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About the Author
Laurie Fendrich, a painter who lives and works in New York, is a professor of fine arts at Hofstra University. Her writing has focused on the place of art and artists in society and the education of young artists, but she has also written essays questioning the viability of beauty in a post-Darwin era, the meaning of abstract painting, and the tyranny of outcomes assessment. She will blog about university life, the arts. and culture.
About Brainstorm
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Laurie Fendrich
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John L. Jackson Jr.
Stan Katz
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Recent Posts
Ruminations on the Fourth of July | Comment [5]
The Terrifying Fence | Comment [9]
The Biological Thinking Machine | Comment [30]
A Sad and Sorry Saga ... | Comment [52]
Burqa Ban | Comment [30]
Featured Articles By the Author
E-mail and the End of Civilization
Com’on everbody, ligten up. Wats so bad about email? People keep acting like its the end of civilization, but get real. I mean, if ur gonna be stuck in Austenland, or if ur one of those with fustian prose who cant stand the dekline of english, I spose there’s no hope 4 uBut if u wanna get ur thoughts out fast, have a gud time with ur friends and revel in the anythinggoes of it all, embrace ur inner email self.
No txtng. Thats an entirely dif matter cuz it takes deft thumbs (mine, 4 xample, are 2 big).
An wen I say email ’m not talking bout the university emails telling u bout how the north parking lot is closed, or the plant department telling u when the next fire drill will be or how ur not sposed to keep ur windows open. Fokes, those are the emails meant for that lil key on the upper rite of ur keyboard that says delete,
Im talkin bout qwikly telling friends watsup, answering a phone call in fifteen secs as opposed 2 30 mins on the phone yakking away with someone u don’t really want to talk 2 at the moment. It’s also a perfect place to handle delicate sitches like family crises over where 2 spend the holidays—u know, whose house, what time, who brings wat and all that stuff. And it’s the best place I know where u can jus let go an use that inventive speling ur kid used when they first started mucking up learning back in the late 70s.
Well, actually there actually is another place where u can muck up everything even better—the world of im. that’s where u can really leggo and just bang out whatever piece of younowat with ur friends.. I mean, obviously im has dragged down the high-email form I used 2 use, but I 4one still luv im. Boom, popup, theres ur longlost girlfriend asking wazzup. TPlus that’s where no one ever holds back from bad bad writing and speling, and in my case anyway, everyone I talk 2 on im uses reely bad bad talk, I mean overthetop stuff that wont see the day otherwise even with a glasso wine.
Plus how else to keep up with ur faraway daughter, or qwikly find out wat time dindin is? Im is fab, more fab than email in sum ways!
Plus look at it this way, email and im together form the ebonics uf our day. U can always go back to riting real nice, anytime, but when u go back after email or im ur riting is really freshened up an u rite like a bird!
Im being serious that I really do luv to email. the advantages of instant grat like the phone but not having to listen to the return fire. Plus I almos forgot. U get 2 do like Spanish, no subject pronouns if you don’t wanna. Anyway, the big deal is that it reinvigorates the language, esp.the way it brings in fonetic speling and free association—I mean whered james joyce get his stuff from anyway without having email and im? Dunno, when I think about it he musta had an email/im mind be4 there was sucha thing.
Posted at 02:31:15 PM on December 14, 2007 | All postings by Laurie FendrichComments
Commenting is closed for this article.
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Dear sir,
I understand that you are lampooning modern culture, but is it necessary to display the utter stupidity that comprises your mind? The misspelling, poor grammar, and slang have no place in any serious writing. It is a travesty to academics that you would even think of, let alone actually write, this drivel.
Yes, we get it. The way in which our modern communications communicates is atrocious. However, to stoop to that level to show them how dumb they are is kind of like a feminist sleeping with men just to prove that men are pigs. Yeah, we really get the message. Just call it what it is and stop lowering yourself to such whoredom. You must be the father of this kid: http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Reymon14
— John C. Calhoun · Dec 15, 07:38 PM · #
This is the Chronicle?
A line or two of the parody would have made the point. This is mindless.
— Jeff Burdick · Dec 16, 09:44 AM · #
I C that yur readrs have a sense of humer.
— francofou · Dec 16, 10:14 AM · #
Even though I have yet to do enough emailing (& no texting or IM at all as yet) to get into the flow of the slang which this piece is done in, I take the author seriously when she says she is ‘being serious’. I think the piece reads a bit like a prose love poem for the new slang, and I enjoy it. I may never adopt the slang myself but that doesn’t mean I can’t take seriously the author’s assertion that her more formal writing gets somehow freed up by the looser form of email and IM composition. I hope she was serious, because for me that assertion is the best argument for trying to go with the flow of the ‘new ebonics’ that I’ve ever heard. I just don’t know if I ever want to spend that much time emailing or IMing in order to get in that flow… but I agree with the sentiment that those who see the slang as dangerous in some way are in need of some lightening up. Thanks for making me think about this new slang in some interesting ways.
Cheers.
— David Felton · Dec 16, 12:42 PM · #
For anyone who does have an appreciation of the correct usage of English grammar and spelling, the creation of a passage like this is a tour de force. I can’t believe that DF is correct however in interpreting this as a celebration of the new slang….I read it as an indictment of the mindless drivel that email and texting supports….the end of civilization indeed!
— Jeanne · Dec 17, 12:24 PM · #
Full professors can get away with this kind of writing. College freshmen cannot. They still need to be able to produce standard American English to be taken seriously. As long as we understand when and where to use each dialect, it is very useful to be multi-dialectic.
— PJ · Dec 17, 09:27 PM · #
First rule of the new era: Do not use text messaging lexicon unless you are text messaging.
Second rule of the new era: The phrase “lighten up” is hereby outlawed.
Third rule of the new era: Almost everyone uses email. No one thinks it’s the end of civilization. Words mean something. Don’t use them to be cute.
— marci · Dec 18, 01:15 PM · #