Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: N80 on October 06, 2016, 11:11:13 am
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I have noticed over the years, and even on this website, that complimentary adjectives are losing their value. In other words, you hear someone say that they just got a new iPhone and someone else replies "That's awesome!" While I appreciate new technology, there is nothing about the latest iPhone that is actually awesome. I see people refer to images here as "stunning". The word "hero" or "heroic" is applied to all sorts of rather mundane accomplishments. The word "courageous" is used to describe a dance routine on Dancing With The Stars. I understand the use of hyperbole. And we all understand what people mean when they use words this way. But I'm just wondering which words we will use in the future when 'awesome', 'heroic' 'stunning' and 'courageous' are used as descriptions for everyday events and actions? Will there be new words to describe something that is truly awe inspiring or when we are actually stunned by something or when someone does something that is really heroic? As it is now those words are so cheapened that they may not do justice even when properly used.
And then there is the other problem. Once the mundane or even actually 'good' thing or event requires hyperbole to do it justice, how do we describe what is really good but not necessarily awesome without giving offence or slight? I think it requires a better than average understanding and usage of vocabulary, which is not a skill-set I see even among the well educated these days.
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You can always try a variant on what Winston Churchill is alleged to have said when a baby was thrust at him during a political campaign.
"My! There is a baby!"
So maybe, "My! There is a photo!" :D
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The written language is not optimum for expressing quality. It is much better designed for quantitative expression.
Written language lacks the intonation, facial expression,body language, and other nuances that make up a large part of human to human communication.
This is evident in the difficulty telling the difference between sarcasm and stupidity in forum posts.
Also, if you pardon the pun, there is a lot of "noise" in writing on or in public venues. Written communication in forums like this are not only simplex communications but also delayed simplex. Added to the difficulty is that there are multiple delayed simplex communications occurring at the the same time even in the best of moderated thread. How to I get MY message to stand out from the rest of the rabble?
Typing in all capitals is discouraged and typing in a different font is simply annoying. All we are left are our words. So to get noticed, I use bigger words and more words, especially if they have an emotional appeal.
How many click-bait sites have titles "Rare Photographs that will Blow Your Mind!"
Guaranteed that these pictures are neither rare nor especially interesting to BYM. But then, how many people would click on a site that advertised "Photographs that some people might find interesting"?
Then there is the competitive nature of people.
Hyperbole can often be competitive in nature.
There are many reasons why there is an inflation of adjectives on the Internets Tubes. Some of them can be explained by the limitations of writing and others because of the culture of the Internets Tubes.
However, the opposite also occurs. There is often a lack of use of adjectives when there needs to be. Photography sites are a good example.
A photographer is a person that takes/makes/creates a photograph. Nothing more, nothing less. Photographer is a noun and nouns identify but do not qualify. That's what adjectives are.
But how many posts make a claim that a particular person is not a photographer? People who use cell phones are not photographers. Well, yes they are. It is important not to assume or presume an adjectival property to a noun.
A person who takes/makes/creates a photograph may be a good photographer, a bad photographer, a skilled photographer, a lazy photographer, .... (you get the ...uh... picture). The proper use of the adjective allows better communication.
So on the Internets Tubes, we have two extreams
1. Over use of adjectives. Your post was absolutely the best post ever written on the Internets Tubes
2. Non use of adjectives. You are simply not a photographer.
And every thing in the middle.
Communicating solely through the written language is not easy. Like photography, technology makes people think they can communicate and a lot more people are communicating to a much larger group than was possible in the past. Not every photographer is a good photographer and not every writer is a good writer.
I am still learnin' both. ;D
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It's an interesting question that has been asked before in different places at different times. There is no more an answer than a cure: people are being educated by increasingly incompetent teachers who might be very skilled in some areas such as grammar, but whose linguistic skills were probably modelled and irremediably formed before they themselves ever reached a classroom as children. Why write "increasingly incompetent"? Because flaws tend to multiply themselves rather than cancel themselves out. As each new generation accepts as correct something that clearly is not, there is little hope of things suddenly reverting to the correct form. Some call this phenomenon progress, and a modernising of language; no, it's a lowering of it. New words created to meet the new needs of technology are not the same thing at all; because they are necessary neologisms does not mean that standard English is suddenly flawed and out of date.
I've known people whose English appeared faultless but, in reality, they had never passed a senior school examination in their life. Language is usually learned from the cradle, via the ear, and when the only communications you hear are poorly phrased ones, that's what is going to stick with you; later, you will never fake it quite well enough to fool those you are attempting to emulate. Being born to the right parents is something that can't be bought. Of course, everybody has heard of the black sheep, the rebel. The hope is that he/she will grow out of it.
I once had the experience of talking on the telephone with a chap working with a stockbroker; I knew his mother, though he didn't know that. The accent was so thickly upper-crust that I had to hand the telephone back to the bank clerk who had connected us, asking her to talk with the man because I had no idea what he was saying. Now this is the thing: his parents, the mother especially, came from real money, but she spoke good English just like everybody else who spoke good English at the time; a little loudly for my tastes, perhaps, but absolutely clearly with wonderful diction. What was the matter with the son? Trying to climb that imagined, higher rung, I guess.
Not to be overlooked, of course, is the problem of youth. It seems to me that each teenage generation feels itself obliged to invent a fresh version of what went before as teen-talk in an attempt to appear hip and confuse parents. Sometimes we grow out of it, sometimes not; at other times it's just fun to throw in the odd bit of memory of past years. But, what's different today is the Internet and the texting telephone. I think those devices, left unregulated, will eventually turn the future generations into wordless morons. Thus solving the problem, I suppose.
Rob
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Hey Otto. May I quote you on my own website? I'd like to use what you said: "Photographs that some people might find interesting" ;D
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There is also the "Heroic viticulture"...
http://www.cervim.org/en/heroic-viticulture.aspx (http://www.cervim.org/en/heroic-viticulture.aspx)
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There is also the "Heroic viticulture"...
I think many would agree that all viticulture is heroic. At least most of it.
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I think many would agree that all viticulture is heroic. At least most of it.
La Gatta, Bianzone, as seen from Pian di Gembro
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Which grapes?
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The written language is not optimum for expressing quality. It is much better designed for quantitative expression.
Written language lacks the intonation, facial expression,body language, and other nuances that make up a large part of human to human communication.
This is evident in the difficulty telling the difference between sarcasm and stupidity in forum posts.
Also, if you pardon the pun, there is a lot of "noise" in writing on or in public venues. Written communication in forums like this are not only simplex communications but also delayed simplex. Added to the difficulty is that there are multiple delayed simplex communications occurring at the the same time even in the best of moderated thread. How to I get MY message to stand out from the rest of the rabble?
Typing in all capitals is discouraged and typing in a different font is simply annoying. All we are left are our words. So to get noticed, I use bigger words and more words, especially if they have an emotional appeal.
How many click-bait sites have titles "Rare Photographs that will Blow Your Mind!"
Guaranteed that these pictures are neither rare nor especially interesting to BYM. But then, how many people would click on a site that advertised "Photographs that some people might find interesting"?
Then there is the competitive nature of people.
Hyperbole can often be competitive in nature.
There are many reasons why there is an inflation of adjectives on the Internets Tubes. Some of them can be explained by the limitations of writing and others because of the culture of the Internets Tubes.
However, the opposite also occurs. There is often a lack of use of adjectives when there needs to be. Photography sites are a good example.
A photographer is a person that takes/makes/creates a photograph. Nothing more, nothing less. Photographer is a noun and nouns identify but do not qualify. That's what adjectives are.
But how many posts make a claim that a particular person is not a photographer? People who use cell phones are not photographers. Well, yes they are. It is important not to assume or presume an adjectival property to a noun.
A person who takes/makes/creates a photograph may be a good photographer, a bad photographer, a skilled photographer, a lazy photographer, .... (you get the ...uh... picture). The proper use of the adjective allows better communication.
So on the Internets Tubes, we have two extreams
1. Over use of adjectives. Your post was absolutely the best post ever written on the Internets Tubes
2. Non use of adjectives. You are simply not a photographer.
And every thing in the middle.
Communicating solely through the written language is not easy. Like photography, technology makes people think they can communicate and a lot more people are communicating to a much larger group than was possible in the past. Not every photographer is a good photographer and not every writer is a good writer.
I am still learnin' both. ;D
Amazing!
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Hence "+1"
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Which grapes?
Nebbiolo
The wines of the Valtelline, Grumello, Sassella, Inferno and the great Sfurzat (Sforzato) are all Nebbiolo grapes.
P.S. But I don't drink wine :'(
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Nebbiolo
The wines of the Valtelline, Grumello, Sassella, Inferno and the great Sfurzat (Sforzato) are all Nebbiolo grapes.
P.S. But I don't drink wine :'(
I'm not surprised: choosing must be hell!
Rob
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Hence "+1"
+2.
Quite heroic.
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Nebbiolo
The wines of the Valtelline, Grumello, Sassella, Inferno and the great Sfurzat (Sforzato) are all Nebbiolo grapes.
P.S. But I don't drink wine :'(
Thanks. I love Italian wines. I'm no expert but I'm working my way up. I love Barolo, a Nebbiolo wine of course, but I was not familiar with this specific region.
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Amazing!
Well that's not quite enough is it? ;) And I just realized the answer to my own question. When "amazing" just isn't enough, you say "f@#$ing amazing".
What linguistic conundrum can't be solved with profanity?
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I'm hoping that after profanity loses its oomph via ubiquity we'll return to using gems like "gadzooks!" to express surprise and amazement. ;)
-Dave-
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I'm hoping that after profanity loses its oomph via ubiquity we'll return to using gems like "gadzooks!" to express surprise and amazement. ;)
-Dave-
What about Shazam!!! and touching of rings, then? Almost as old - at least contemporaneous with the early 50s, to my personal knowledge!
Rob
P.S. I wonder if Eggleston ever made a snap of that...
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I'm not surprised: choosing must be hell!
Rob
No problem, in this case I can choose the Inferno wine.. (inferno=hell) ;D
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No problem, in this case I can choose the Inferno wine.. (inferno=hell) ;D
Oh, you devil, you!
;-)
Rob
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I like to think that some of my own photographs tend a bit toward the Nebbiolo.
From a future Critiques section:
"That one is a little too Montepulciano for my taste."
"Oh, but it's definitely Classico!"
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I like to think that some of my own photographs tend a bit toward the Nebbiolo.
From a future Critiques section:
"That one is a little too Montepulciano for my taste."
"Oh, but it's definitely Classico!"
I'm all for the foggy too, Eric.
Rob
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Hey Otto. May I quote you on my own website? I'd like to use what you said: "Photographs that some people might find interesting" ;D
Gopher it, as long as I get my cut of the massive profits that will blow my mind!!!!!!!!!!! ;D ;D
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Gopher it, as long as I get my cut of the massive profits that will blow my mind!!!!!!!!!!! ;D ;D
If I give you 10% of the massive profits I've made in photography over the past fifty-odd (very odd) years, I think you owe me enough for me to buy myself a nice MF camera and lenses. ;D
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From a future Critiques section:
"That one is a little too Montepulciano for my taste."
"Oh, but it's definitely Classico!"
Excellent idea.
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The written language is not optimum for expressing quality. It is much better designed for quantitative expression.
Say what? Gag me with a spoon. This is an epic fail. More importantLY it is not a factoid, but totally bogus, man. The written word is totally awesome for expressing emoticons in writing, like!
;D
Rand