development

We are all, more or less, grammar Nazis. There is always going to be something that grates our souls when we hear it or read it. At the same time it is important to keep remembering that language is – and should be – evolving. The most attractive argument for this is put forward in a typographic animation by Matthew Rogers with Stephen Fry reading sections from his essay Don’t Mind Your Language…

The whole essay is really worth a read. The animation is poetic beauty and my favorite section is his retort against those who thing new uses of language are ugly:

It’s only ugly because it’s new and you don’t like it. Ugly in the way Picasso, Stravinsky and Eliot were once thought ugly and before them Monet, Mahler and Baudelaire. Pedants will also claim, with what I am sure is eye-popping insincerity and shameless disingenuousness, that their fight is only for ‘clarity’. This is all very well, but there is no doubt what ‘Five items or less’ means, just as only a dolt can’t tell from the context and from the age and education of the speaker, whether ‘disinterested’ is used in the ‘proper’ sense of non-partisan, or in the ‘improper’ sense of uninterested. No, the claim to be defending language for the sake of clarity almost never, ever holds water.

It’s about using the right words for the right occasion. Not an easy task. It’s also about enjoying the sounds languages make and having fun with them. This is where we have to let other people do what they do.

Addition: More on the same theme WritingorTyping recommended Chillax If it works like a word, just use it by Erin McKean.

I am not short. Not really tall – but I suppose that all this is a matter of perspective. But perspectives and realities of length change and shift after years of riding a desk and huddling over a laptop, standing tall is something I need to remind myself of.

Then there are times when the blows come too fast, too effectively, striking the weaknesses we work so hide to protect. In times like these the urge to curl into a protective ball physically and metaphorically appears to be the only viable option.

It is here where the impulse to run, hide and forget – to lose oneself in fantasy, dreams or the narcotic (from the Greek “to make numb”) substance of choice. My own inclinations lean towards unhealthy food and enough red wine to float a rhino, to which pop psychology deduces deep-rooted insecurity. But I will rebut, if I had the energy, that easy answers mean that you are asking the wrong questions. Never mind that – focus.

Booze and calories are a brief narcotic bringing short lived relief and a nasty aftertaste (hangover would be a cheap pun) of additional guilt, anxiety and the beginnings of a wicked downward spiral of self-loathing.

But the pain I try to avoid is artificial, brought about by false dependencies and a lack of personal moral independence. No matter how real I make it feel.

And yet it is here in the depths of self-created misery that growth occurs. Failure is the true manure of growth. Success and love relaxes and breeds complacency. So it is important to recognize this as the shitty bottom a learning curve. No place to go but up. As the window of self-loathing closes I pull myself up and stand tall to disguise my made-up pain and bring this self-deception of defeat to its knees.

My therapeutic act is to write this in a public place making those who I know read this space and the casual visitors part of my recovery.

Stephen Fry, Poetry & Accepting Language Development

Rolling with punches