacy/Salinger Eyes
Steven Gabriel (sgabriel@willamette.edu)
Sat, 20 Nov 1999 17:37:06 -0800 (PST)
I was going to post something along these lines, although slightly
different. I didn't have the energy though. But I'm long overdue for a
post, and your email hooked me.
Firstly, a disclaimer. I think everyone on this list reserves the right
to render caustic and biting remarks whenever the urge strikes. So be it.
At least can we try to have some sympathy for first time posters?
Secondly, I rather enjoy internet conversation because it's rugged
informal nature. It stretches language in some interesting ways. In a
way, internet writing is more like actual conversation than most or all
formal writing. In just a few years of email correspondence, the ellipse
("...") has found usage it never dreamed of before ... all the better for
the internet. Capitals? Bah.
(bah is a conversational tidbit I would never use in formal writing, but I
find has just the right type of meaning for correspondence like this)
To be perfectly honest, I don't even notice if a poster uses captital
letters or not until someone else brings it up. Language finds it's power
through ambiguity. It has been a trend of the past couple of centuries or
longer to deny this ambiguity and to tie down our language. We do so
every time we insist upon formal restrictions of how language is used.
I'm glad we have some formalizations, but I'm also glad that I can break
whichever ones I want whenever I want so that I might express myself
better.
---
Alright, I won't try to tie down the previous paragraphs to any specific
premises or conclusions. I'll just let it be, and put alongside it
another plea that we treat kindly those fellows who approach this weird
little group from the outside. They know not the strangeness that holds
over the ground they now tread upon.
S.
On Sat, 20 Nov 1999, William Hochman wrote:
> I was thrown off line last night trying to respond to Scottie's "welcome
> the reader" post. I was nodding my head up and down as I read it since I
> think he's right--writers need to work to merit readers...even on the net.
> Writing is so difficult and can be art even if "only communication"
> because I believe art can exist anywhere...and art is evolving on the net,
> perhaps this list is a work of art?
>
> Just recently, when I picked up "For Esme" on the occasion of
> my 14 year-old niece receiving a solo in her chorus, I knew my faculties
> were not intact when I suggested lower case is ok with me...but then when
> I thought about scottie's use of *ambiguous* I realized that breaking
> rules of punctuation, grammar and syntax and creating ambiguity is
> something literature loves. You don't have to plow through William
> Empson's _7 Types of Ambiguity_ to know that it's often useful writing.
> And if you enjoy a writer like Cormac McCarthy or Ivine Welsch, you have
> to throw out plenty of conventions and adopt new ones. And if I must,
> there's e.e. cummings:
>
> eyes
> you know if a
> lit tle
> tree listens
>
> Remember I started by saying I was thown off line? This is my morning
> time writing time, different than my tired self at the end of the day. I'm
> saying things differently, but still drifiting on and off the shift
> key...and while we're at it I confess to over using and confusing ...--.
>
>
> --with love and squalor,
> will
>
>
.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
: Steven Gabriel -- sgabriel@willamette.edu :
'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'