Metonym-Rods

(C-Day minus final read through; supervisor edits; defence) OK, so this is a post a long time in the making, but the breaking point has finally been hit. An article by George Orwell once chastised the use of "dead metaphors", that is, analogies and metonym so over-used as to no longer properly lend the audience the true value of the comparison. "Falling in love" being the easiest example that comes to mind, where use is so common, the feelings involved in this free fall sensation are lost. However, the importance of dead metaphors to me here are that they are great examples of intellectual laziness. Instead of coming up with fresh comparisons, or weaving the highly flexible English language into a tapestry of imagery, these authors cement age-old comparisons further in place.

Now, I know it is too much to expect the journalists who publish daily articles in online and print newspapers to craft their words into anything other than mostly descriptive bunk. I do, honestly. However, this is not the only example of intellectual laziness these days. I do not think it is too much to ask that these daily writers at least spell their stupid, ancient word-smithing correctly. Everyday there are countless spelling errors, typos, and grammatical errors in every paper from the strictly online Huffington Post, to the hoity National Post and Globe & Mail. I understand that there is an impetus to get articles out on time in order to get the newspapers shipped on time, but there is no excuse for not revising all those mistakes in the online versions. Do they even read their own work?! What exactly are the editors doing? That would be the equivalent of a plumber refusing to plumb, a teacher avoiding the teaching aspect of their job.

It used to be said that in order to read the Toronto Star, one needed at minimum a 3rd grade reading level, but I do not believe it is a requirement to write as if one was in fact in the 3rd grade. The population is becoming collectively more stupid, there is no need to hasten this process. We might end up closer to our American counterparts where dollars stripped from the education system to fuel the military fools learning so badly that generations later they cannot comprehend the value of discontinuing pointless further war efforts, forever perpetuating the cycle of stupid.

The 'expecting too much from newspapers was mine' song of the day: My Last Mistake - Dan Auerbach

Stereotyping My Typing (in Stereo)

(Day 26) Today was a writing day. Not that the entire day was devoted to writing, but rather that it was a day in which I wrote. Being a writing day, it seemed only appropriate that I would deal with the second biggest obstacle to my progress, as alluded to in the last entry. To put it simply, I am a terrible typist.

One would think that given the amount of time I spend actually typing, whether that is writing papers, chatting online or even in writing this blog, that I would be a better typist. Granted, I am slightly ahead of the 'hunt-and-peck' typing style of my parents (Hi Mom!). I would loosely describe my own typing methods as 'intuitive chaos.' This includes a flurry of movement, and a roughly 80% success rate. All things considered, not terrible.

There are however some words that always elude correct construction by me on the keyboard. I discovered this in my typing skills course in high school (does that make my lack of skill sadder?). No matter the speed at which I was typing, I could never get 'population' correct. It would always turn out as 'poulation.' That ever-elusive second P. This never really bothered me past my Grade 10 assignment on 'Peruvian Population Distribution and Other Demographics' but this anti-skill has returned in the form of another word. 'Network'. It usually takes at least two tries to spell it correctly. Newtorks; netowrks; nertwoks. It is like watching a really sad game of Jumble, where the player is sooo close, but fails to see the obvious word under the pressure of the $25 000 grand prize. What's worse, is that this is a word that comes up with great frequency in my thesis. Wonderful. At least I will get my money's worth from the SpellCheck.

'for the dry spell in the lack of misspells' song of the day: Dry Spell - The Meters