Such DFW. Very Orwell. So Doge. Wow.
techcrunch.com
Such DFW. Very Orwell. So Doge. Wow.
1–10 of 58 posts
Re: Such DFW. Very Orwell. So Doge. Wow.
#2tl;dr An article espousing the merits of postmodernism and the obsolescence of so-called "Standard White English" (formal English), while also being written largely in SWE itself.
Apparently, the "masses" read Reddit. Writing in formal academic English is for privileged white people and should be phased in favor of broken, anarchic, meme-inspired vernaculars, except on Wikipedia.
How charming.
Re: Such DFW. Very Orwell. So Doge. Wow.
#3tl;dr An article espousing the merits of postmodernism and the obsolescence of so-called "Standard White English" (formal English), while also being written largely in SWE itself. Apparently, the "masses" read Reddit. Writing in formal academic English is for privileged white people and should be phased in favor of broken, anarchic, meme-inspired vernaculars, except on Wikipedia. How charming.
DFW was mentioned and then I skipped the rest of the article to the comments. A commenter said "You had me at DFW". I felt the opposite.
Re: Such DFW. Very Orwell. So Doge. Wow.
#4tl;dr An article espousing the merits of postmodernism and the obsolescence of so-called "Standard White English" (formal English), while also being written largely in SWE itself. Apparently, the "masses" read Reddit. Writing in formal academic English is for privileged white people and should be phased in favor of broken, anarchic, meme-inspired vernaculars, except on Wikipedia. How charming.
I don't have downvote privileges. But I found this comment to be condescending without adding anything to the discussion but sarcasm.
Re: Such DFW. Very Orwell. So Doge. Wow.
#5"Doge" is even more childish and cancerous than ragecomics. In 2 years most of us will try to forget how popular it once was.
Re: Such DFW. Very Orwell. So Doge. Wow.
#6Apparently language standards are racist/classist/whatever against everyone except the people who made the standard.
Damn those British, oppressing me with spellings like "theatre" and "dialogue".
Re: Such DFW. Very Orwell. So Doge. Wow.
#7tl;dr An article espousing the merits of postmodernism and the obsolescence of so-called "Standard White English" (formal English), while also being written largely in SWE itself. Apparently, the "masses" read Reddit. Writing in formal academic English is for privileged white people and should be phased in favor of broken, anarchic, meme-inspired vernaculars, except on Wikipedia. How charming.
It's a piece in favor of writing however you want to because CSWE is hard to express yourself in. It's not really in favor of meme-inspired vernacular ("a horrific mess") but maybe it's still better than constraining ourselves to formal English.
I'm not sure I agree with the part about people being mistrusted just because they speak that way though.
Re: Such DFW. Very Orwell. So Doge. Wow.
#8Uh, okay. SWE exists. It is cold, impersonal and so forth. What now, am I supposed to rebel? Burn a library? Ohmigod, I think that I'm The Man now. [commits suicide]
This is just a lot of jumping up and down informing us that there is gravity, that it exists and works, and that it is cold and impersonal. Somehow I feel I am not improved by the information.
You want to rail on language? Try reading an Army manual. Or just about any computer documentation (equal opportunity here, btw, but if you crave a villain: Oracle, and we've just gone Godwin...)
Re: Such DFW. Very Orwell. So Doge. Wow.
#9tl;dr An article espousing the merits of postmodernism and the obsolescence of so-called "Standard White English" (formal English), while also being written largely in SWE itself. Apparently, the "masses" read Reddit. Writing in formal academic English is for privileged white people and should be phased in favor of broken, anarchic, meme-inspired vernaculars, except on Wikipedia. How charming.
I note with great amusement your use of "tl;dr".
Re: Such DFW. Very Orwell. So Doge. Wow.
#10I have my own long, long column I'm working on (for TechCrunch, no less) on this topic. Nice to see Jon chiming in, but I think he dismisses the usefulness of the type of essentially formal prose being replaced by more conversational stuff. If you ask me, it's important to consider the strengths of the old way as well as the new one, which is what I'm attempting to do (4000 words and counting...).
Also, I disagree with the idea that SWE, or however you like to define it, works as a "mask." I express myself best in that language, personally, and I suspect many others do too. Conventional, "prescriptivist" English is to me very powerful, because the words all have agreed-upon meanings and relationships -- when you break those down, you allow new modes of expression but you reduce cointelligibility.