on the rape of the english language
c1600 – To be, or not to be; that is the question:
2005 – 2b?Ntb?=?
Fuck this.
The Guardian yesterday reported that “the most complicated and wordy works of English literature” are being compressed in to text messages, “to help students [in England] choose classics and master their revision”.
The service is being launched by the student mobile company, dot mobile. The idea is to send directly to student mobiles “everything” they need to know about a given novel or play…
...in the form of a text…
...which accommodates 160 characters…
And so, Paradise Lost, Bleak House, The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice… they’re all being defiled, slashed and bastardised to the length of around two sentences.
An entire book… a timeless work of art… in a text...
Again, I have two words to offer on the subject...
FUCK THIS.
But perhaps I’m being small minded… anachronistic even…
After all, the scheme has received the backing of Professor John Sutherland, an English literature professor at University College London and chair of the panel of this year’s Man Booker prize.
Defending the compression of a text like Bleak House in to a text message, Sutherland quipped that “The ‘Great Inimitable’ himself began working life as a shorthand writer. He would, I suspect, have approved of the brevity if nothing else.”
I beg to differ…
Bleak House, depending on your edition, comes in at between 800 and 1,000 pages of vivid characters, intersecting plot and scathing social commentary on the injustices of the Mid-Victorian period.
If Dickens was after brevity, I don’t think he would have opted to publish his novel in nineteen monthly instalments. He might, say, have left out the social commentary part…
But we in the early days of the 21st century know better it seems, and so we see fit to rewrite Bleak House in a way that Dickens probably would have done if he’d just given it a little more thought… or had access to a mobile phone:
EstherBecumsWardOfJarndyceWhosInCortCase.OvaWards
Rich&Ada(L8aACuple).Tulkinghorn-nosyLawyer-WorksOutLadyDedlock=E’sMum.CaseEnds w/no1gtn money.E marrysSexyDoc-Liv 2gevaInBleakHse.Rich&L.DedlockDie.
This is the sort of bile that will be sent to students… to help with their “English Studies”…
Not only does it completely Miss The Fucking Point, these texts also add momentum to the further degradation of the English language, by giving a certain credence to textspeak – “Ova”, “L8a”, “2geva”, “gtn”…
Or for people who speak English, “other”, “later”, “together”, “getting”…
Presenting Dickens in the CHAV language of Lady Sovereign seems just a little disingenuous. Why are we so willing to devolve our arts and language, just to appease people with the attention span of a dope-smoking goldfish?
It reminds me of a Bill Hicks sketch from the early 90s:
“They actually have a Bible out called The New Living Bible. It’s a Bible in updated and modern English… I guess to make it more palatable for people to read. But it’s kinda strange listening to ‘And Jesus walked on water, and Peter said “Awesome”.’ Suddenly we got Jesus hangin’ ten across the Sea of Galilee, Christ’s Bogus Adventure…”
I’m strongly beginning to suspect that Professor Sutherland is a habitual abuser of LSD. How else can you explain a professor of English supporting the rape of his heritage? He seems rather jolly about the whole thing, whereas most uncompromised minds would surely recoil at a description of the male protagonists of Pride and Prejudice as “Fit&Loadd”. (Oh, and for anyone that hasn’t read the book or needs help revising, you’ll be glad to know that although “LizH8sDCosHsProud…TrnsOutHesActulyARlyNysGuy&RlyFancysLiz.SheDecyds
SheLyksHim.Every1GtsMaryd.”)
But we can at least be happy that these kids will still be learning quotes from the heavyweights of English literature… for example, Gatsby is now warned:
“MembaDatAlDaPplInDaWrldHvntHdDaVantgsUvAd”
Two words people, two little words…
Here’s a thought. If you want students to study the classics, don’t hack them till they fit in a text in the vain hope that this will make studying more attractive. Just teach the damn things properly. Instead of force-feeding a book chapter by chapter, try to inspire an interest that will make reading the book an enjoyable experience. Give some social and historical perspective. Try to instil a sense of the joys of literature and take the focus off learning quotes and recognising themes and motifs. Try to make reading equate to something more than passing an exam, and exams equate to something more than knowing a handful of quotes. Fire every embittered middle-aged teacher that on a daily basis takes out the frustrations of their mundane lives on his or her students. Replace all that dead wood with college graduates who still have a passion for what they do and aren’t burnt out by years in a stale system. They might just make the students give a shit. And hey, let’s go hog-wild and take teaching out of the classroom every once in a while. How can you expect a kid to appreciate Wordsworth when he’s reading all these poems about the sublime beauty of nature in a dreary classroom, sitting beside some sweaty fat kid that’s just waiting for the next free period so he can pound on him some more? Ever think that maybe we’re coming at this whole education thing a little half-assed? Ever wonder why so many kids either drop out or leave school with little or no appreciation of their artistic heritage?
Oh yea, and next on the dot mobile’s “To Do” list is a “complete, shrunken works of Shakespeare”.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF…
Professor Sutherland, dressed in hoodie and distractedly eating a bowl of pineapple, was quoted as saying that texting, which isn’t even a real word, is an underused but promising educational resource. So here goes…
IfIdABllt4EvPrsnInvlvdNDisStupdFckngSkemIdBAHapyrMan
2005 – 2b?Ntb?=?
Fuck this.
The Guardian yesterday reported that “the most complicated and wordy works of English literature” are being compressed in to text messages, “to help students [in England] choose classics and master their revision”.
The service is being launched by the student mobile company, dot mobile. The idea is to send directly to student mobiles “everything” they need to know about a given novel or play…
...in the form of a text…
...which accommodates 160 characters…
And so, Paradise Lost, Bleak House, The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice… they’re all being defiled, slashed and bastardised to the length of around two sentences.
An entire book… a timeless work of art… in a text...
Again, I have two words to offer on the subject...
FUCK THIS.
But perhaps I’m being small minded… anachronistic even…
After all, the scheme has received the backing of Professor John Sutherland, an English literature professor at University College London and chair of the panel of this year’s Man Booker prize.
Defending the compression of a text like Bleak House in to a text message, Sutherland quipped that “The ‘Great Inimitable’ himself began working life as a shorthand writer. He would, I suspect, have approved of the brevity if nothing else.”
I beg to differ…
Bleak House, depending on your edition, comes in at between 800 and 1,000 pages of vivid characters, intersecting plot and scathing social commentary on the injustices of the Mid-Victorian period.
If Dickens was after brevity, I don’t think he would have opted to publish his novel in nineteen monthly instalments. He might, say, have left out the social commentary part…
But we in the early days of the 21st century know better it seems, and so we see fit to rewrite Bleak House in a way that Dickens probably would have done if he’d just given it a little more thought… or had access to a mobile phone:
EstherBecumsWardOfJarndyceWhosInCortCase.OvaWards
Rich&Ada(L8aACuple).Tulkinghorn-nosyLawyer-WorksOutLadyDedlock=E’sMum.CaseEnds w/no1gtn money.E marrysSexyDoc-Liv 2gevaInBleakHse.Rich&L.DedlockDie.
This is the sort of bile that will be sent to students… to help with their “English Studies”…
Not only does it completely Miss The Fucking Point, these texts also add momentum to the further degradation of the English language, by giving a certain credence to textspeak – “Ova”, “L8a”, “2geva”, “gtn”…
Or for people who speak English, “other”, “later”, “together”, “getting”…
Presenting Dickens in the CHAV language of Lady Sovereign seems just a little disingenuous. Why are we so willing to devolve our arts and language, just to appease people with the attention span of a dope-smoking goldfish?
It reminds me of a Bill Hicks sketch from the early 90s:
“They actually have a Bible out called The New Living Bible. It’s a Bible in updated and modern English… I guess to make it more palatable for people to read. But it’s kinda strange listening to ‘And Jesus walked on water, and Peter said “Awesome”.’ Suddenly we got Jesus hangin’ ten across the Sea of Galilee, Christ’s Bogus Adventure…”
I’m strongly beginning to suspect that Professor Sutherland is a habitual abuser of LSD. How else can you explain a professor of English supporting the rape of his heritage? He seems rather jolly about the whole thing, whereas most uncompromised minds would surely recoil at a description of the male protagonists of Pride and Prejudice as “Fit&Loadd”. (Oh, and for anyone that hasn’t read the book or needs help revising, you’ll be glad to know that although “LizH8sDCosHsProud…TrnsOutHesActulyARlyNysGuy&RlyFancysLiz.SheDecyds
SheLyksHim.Every1GtsMaryd.”)
But we can at least be happy that these kids will still be learning quotes from the heavyweights of English literature… for example, Gatsby is now warned:
“MembaDatAlDaPplInDaWrldHvntHdDaVantgsUvAd”
Two words people, two little words…
Here’s a thought. If you want students to study the classics, don’t hack them till they fit in a text in the vain hope that this will make studying more attractive. Just teach the damn things properly. Instead of force-feeding a book chapter by chapter, try to inspire an interest that will make reading the book an enjoyable experience. Give some social and historical perspective. Try to instil a sense of the joys of literature and take the focus off learning quotes and recognising themes and motifs. Try to make reading equate to something more than passing an exam, and exams equate to something more than knowing a handful of quotes. Fire every embittered middle-aged teacher that on a daily basis takes out the frustrations of their mundane lives on his or her students. Replace all that dead wood with college graduates who still have a passion for what they do and aren’t burnt out by years in a stale system. They might just make the students give a shit. And hey, let’s go hog-wild and take teaching out of the classroom every once in a while. How can you expect a kid to appreciate Wordsworth when he’s reading all these poems about the sublime beauty of nature in a dreary classroom, sitting beside some sweaty fat kid that’s just waiting for the next free period so he can pound on him some more? Ever think that maybe we’re coming at this whole education thing a little half-assed? Ever wonder why so many kids either drop out or leave school with little or no appreciation of their artistic heritage?
Oh yea, and next on the dot mobile’s “To Do” list is a “complete, shrunken works of Shakespeare”.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF…
Professor Sutherland, dressed in hoodie and distractedly eating a bowl of pineapple, was quoted as saying that texting, which isn’t even a real word, is an underused but promising educational resource. So here goes…
IfIdABllt4EvPrsnInvlvdNDisStupdFckngSkemIdBAHapyrMan
posted by Tony at 7:50 p.m.
2 Comments:
Have you seen there's more reaction on the Guardian News Blog. It's worth reading just for the link to a reduced retelling of Romeo and Juliet. Entirely in emoticons.
Civilisation is on the verge of collapse.
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