Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: shrinking/vagueness (anti flame capsule)

Author:Joshua Allen
Posted:9/26/2000; 1:58:10 AM
Topic:anti flame capsule
Msg #:21703 (In response to 21702)
Prev/Next:21702 / 21704

One can't always use words in perfectly a la carte fashion as one might expect. As soon as one says 'beanstalk' one can end up telling a giant story whether wanted or not.

Oh, right. I agree. I do agree with the original point about vocabulary being context-specific. Playing with the contexts can be the most fun of all.

Yes, and it's disturbing. I wonder if it's related to the consumer culture. (Should I leave it as an exercise to guess why I might say that? I'm thinking about 19th century written correspondence culture in particular for contrast, when folks were personally limited by vocabulary in expressing themselves.) Maybe a dwindling vocabulary is the way to streamline the mental roles suitable for couch potatoes (this is just a cynical joke).

Heh, no kidding I actually heard an interview on NPR a few months ago where some guy was claiming that "It's ok that literacy has decreased drastically, because visual literacy has increased." He was a designer or something, and seemed to think that the ability to communicate through the colors of clothes we wear (related to your consumer culture thing) and other visual cues is some great mental advance. I was thinking how animals in the jungle must be most literate of all, because their visual literacy is unmatched, and they even have great smell literacy. (Don't get me wrong, there are many symbols besides words that people can use to communicate, and I am not denying that ... I just think that in most cases, a word is worth a thousand pictures and not the other way around).

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