CharlesJones

Writing Down the Jones

Aug 12 | No Comments
Posted in Words
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Why do I keep reading this?

Aoccdrnig To A Rscheearch At Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, It Deosn’t Mttaer In Waht Oredr The Ltteers In A Wrod Are, The Olny Iprmoatnt Tihng Is Taht The Frist And Lsat Ltteer Be In The Rghit Pclae. The Rset Can Be A Taotl Mses And You Can Sitll Raed It Wouthit A Porbelm. Tihs Is Bcuseae The Huamn Mnid Deos Not Raed Ervey Lteter By Istlef, But The Wrod As A Wlohe.

I’ve seen this, or something similar at least 50 times, the first being about 5 years ago at a youth ministry conference (that was the day I learned about Moralistic Therapeutic Deism – useless info, I know). For some reason I read it all the way through every time. What’s wrong with me?

Jun 27 | No Comments
The Mother Tongue
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No. 7

By Bill Bryson

My Review

As fascinated as I’ve always been with language, particularly old ones (I took 2 years of Latin in high school and 3 years of Greek in college), I know almost nothing of how English came to be. I thought I knew plenty, of course, but then Bill Bryson pointed out how much I had to learn, and how much of what I had thought wasn’t much more than semi-educated guessing.

I’m no linguist, and I’m not widely read on the subject, so I can’t vouch for the truth of Bryson’s tale – and it is a tale containing almost as much legend and mystery as fact – but I can say that it’s great fun.

He starts by describing English as the world’s language, not just as the one choice for communicating across language barriers, but as a language that is penetrating other areas culturally and linguistically. Not only is English the choice of most international relations, but its words are being expropriated all over the world:

Already Germans talk about ein Image Problem and das CashFlow, Italians program their computers with il software, French motorists going away for a weekend break pause for les refueling stops, Poles watch telewizja, Spaniards have a flirt…and the Japanese go on a pikunikku.

Read more

Jun 21 | No Comments
Posted in Books
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Two Sad Realizations

I just coded a page where you can see my reading year-by-year, which can be found here. After I was finished, admiring my coding work, I noticed two things that made me a little sad.

  1. Last year I read 36 books, a number that I’m really proud of. But I was only able to get up 20 reviews. Then I threw a pity party, posted about it, and said I’d write more. Yeah, that didn’t happen.
  2. It is June 21st, and I’ve only finished 7 books this year. So, I’m reducing my goal to 26, and hoping for the best. Wish me luck!
Jun 20 | No Comments
Posted in Society
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Straight White Men Against the World

A four-word anthem played on Twitter the other day, and I fell silent in awe: “SOCIAL MEDIA IS DISCO.”

The author was Emily Nussbaum, a cultural critic I’ve admired for a long time. She was answering a question I’d raised about why women, gay people and nonwhite people revel in the very forms of Internet culture that make some of the prominent straight white men who write about the Internet most dejected, fearful and furious. Those forms include message boards, online video, social networking, online publishing, various mobile apps and chat technology — all the digital stuff I happen to find more or less miraculous.

~Virginia Heffernan – NYT

This article is just strange. As a college-educated, uptown-living, straight black man in his 20′s (for a few more months, anyway), who is also a tech-sector guy, this just doesn’t make sense. First, almost every man I know is straight and white. And almost every one of them posts to Twitter and Facebook at least ten times daily, and most have a Tumblr, a Posterous, and a blog that they are posting to at least daily.

In contrast, among the nonwhites and women that I know (I don’t run into a lot of GLBT folk, since I’m at the seminary almost all the time), while all use their Facebook on most days, only one has a Twitter feed, and – other than the ubiquitous mommy-blogs – none have a blog of any sort that’s maintained with any regularity.

So what’s going on here? Am I living in a pocket of the Twilight Zone that snuck into my little urban area? Am I just not paying close enough attention? And why does Heffernan seem to go to such great lengths to make this distinction between the SWM (that’s straight white male) and everyone else? Why does she try to make it empowering to lump all of us “others” into one group? Read more

Jun 19 | No Comments
Posted in Quotes
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British Genius

In short, there is scarcely an area of name giving in which the British don’t show a kind of wayward genius. Take street names. Just in the City of London, an area of one square mile, you can find Pope’s Head Alley, Mincing Lane, Garlick Hill, Crutched Friars, Threadneedle Street, Bleeding heart yard, Seething Lane. In the same compact area you can find churches named St. Giles Cripplegate, St. Sepulchre Without Newgate, All Hallows Barking, and the practically unbeatable St. Andrews-by-the-Wardrobe. But these are just their everyday names. Oftentimes the full, official titles are even more breathtaking, as with The Lord Mayor’s Parish Church of St. Stephen Walbrook and St. Swithin Londonstone, St Benet Sheerhogg and St. Mary Bothall with St. Laurence Pountney, which is, for all that, just one church.

— Bill Bryson
The Mother Tongue (198)