DESTANDARDIZE LANGUAGE.

all-destandardizing e.e. cummings

2005-05-18T17:17:00.000-05:00

a great example of e.e.'s work, a master of modern and rebel poetry:

but mr can you maybe listen there's
me &
some people
and others please
don't
confuse. Some
people

's future is toothsome like
(they got
pockets full may take a littl
e nibble now And then
bite) candy

others
fly, their; puLLing: bright
futures
against the deep sky in

May mine's tou
ching this crump
led cap mumble some
thing to oh no
body will
(can you give
a) listen to
who may

you

be
any
how?
down
to
smoking
found
butts

PunctuLacktation

2005-05-18T16:40:00.000-05:00

All this talk of punctuation I would like to discuss the love of Lacktation that is the absence of all punctuation in order to create that rambling probing pleading sort of writing that has grammarians squirming in their seats and which can create a very delicious effect of making readers either want to wring your hands useless
or
stalk
your
every
word

with
salivation
on
the
tongue

waiting

for some sort of resolution
which
haha
of course
never comes to those stuck in the quicksand of conventional grammar

also
use it to run otherwise parenthetical words together like you might do when passing along some very juicy
SoKeepYerBloodyTrapShut kind of gossip to a pal
or to
simply
expound on a detail of a story
say
about
a girl
whose jeans carried AnEndlessSupplyOfPennies from those kitschy tourist hub machines that transform
your average penny into a flattened imprinted image of the world's largest ball of twine or paul bunyans deodorant stick

see
its
fun and only
mildly irksome after a while

e e
cummings
loved
it
and he is a favorite poet of mine
try it

Wittgenstein:

2005-03-26T00:21:00.000-06:00

"Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent."

Punk!tuation

2005-03-16T15:37:00.000-06:00

Punk!tuation! is all. about creative license ...

You have to ,feel, [the freedom] as you let go. of> former constraints

To: destandardize punctuation. is to play with time? as well as space?

You. are. altering. -- the way, the sentence -- reads. and. flows. and. its cadence

And you are making \physical\ changes in its }structure{ by inserting--->O punctuation _here or *there as it suits you)

Are paragraph breaks punctuation!

They are arent they and apostrophes too!

Are $CAPITAL$ letters punctuation!

The Answer Is, Yes And all punctuation should be Punk!tuation)))))))

Me and Allen vs. Allen and I

2005-03-15T17:05:00.000-06:00

It is said that "Allen and I blogged" is the way to say it, vs. "Me and Allen blogged," since one wouldn't say "Me blogged" but rather "I blogged." This is because grammar rules, with the faux precision of mathematics, maintains that the subject is somehow still me in a way as the speaker, and therefore the logic of the word choice must reflect that.

However I would argue for an alternative logic, wherein "Me and Allen" is a subset of subjects, logically equivalent to "Allen and I." The word choice may reflect the speaker's desires only.

My logic assumes that the word me is an entirely appropriate way to answer the question, "Who blogged?" which is not assumed in the grammatically standardized view.

In fact my logic is the logic of the language as it is actually spoken, when people are not diagramming their sentences before opening their mouths.

[Me and Allen] went to the park = [Allen and I] went to the park.

kneehilism/nyhilism

2005-03-13T19:09:00.000-06:00

I have heard both pronunciations. I think officially it's supposed to be kneehilism, ie professors of philosophy say kneehilism. But the people in the street seem to think nyhilism as if extracted from annihilate. I prefer nyhilism.

Exciting Example of Innate Language Genius

2005-03-09T19:31:00.000-06:00

Hope this is a permalink.

Hard To Read On Purpose

2005-03-08T18:23:00.000-06:00

This post contains a hidden gloss of hard-to-see yellow words that can be read or not as it suits you. [Clicking and dragging the cursor over them illuminates them.] The 'real' text exists in a quantum state between the two. Just seeing how this works ...This has no overt connection to Burroughs as such ...

Are there Words Enough to describe our love and reverence here for William S. Burroughs? His bust adorns the gothic mantle, his stooped ghost haunts the attic. Was there ever a more visionary approach to language and the word? Answer: NO.

Burroughs was the worm in the heart of the tree tree of knowledge duh, and understood that his was a power to bring it all down ... on account of the tree getting infected from the damage the worm causes.

Purposive Capitalization

2005-03-03T15:39:00.000-06:00

It is Desirable to Capitalize at Will. A.E. Milne does this in the old-school Winnie the Pooh books, to great comic Effect. Remove the ban against voluntary Capitalization within the sentence, if the writer is so inclined. It adds a further layer of nuance, complexity and Xpression. From college papers to technical journals to novels to newspapers, refuse the lower-case at Will.

Logically it follows that any letter within any sentence may be capitalizeD.

Among other fun effects, this allows one to emphasize syllables as if eNUNciating VERy CLEARly.

HOPEFULLY ONE CAN AVOID THE SHOUTING EFFECT OF THE ALL-CAPS SCENE. So USE A LITTLE JUDICIOUSNESS ABOUT IT. THAT'S THE DEAL WITH ALL THIS SHIT - YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT. BUT WHAT YOU WANT HAS TO BE GOOD.

The Spellling Connexion

2005-03-03T10:56:00.000-06:00

Destandardize Language would like to endorse alternative, sometimes archaic but always pleasing, Anglicized spellings for common Americanized spellings of certain words:

connection = connexion
complection = complexion
reflection = reflexion
show = shew
gray = grey
shit = shite

More added as they come up around the offices here.

Flexible spellling should be tha rule for alll writing, on ev'ry dockument. Az long az mos' peeple can figure it out, go for it.

The point is to stay loose and free. It's YOUR language, isn't it?

More From My Honored Mother With Two English Degrees

2005-02-26T23:08:00.000-06:00

"I'm not really sure what you hope to accomplish by destandardizing the language, but if it is to make your mother gnash her teeth, you are successful every time I read "me and Allen" instead of "Allen and I" as the subject of a sentence."

Thank you for your comment, Mom! You see, I believe you are something like a prescriptivist, and thats why using langwidge wrongly gets up your nose. But I am closer to being a descriptivist - although I believe I have left the plane of that spectrum.

But that's why I feel less compunction to follow/know the rules, but rather to observe, anthropologist-style, how language is used. I believe that cultural norms of use are more legitimate than the official grammar textbooks. I know you understand all this, I am only using the occasion of your well-recieved comment to elucidate this subject and tease apart the threads which are so interesting to me.

Where I have left the spectrum of prescriptivism/descriptivism is that I want to actively sculpt and play with language as an artist and a writer. I want to get under the hood.

(Prescriptivism and descriptivism covered in the post "Language Hackers Unite!", linked above [click title of this post].)

: ) is Language

2005-02-25T23:37:00.000-06:00

Yes, : ) is language :-p . Written language, sign language, call it what you will, the boundaries are blurry when you consider that the Asian written languages consist of pictographs. It's all the same. Even hand gestures - waving, signaling a cab, putting a finger to your lips in a shushing gesture - are language. :-

Pointed silences are language. Giving someone the silent treatment is language. :-{

It's all about context. If something is done in a context that gives it meaning - or if it is done in a context that deliberately deflates or questions meaning - it is part of the language game ;^] .

Emoticons are the written equivalent of some of the Asian languages - like Vietnamese I believe - where inflection can totally change meaning. The same effect is achieved in English but it is more limited to sarcastic (or overtly ironic) inflections that simply negate the overt meaning of the words used, in a way that says, I mean the opposite of what I am saying. I.E., you and I can utter the same words in the same context but the inflection alone can be different and therefore the meaning completely changes.

Inflection is therefore language too, and communicated in written shorthand via emoticons and things like (:- /

/:^\ are modern hieroglyphics and represent an incursion of East to West, of right brain to left brain.

Where You Can Put Your Commas

2005-02-25T19:24:00.000-06:00

When one puts a comma (or any punctuation) after a word in quotes, like "this," it is standard to put the comma/punctuation inside the quotes as I have done "here." However that has never seemed logical to me, since it is the word one is putting in quotes, not its place/role in the sentence (as indicated by its punctuation). For that reason we here at Destandardize Language say put your punctuation outside of your quotes, like "this". Ahh - so much more satisfying to the mind.

Not that we'd make a RULE about it (and upon reflectin' it is worth it to note that the convention with parentheses is to put the punctuation outside the last parenthesis, like so). So the Destandardize Language suggestion actually brings the use of parentheses and quotation marks into congruence regarding their relationship to punctuation. Funny that Destandardizing something can bring it into greater harmony.

New Blog of Note For Language Fans

2005-02-24T15:38:00.001-06:00

Click on the title of this post for a link to a really exciting new website for serious fans of language: Streamofvulgarityblog.

If language is a meal, then cuss words are the garnish. No reason why they shouldn't be stitched into everyday speech... Feel free to use the comments section to discuss the reclaiming of the word "cunt".

Who Was Ludwig Wittgenstein and Why Does He Keep Following Me Around?

2005-02-23T19:06:00.000-06:00

Wittgenstein was a philosopher who made a lot of waves in the forties and fifties that are still felt today. He focused on solving the classic problems of philosophy using an analysis of the language of those "problems".

Wittgenstein shewed [archaic english spelling] how the act of using language is analogous to playing a series of games. In these language games we play, the meaning of a word can only be determined by how it is used. Problems in philosophy arise when two or more similar-but-distinct language games get all jakered up together.

An easy example is the old question posed by Bishop Berkeley, "If a tree falls in the woods and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?" (He was playing this particular game to argue for the existence of god PS.) Here the whole thing is sort of an obvious canard, in that it hinges upon how the word "sound" is used. Berkeley was using the word in a way that was different from how it is normally used. It was almost like he was using lingo.

Wittgenstein's method would include conducting an investigation into all the different ways the word "sound" was used. He would walkaround it over and over and get a perspicacious view of it. He could then percieve that Berkeley's use of the word amounted to a kind of sleight of hand.

In this way he managed to largely dismantle the entire enterprise of philosophy. You don't hear much about the philosophers these days. These days philosophy is all about how to evaluate arguements. But no one's actually making any arguaments. I mean, people used to be really worried about wether we exist or not. Nobody's worried about that anymore. The problems of philosophy largely just dried up and blew away, and it was Wittgenstein doing a lot of the blowing. It was like he gave philosophy a huge chiropractic adjustment/really good Rolfing sesh.

So god bless Ludwig Wittgenstein for being a language pioneer and one of the patron saints of the Language Destandardization movement. In pareticular we appreciate his observation that a word's meaning is in its use. We here at Destandardize Language would shoehorn spelling inthere too somehow, couldn't agree more, and we say use them and spell them however you want, however you want....

I Before E, Except After C, and Except For All the Exceptions

2005-02-22T19:23:00.000-06:00

This has got to be the least favorite spelling rule around the offices here at Destandardize Language. Why the exceptions? Whynot just have it be a freeforall? There is no logical reason for i and e to make the "long e" sound in only one sequence, and in fact they make the same sound either way you write them, ie or ei can both make the "long e" sound. Is the archaic spelling of the word so important that we have a rule about it so people can bitch at me my whole life for forgetting it? Destandardize Language would argue that since the two spellings are functionally equivalent, the "i before e" rule should be rescinded in its entirety.

Language Visionary Hunter S. Thompson Dies in Self-Inflicted Act of Irony

2005-02-21T10:57:00.000-06:00

Hunter S. Thompson is dead in an act of irony that frankly everyone should have expected.

He shall be remembered here at Destandardize Language for his not insignificant role in helping to set language free.

Language Hackers, Unite!

2005-02-19T11:19:00.000-06:00

In Linguistics, like everything, there can be said to be two opposing poles of thought, in this case, Prescriptivism and Descriptivism. The Prescriptivists "prescribe" how you should use your language like a doctor telling you how to take your medicine. The Descriptivists are more like "the Watcher" from the Fantastic Four series, a cosmically advanced alien whose sole purpose was to watch and record everything. In the early series the Watcher is occaisionally distracted by particularly rare or interesting events happening across the Universe. Like an anthropologist he pretends to be Truely Neutral about Everything and perfectly Objective, but he always winds up getting involved, like the time he told Mr. Fantastic that although he couldn't help him fight Dr. Doom, he COULD take him to a room full of advanced weapons.

By this example I mean to shew [ <- archaic British spelling of "show"] that linguists, like quantum mechanics, are hopelessly tangled up in the meat of their science. In particular any pretense to objectivity ... it is to laugh - Ha!! Ha! Ha!

A new orientation must be devised for language study. An active one, and an activist one; a wrecking ball of one or at least a lockpick set. Destructivism? Disengageivism? Attackivism? No: Destandardizationalism.

Language hackers, unite! This is our Rubicon. Look it up.

Disable All Spellchecks: The Language Destandardization Manifesto

2005-02-18T23:29:00.000-06:00

Kindergartners should be taught how to disable a spellcheck in the first month of school. Perhaps for legal documents there could be a standardized language like Latin or the Queen's English whitch would wither up and die amongst the public parlance. Because otherwise mein freud I see no need for language standardization of any kind Least of all spelling.

People ask me how come if this site is about language destandardization, how come ALL of the words aren't spelled/used wrongly? I tell you. Because the object is FREEDOM. You MAY use/spell however you want here. Language is a game in many respects, and a "living" system. So why not?

What gives with peeple who get all pinched about spelling and the finer points of grammar? As if there was some Moral imperitive to it all, whitch there surely is Not. It is perhaps closer to a kind of internalized imperialist sense of linguistic manifest destiny, dig? They waste so much actual time on that shite - time when they could be Living. I condemn't.