Sorry Tom Bradby, but You Need to Get It Right!

'Tom Bradby'

I was watching ITV News at Ten on Wednesday night, and there was an update on the latest political developments in Britain. I didn't actually catch the story (though, presumably, it was about the cap on public sector pay?), just the presenter - Tom Bradby - and some middle-aged white 'expert' chatting about it afterwards. Anyway, this post isn't about the politics per se. Come on, this is Blogtastic! Nothing of worth ever happens here!

No but seriously... Tom was talking with this guy about the Tories making a U-turn on an issue they'd already made a U-turn on. I'm sure he first called it a 'double U-turn', but then repeatedly called it a 'double-u (i.e. 'w') turn'. If you perform two U-turns, then you end up going in the same direction you were in the first place. A W-turn, though, means that you've U-turned three times and, compared to your initial vector, you are going in the opposite direction. Again. Am I making sense? Don't worry, you won't be tested on this...

My actual point here is that the stress he was putting on his words was, whether consciously (as part of the larger British media's impartiality in favour of the Tories - Murdoch-controlled rags such as The S*n etc being the most notable, the BBC being the most disappointing) or unconsciously, misrepresenting the mess that the Conservatives are dragging this country further and further into. If the turgid impenetrability of this post is anything to go by, then a lot of people watching it wouldn't have noticed, but I did. I think it matters, too, because these are huge issues, you know, obvious gaffes and horrendous disrespect shown to the British public by the 'professional' people supposedly elected to serve us (yes, I know...). These issues are already being lied about blatantly by some sources, creating a climate of mistrust towards information outlets, so all broadcasters need to be held to high standards. Again, I'm not saying that ITV are part of a conspiracy, but if one of their main presenters is being misleading, then we are right to ask questions about that.

Anyway, if you've made it to the end of this, then thanks. As a reward, here's a clip from one of my favourite childhood films, which is actually kind of relevant. Content note: anti-Italian slurs.

My 'I's

Just for the record, in case you hadn't noticed, the 'i' thing is off.

It was a very worthwhile experience, and I felt very positively engaged with certain concepts of equality. However, it's not something people have picked up on, frankly. The message isn't being spread. No-one seems to care. That's fair enough, I'll just try and find a better way to express it - no worries.

I still believe in groovy notions, but there's the consideration of appearance [of course]. I don't want employers, other professionals and/or artists looking at this blog, misinterpreting non-standard grammar, and then deciding I don't know what I'm talking about [no sniggering at the back...].

Yes, cue the calls [well, with this blog's readership I'll be lucky to get one call] lambasting my 'selling out' and having no integrity. Well, to you I say I never had none of that in the first place. So nyergh.

Peace, love and light.

The 'i's Have More

SPEAKING OF CHANGING THE WAY WE THINK ABOUT OUR LOVELY OLD LANGUAGE, i was thinking briefly about the English language's classification of 'proper' nouns.

The word 'proper' is quite archaic when you think about it in the sense of 'correctness with regard to social etiquette' rather than in the sense of an intensifier, i.e. 'proper good'.

OED Online says of 'proper' in the grammatical sense that it is "denoting possession by or relation to a particular person or thing... a particular person, place, country, title, etc."

Now you may be wondering why i'm on about all this. The capitalization of these 'persons', countries and, especially, 'titles' (Lord, for example) all suggests an elevation of some people above a level that's not open to the 'common' folk. When a noun is not 'proper' it is 'common', a word which carries a more direct connotational judgement.

I know everyone's names are capitalized, but i argue that even this is part of an inherent human narcissism, trying to elevate anything in the cult of humanity to that above other things in the world. Grammatical propaganda, so to speak.

I just think it's like our sewer systems, outdated and not fit for the modern way. The modern way should be about togetherness: love and peace. It seems to go against this that we label countries and certain titles as 'proper' and leave the rest as 'common'. Make everything the same - don't increase the judgement, just the love. It's not as if it would make things less understandable. Or even, as a half-way option, just change teaching kids that there are 'proper' and 'common' classes (as that could condition their thoughts about the world), call them something else - 'specific nouns' and 'broad nouns' or something like that (replacements for 'proper' and 'common' respectively).

I realise how trivial this may seem, but it was a thought that occurred to me. Peace out.

The 'i's Have it

I've been questioning what direction my life has been going in lately. Or, more accurately, i've been questioning how i'm living my life. This came about due to the myriad of things that are going on in my life, this MindBodyGreen site, much music i'm listening to at the minute (George Harrison, John Lennon and many more. Not gonna give you an exhaustive list, that'd steal too much focus and sap the snappiness from this post which, if i'm totally honest, is already struggling to be appealing) and a few other things.

To cut to the chase, i'm busy trying to be a better person. I'm working on my self-centredness because i believe many of the world's problems stem from too much ego in some form or other. Won't go into the whole shebang, suffice to say that it creeps into politics and more (governments that put money before principles ruin lives and teach some citizens that wealth is more important than values and ethics). Sure some of it's human nature, but human endeavour is more powerful than that. My way of trying to improve this situation (in my life, at least) is to save the image in the above link as my desktop and also use a bit of linguistic relativism to help me too.

A bit of linguistic relativism, you say? Whaddaya mean by that? Well, i'll tell you what i mean by that. You may have noticed that i'm not capitalizing the 'i's in this post. The idea is that a capital 'i' represents a cult of self-importance. A self-honorific if you like, conveying an arbitrary importance of the speaker. I don't believe it's that common in world languages actually (Spanish 'yo' doesn't use it, neither does French 'je'. After that i'm stumped). I know there are many Asian languages that have a plethora of honorifics for others and it would be easy to speculate that members of that speech community behave better towards each other. Only speculate, you understand.

I'm thinking that by de-capitalizing the 'i', i'll encourage a sense of humility within myself. Hey, it's worth a go. I'll not do it in academic essays or whatever... So far it seems groovy. Obviously i'm not doing it at the start of sentences either - i'm not anti-grammar, just pro-experimentation.

Well, what do you think? Have i lost more of the plot or am i onto something? Comment maybe?