Stranger on Earth

This is a penetrating article about dumbed-down culture and “kidult” literature, written by British author Will Self for bbc.co.uk. I share most of his views, which some may call “elitist,” and think that the public should become aware of the reading habits of 21 st -century readers. 20 April 2012 A Point of View: In defence of obscure words by Will Self (author of Cock and Bull, Great Apes , among others) We chase "fast culture" at our peril - unusual words and difficult art are good for us, says Will Self. We are living in a risk-averse culture - there's no doubt about that. But the risk that people seem most reluctant taking is not a physical but a mental one: just as the concrete in children's playgrounds has been covered with rubber, so the hard truth about the effort needed for intellectual attainment is being softened by a sort of semantic padding. Our arts and humanities education at secondary level seems particularly afflicted by fal...

Very few things get my goat as much as SMS language. This baffling code language consisting of random abbreviations and amputations of decent words has gone too far in my book. Confined to a personal message meant to convey an urgent something, as in "B back a.s.a.p. Pls prep dinner b4 7", it is entirely harmless and may even be practical. But let loose in the formal world of academia, it is an unstoppable plague that threatens the dignity of those who love words simply because they are multi-syllabic and melodious when pronounced. Jokes aside, the popularity of SMS language among sensible teenagers and adults is so widespread that it is now on the verge of sucking standard language use into its black hole of no return. No retrieval possible. As a result, what you see these days is a whole generation of students (and adults) who have no clue what the apostrophe is meant for. They, foreseeably, also cannot tell the difference between "your" and "you...

Twentieth-century German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) posits that language is a poison that can be used to seduce, mislead and bewitch. Language is a form of hypnotism; it can “put us to sleep” and make us believe what we are seeing and hearing is true. In the witty Between You and I: A Little Book of Bad English (2003), James Cochrane argues that “the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language,” and that “political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidarity to pure wind” (154). Both men agree that language is a tool of manipulation. It becomes clear very few of us are aware of this fact going from day to day when we begin to question the platitudes we dispense without a second thought: “Your effort is much appreciated,” “You’re welcome,” “It’ll be dealt with in due course,” “Any inconvenience caused is much regretted,” “Efforts will be made to rectify the mistake,” “...