Pages: 1 2 [3]   Go Down

Author Topic: Writing  (Read 18711 times)

Pete JF

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 291
Writing
« Reply #40 on: July 19, 2007, 01:26:16 pm »

Yikes, a call for high english?

Deez dayz dem wordz dat dey do r str8 def?

I don't know, I love the way english gets morphed on the streets, and sometimes, on the internet.  Generally, it doesn't translate well in written form. However, trying to tame the writing that occurs on the internet is like going to Mexico City for a week of vacation and picking up litter with the hope of trying to solve the garbage problem via setting a good example.

I just spent four days in NYC and that is always a language lesson...I also loves me some cockney english, something about that sound and particular treatment/invention of phrase, a treat for the jugs.

Watching my kids chat and communicate in the popular text shorthand is fascinating to me and I find that form to be endlessly imaginative.

Considering that our host on this site seems to take his own writing with a grain of the casual it might be hard to drive your point, Rob.

And, if a bunch of folks don't adhere to these standards? Ban? Ignore? Correct them? Forty lashes on the cheeks with a bluegill??

I'd prefer that a page on this site be dedicated to a gallery of the offenders in the stocks as consequence for bending rules of the written, or, the rules of generally polite interaction. That sort of directed and conscious acid, IMO, is much more alarming and disconcerting than any of the writing problems i see.


R U comfy???

(Are we making progress here? Yes, I think so, however, the point of condescension and an uncomfortable impatience is always being teetered on.)


Lots of folks here and everywhere who offer good information and caint write for crud..whether it be english as a second language issues or just plain old not receiving an education that matches up to the complainant's standards. IMO, no biggy, and ultimately, you'll drive yourself nuts trying to hold people, in the larger world, to your own set of expectations.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2007, 01:42:06 pm by Pete JF »
Logged

Rob C

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 24074
Writing
« Reply #41 on: July 19, 2007, 02:55:32 pm »

Pete - a treat for the jugs? I hope you meant a treat for the lugs! Jugs seem to be frowned upon on this site by nearly everyone other than yours truly who has totally different ideas about them.

Canute had good ideas too, but his people expected too much. However, you have got to try...

Ciao - Rob C

jani

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1624
    • Øyet
Writing
« Reply #42 on: July 20, 2007, 09:00:17 am »

The simplest would be if everybody (and I do mean everybody) made their best effort at clear and preferably succinct writing.

There is no excuse for not trying, but failure must be tolerated.
Logged
Jan

Eric Myrvaagnes

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 22814
  • http://myrvaagnes.com
    • http://myrvaagnes.com
Writing
« Reply #43 on: July 20, 2007, 09:43:14 am »

Quote
The simplest would be if everybody (and I do mean everybody) made their best effort at clear and preferably succinct writing.

There is no excuse for not trying, but failure must be tolerated.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=129133\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Thank you, Jan. That is an excellent summary of the "bottom line."

People choose their writing styles for a variety of reasons, such as:
      - To impress others with ones erudition,
      - Out of laziness (hence, the text-messaging abbrevieations, IMHO),
      - Out of ignorance,
      - Out of sloppiness,
      - To be cute,
      -  etc.

Some people, however, sincerely try to communicate. That requires some care and thought about what the audience might understand of what you are saying/writing.

When a post on LL is too difficult for me to grasp the meaning, I tend to give up. I have no idea what either "a treat for the jugs" or "a treat for the lugs" means, nor will I bother trying to decipher 1377 speak. I'd rather be out photographing.
« Last Edit: July 20, 2007, 09:44:14 am by EricM »
Logged
-Eric Myrvaagnes (visit my website: http://myrvaagnes.com)

Pete JF

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 291
Writing
« Reply #44 on: July 20, 2007, 10:56:58 am »

Haha, well, In my limited and somewhat superficial experience with Cockney English..."jugs" is one of the extremely convoluted words that exists in the Cockney dialect. It means "ears".


Like I said...these guys take some extreme liberties with the paths of their descriptive phrases.

After looking into the path of this word, it seems to come from "jugs of beer", and perhaps, the shape of them, or, the handle at the top. Like I said, I find this stuff fascinating.
Logged

Rob C

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 24074
Writing
« Reply #45 on: July 20, 2007, 11:05:34 am »

Quote
Thank you, Jan. That is an excellent summary of the "bottom line."

People choose their writing styles for a variety of reasons, such as:
      - To impress others with ones erudition,
      - Out of laziness (hence, the text-messaging abbrevieations, IMHO),
      - Out of ignorance,
      - Out of sloppiness,
      - To be cute,
      -  etc.

Some people, however, sincerely try to communicate. That requires some care and thought about what the audience might understand of what you are saying/writing.

When a post on LL is too difficult for me to grasp the meaning, I tend to give up. I have no idea what either "a treat for the jugs" or "a treat for the lugs" means, nor will I bother trying to decipher 1377 speak. I'd rather be out photographing.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=129141\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Okay, let´s try to clear this up for you:
lugs, in slang, means ears; jugs, in slang, means boobs which means knockers which means Bristols which means tete which means tits which means, at long last, breasts.

Do you see now why correct terminology is so important?

Ciao - Rob C
« Last Edit: July 20, 2007, 11:06:38 am by Rob C »
Logged

Pete JF

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 291
Writing
« Reply #46 on: July 20, 2007, 11:51:51 am »

jugs =ears..from jugs of beers

http://www.krysstal.com/cockney.html

There are a bunch more references for this origin.
Logged

Eric Myrvaagnes

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 22814
  • http://myrvaagnes.com
    • http://myrvaagnes.com
Writing
« Reply #47 on: July 20, 2007, 12:55:42 pm »

Clearly there are multiple "slangs" at work here. If your intent is to communicate  --- on an internationally read forum --- it would be a good idea to avoid any variety of slang or local dialect. Doing otherwise leads to arguments about "lugs" vs. "jugs."

To clarify: a jug is "a large bottle with a narrow mouth," and a lug is an "ancient Celtic god." Thse are the first definitions of each that Google gave me.  
Logged
-Eric Myrvaagnes (visit my website: http://myrvaagnes.com)

Pete JF

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 291
Writing
« Reply #48 on: July 20, 2007, 05:49:53 pm »

ok, from now on, lugs are lug nuts and jugs are the bobbers that catfish trappers use.

Ordinary, transluscent 2% milk jugs. Lets just settle on that and we can then be at square one, where anything goes. Good luck to you all in the ensuing euphemisery.
Logged

Rob C

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 24074
Writing
« Reply #49 on: July 21, 2007, 02:38:11 am »

Quote
ok, from now on, lugs are lug nuts and jugs are the bobbers that catfish trappers use.

Ordinary, transluscent 2% milk jugs. Lets just settle on that and we can then be at square one, where anything goes. Good luck to you all in the ensuing euphemisery.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=129222\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Giggles...

Ciao- Rob C

BernardLanguillier

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 13983
    • http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardlanguillier/sets/
Writing
« Reply #50 on: July 23, 2007, 02:52:20 am »

As a non native I should probably not join this thread (I appreciate your tolerance), but being based in Japan - ze country of ze mobile phone - I might be able to contribute a bit.

One key factor in the changing nature of the Japanese language - and of Japenglish for that matter - is mobile phones themselves.

Talking on the phone being forbidden in Japanese trains, many people (who spend a lot of time in trains and who stick to rules) exchange written messages using their phone (simple SMS or real emails).

Anybody having tried to type anything longer than 2 sentences on a mobile phone keyboard knows that writting "U" instead of "You" has the potential to reduce long term thumb injury.

Besides, the truth be told, the American language itself is seen by many non natives as being a simplified English to start with. How much truth there is to this isn't as relevant as the feeling that it is so. This probably makes it easier for us to take shortcuts and forget about the strict rules we have somehow learned in school.

A real eye opener for me was the encounter with a (really bright) PhD student from California when I was 19. I was even less confident with English then than I am today, and in the middle of a conversation correct myself from a mistaken "I was never in California" to a (probably) more correct "I have never been to California". The fellow looks at me and asks "why have you changed?".

Regards,
Bernard

Wim van Velzen

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 372
    • http://www.fotografiewimvanvelzen.nl
Writing
« Reply #51 on: July 23, 2007, 03:53:41 am »

First of all, many thanks for tolerating the idiosyncrasies of non-native English users on this ´phorem´  

Some people here make references to 1377 speak - excuse my ignorance, what´s meant here?


As for the deteriorating of the use of languages other than English. A lot of people see this happen in the Netherlands too. Nothing specifically English.
I suppose it has to do with the fact that writing on the internet and in emails is simply too easy for thinking too much (for most people that is). A hand written formal letter you sometimes had to write in days before the computer would make one a bit more precise.
Another issue that might be at work here, is that in former days the correct use of the official language helped to raise the social ladder. That is probably no longer the case in many fields. There is no longer a ´high culture´ that everyone can use as a reference.


Et ceterum censeo linguam latinam ab omnibus utendam esse...  
Logged
I don't have a signature.

jani

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1624
    • Øyet
Writing
« Reply #52 on: July 23, 2007, 04:04:35 am »

Quote
Some people here make references to 1377 speak - excuse my ignorance, what´s meant here?
It's a part of Internet culture, although it probably originated within the BBS culture.

|7#3412 ^^`/ 1377 5|<33|z.
Logged
Jan

Rob C

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 24074
Writing
« Reply #53 on: July 23, 2007, 04:13:03 am »

I have a feeling that as far as the UK goes, it is all part of a government-sponsored action to perpetuate the socialist scam that there must be no failure in the ranks, that all people are equal. In other words, the semi-literate will leave school with a certificate, worthless perhaps, but a certificate nonetheless.

The Sunday Time this week had something parallel to this line of thought: it was a piece on intelligence testing as part of job application, and the notion was put forward that these tests exist because employers can no longer have faith in university degrees and feel obliged to conduct some form of independent screening of their own.

Part of the blame must rest with the present lot in power in Britain: while insisting on higher education for all, they ignore the fact that people are different and are blessed with different abilities and they also ignore the fact that when you destroy the apprenticeship system (which has all but vanished) you fail to cultivate the next generation of expert plumbers, painters, electricians, engineers etc. which, in turn, leads to the extortionate cost of hiring such a person to fix your sink.

And some cynics claim there were no good old days! Hell, even professional photography had them!

As for posters for whom English is not the native tongue - glad to have you with us; it is always interesting to learn something about other ways of looking at things.

Oh, by the way, can some kindly US native please explain to me what, exactly, is meant by the following phrase in popular song: homecoming queen. I´m fairly certain that it has nothing to do with the return of a person of dubious sexuality.

Ciao - Rob C
« Last Edit: July 23, 2007, 04:32:43 am by Rob C »
Logged

Ray

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 10365
Writing
« Reply #54 on: July 23, 2007, 05:10:37 am »

Well!.... a writing thread on a photographic forum!! I don't know what the world is coming to!  

Having been married to an English teacher for some years, I'm well aware of the raging debate in educational circles between the merits of laissez-faire, free creativity, as apposed to ego crunching grammar and spelling correction.

Perhaps it's the difference between left-brain and right-brain activity. Perhaps it's the difference between taking an inspirational photo that's technically bad as opposed to a boring photo that's technically good.

The ideal, of course, is an inspirational photo that's also technically excellent. However, I get a sense that there are trade-offs here (or should that be trades-off). If one can't have the ideal, then which is better, inspirational shot with crap technique, or vice versa?
« Last Edit: July 23, 2007, 05:23:28 am by Ray »
Logged

Rob C

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 24074
Writing
« Reply #55 on: July 23, 2007, 06:01:23 am »

Quote
Well!.... a writing thread on a photographic forum!! I don't know what the world is coming to!   

Having been married to an English teacher for some years, I'm well aware of the raging debate in educational circles between the merits of laissez-faire, free creativity, as apposed to ego crunching grammar and spelling correction.

Perhaps it's the difference between left-brain and right-brain activity. Perhaps it's the difference between taking an inspirational photo that's technically bad as opposed to a boring photo that's technically good.

The ideal, of course, is an inspirational photo that's also technically excellent. However, I get a sense that there are trade-offs here. If one can't have the ideal, then which is better, inspirational shot with crap technique, or vice versa?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=129484\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Ray - I think that the taking of an inspirational photo via bad technique is perhaps going to be more of a rare occasion than you might be prepared to accept! I take the example of my own work where, more often than I would have liked, I was forced to work with less than wonderful models. The result of this was that the job was successful only because of my technique which allowed the product (dress) to look nice, the picture did not have that extra zing because the model was not able to give it that dimension, but the client still had a working image. So yes, technique is important all round, another reason why I always printed my own work, even if it meant having to work around the clock on occasion.

I also have doubts as to whether it is possible to claim with any certainty that ´ego crunching grammar and spelling correction´ is really that: if you fail to correct these things at the start, then it becomes almost impossible to make the change later on. I know this for myself with Spanish, where I picked it up as I went along, but never went to the trouble of taking lessons. As a result, I can converse well enough but can´t write, something which annoys the hell out of me, but I know it´s my own fault and far too late to do anything about, the incorrect ways too ingrained for change.

There is something false (to my mind) about the concept of the illiterate genius - I have yet to meet one and at my age I have met most things that life can grow. The closest to that was once during a period I spent in boarding school in India, where a child was brought into the class and asked to add up long lists of numbers which the maths teacher had written on the blackboard. He did; in his head; correctly, and in moments. But is that genius?

There was no need to change the UK education system back in the 60s - it worked very well before that watershed and has been much of a disaster ever since. All that was needed was easier access to education, not a change of style! As with that hoary old 60s concept of free love: bullshit, somebody ALWAYS pays the piper and sadly, in this case it is the student, sacrificed to the greater glory of the political machine.

Yes, quite a new concept for a photo site, this writing thread; quite a good thing for it too and perhaps indicative of this one´s superiority? Hate to say this, but even photo sites were not created equal!

By the way, I´m glad you guys exist - makes living in self-imposed exile rather more pleasant!

Ciao - Rob C

mikeseb

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 482
    • http://www.michaelsebastian.com
Writing
« Reply #56 on: July 23, 2007, 08:49:45 pm »

Quote
I have a feeling that as far as the UK goes, it is all part of a government-sponsored action to perpetuate the socialist scam that there must be no failure in the ranks, that all people are equal. In other words, the semi-literate will leave school with a certificate, worthless perhaps, but a certificate nonetheless.

It ain't just the UK, guv'nor.

Quote
The Sunday Time this week had something parallel to this line of thought: it was a piece on intelligence testing as part of job application, and the notion was put forward that these tests exist because employers can no longer have faith in university degrees and feel obliged to conduct some form of independent screening of their own.

I'm sure many employers here (US) would love to implement such testing, save for the PC outcry that would result.

Quote
...people are different and are blessed with different abilities

Aye, there's the nub of the matter. No amount of PC wishing it away will disguise the fact that human intelligence, however you measure it, is distributed approximately normally, with 68% lying within a standard deviation from the mean (80-120 IQ) and the rest, outliers on either end. Intelligence, defined as raw processing power, is pretty much genetically determined at conception, and for the most part none of the usually touted interventions can make much of a dent in it.

He was widely reviled in publishing it, touching as he did on race and socioeconomic issues in his analysis; but Charles Murray in The Bell Curve more convincingly that anyone laid out the evidence supporting this reality. But I'm moving even farther afield in an already extraterrestrial thread....

Quote
can some kindly US native please explain to me what, exactly, is meant by the following phrase in popular song: homecoming queen. I´m fairly certain that it has nothing to do with the return of a person of dubious sexuality.

That'd be my job!  Rough translation: beauty queen. In its 1950's Eisenhower-era original iteration, sexuality of any kind, dubious or otherwise, would be a no-no, many fevered adolescent dreams notwithstanding.

"Homecoming" occurs in the fall at high schools and colleges, when, a few weekly games into the 11- or 12-game season, the (American) football team plays a home game after one or more games away; hence, homecoming. This triumphal return to one's own Field of Mars (usually against the most hapless opponent one's coach can schedule, to increase the chances that Mars will christen the effort with a victory) is accompanied by festivities, including pretty girls wearing satin dresses, with the fairest of the lot elevated above her peers, sceptred and crowned like the potentate she is, at least for a night; and by dances, where awkward and perspiring pimply-faced adolescent boys attempt to pin corsages onto dresses without injuring their dates or making contact with forbidden (though very much yearned-for), interesting anatomic adornments. Sigh. Takes me back....sniff.
Logged
michael sebast

Rob C

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 24074
Writing
« Reply #57 on: July 24, 2007, 08:18:34 am »

Mike - many thanks for the low down on homecoming queens! I wonder if poor old Posh Spice has some kind of hankering for that sort of reverence, however short-lived it may turn out to be.

Oh, an interesting aside: I went into the local newsagent two weeks ago on Sunday to buy a newspaper and as I was leaving, I stepped aside at the doorway to allow a lady to enter the shop. As she passed, she exclaimed ´caballero!´ in surprise. I laughed, turned back to the lady and the girl at the desk and replied that there were not many of us about anymore.

The next week I went back to buy the Sunday paper and I thought I´d better tell her why I had said that. I explained that in the UK women can become emotionally aroused with people opening doors for them and so forth, that they become angry and say that they are perfectly capable of opening doors for themselves, thank you very much, and that young men had become afraid of giving offence by being courteous.  She laughed and said yes, they can say things like that, but secretly, they are delighted to be treated as ladies. I told her that that was interesting to know, but that at my age it made more sense for me to pass on the information to my son.

Such is life in this PC world of mad people!

Ciao - Rob C
« Last Edit: July 24, 2007, 08:32:25 am by Rob C »
Logged
Pages: 1 2 [3]   Go Up