saw this on youtube today. knew i had to share it with everyone. shows the power of words. shows the power of images. shows the power of music. put all three amazing things together and you get something as moving as this.
Showing posts with label words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label words. Show all posts
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Saturday, January 8, 2011
quarter of a century
yesterday was my 25th birthday. i had a great day. i worked (which was no fun) but then i went to the blackhawks game that night which was great. they won in a shoot out and two of my favorite players scored; kane and toews. so over all it was a great birthday.
every day i get an email from the new york times with the days headlines. and yesterday one of the headlines was called this: light out, huck, they still want to civilize you. and it was written by michiko kukutani. the article was about how alan gribben, a professor of english at auburn university, at montgomery, alabama, has produced a new edition of mark twain’s novel, huckleberry finn, that replaces the word “nigger” with "slave". Never mind that attaching the epithet slave to the character Jim — who has run away in a bid for freedom — effectively labels him as property, as the very thing he is trying to escape.
Nigger, which appears in the book more than 200 times, was a common racial epithet in the antebellum South, used by Twain as part of his characters’ vernacular speech and as a reflection of mid-19th-century social attitudes along the Mississippi River.
Haven’t we learned by now that removing books from the curriculum just deprives children of exposure to classic works of literature? Worse, it relieves teachers of the fundamental responsibility of putting such books in context — of helping students understand that “Huckleberry Finn” actually stands as a powerful indictment of slavery (with Nigger Jim its most noble character), of using its contested language as an opportunity to explore the painful complexities of race relations in this country. To censor or redact books on school reading lists is a form of denial: shutting the door on harsh historical realities — whitewashing them or pretending they do not exist.
Mr. Gribben’s effort to update “Huckleberry Finn” (published in an edition with “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by NewSouth Books), ratifies the narcissistic contemporary belief that art should be inoffensive and accessible; that books, plays and poetry from other times and places should somehow be made to conform to today’s democratic ideals. It’s like the politically correct efforts in the ’80s to exile great authors like Conrad and Melville from the canon because their work does not feature enough women or projects colonialist attitudes.
Efforts to sanitize classic literature have a long, undistinguished history. Everything from Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” to Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” have been challenged or have suffered at the hands of uptight editors. There have even been purified versions of the Bible (all that sex and violence!). Sometimes the urge to expurgate (if not outright ban) comes from the right, evangelicals and conservatives, worried about blasphemy, profane language and sexual innuendo. Fundamentalist groups, for instance, have tried to have dictionaries banned because of definitions offered for words like hot, tail, ball and nuts.
In other cases the drive to sanitize comes from the left, eager to impose its own multicultural, feminist worldviews and worried about offending religious or ethnic groups. Michael Radford’s 2004 film version of “The Merchant of Venice” (starring Al Pacino) revised the play to elide potentially offensive material, serving up a nicer, more sympathetic Shylock and blunting tough questions about anti-Semitism. More absurdly, a British theater company in 2002 changed the title of its production of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” to "the bellringer of notre dame."
Ballantine Books published an expurgated version of “Fahrenheit 451,” Ray Bradbury’s celebrated sci-fi classic about book banning, in which words like “hell” and “abortion” were deleted; it was reportedly 13 years before Mr. Bradbury became aware of the changes and demanded that the original version be restored.
Whether it comes from conservatives or liberals, there is a patronizing Big Brother aspect to these literary fumigations. We, the censors, need to protect you, the naïve, delicate reader. We, the editors, need to police writers (even those from other eras), who might have penned something that might be offensive to someone sometime.
every day i get an email from the new york times with the days headlines. and yesterday one of the headlines was called this: light out, huck, they still want to civilize you. and it was written by michiko kukutani. the article was about how alan gribben, a professor of english at auburn university, at montgomery, alabama, has produced a new edition of mark twain’s novel, huckleberry finn, that replaces the word “nigger” with "slave". Never mind that attaching the epithet slave to the character Jim — who has run away in a bid for freedom — effectively labels him as property, as the very thing he is trying to escape.
Nigger, which appears in the book more than 200 times, was a common racial epithet in the antebellum South, used by Twain as part of his characters’ vernacular speech and as a reflection of mid-19th-century social attitudes along the Mississippi River.
Haven’t we learned by now that removing books from the curriculum just deprives children of exposure to classic works of literature? Worse, it relieves teachers of the fundamental responsibility of putting such books in context — of helping students understand that “Huckleberry Finn” actually stands as a powerful indictment of slavery (with Nigger Jim its most noble character), of using its contested language as an opportunity to explore the painful complexities of race relations in this country. To censor or redact books on school reading lists is a form of denial: shutting the door on harsh historical realities — whitewashing them or pretending they do not exist.
Mr. Gribben’s effort to update “Huckleberry Finn” (published in an edition with “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by NewSouth Books), ratifies the narcissistic contemporary belief that art should be inoffensive and accessible; that books, plays and poetry from other times and places should somehow be made to conform to today’s democratic ideals. It’s like the politically correct efforts in the ’80s to exile great authors like Conrad and Melville from the canon because their work does not feature enough women or projects colonialist attitudes.
Efforts to sanitize classic literature have a long, undistinguished history. Everything from Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” to Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” have been challenged or have suffered at the hands of uptight editors. There have even been purified versions of the Bible (all that sex and violence!). Sometimes the urge to expurgate (if not outright ban) comes from the right, evangelicals and conservatives, worried about blasphemy, profane language and sexual innuendo. Fundamentalist groups, for instance, have tried to have dictionaries banned because of definitions offered for words like hot, tail, ball and nuts.
In other cases the drive to sanitize comes from the left, eager to impose its own multicultural, feminist worldviews and worried about offending religious or ethnic groups. Michael Radford’s 2004 film version of “The Merchant of Venice” (starring Al Pacino) revised the play to elide potentially offensive material, serving up a nicer, more sympathetic Shylock and blunting tough questions about anti-Semitism. More absurdly, a British theater company in 2002 changed the title of its production of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” to "the bellringer of notre dame."
Ballantine Books published an expurgated version of “Fahrenheit 451,” Ray Bradbury’s celebrated sci-fi classic about book banning, in which words like “hell” and “abortion” were deleted; it was reportedly 13 years before Mr. Bradbury became aware of the changes and demanded that the original version be restored.
Whether it comes from conservatives or liberals, there is a patronizing Big Brother aspect to these literary fumigations. We, the censors, need to protect you, the naïve, delicate reader. We, the editors, need to police writers (even those from other eras), who might have penned something that might be offensive to someone sometime.
Friday, December 31, 2010
random facts
so i went to seattle for christmas and visited some family there, so that is why i didn't post on christmas. sorry. i hope everyone had a great christmas. on my way home, my plane got delayed from 8am to 11pm that night. so i was stuck in the airport all the time, for i didn't have a car. so while waiting for my plane that night, i was goofing off on my droid phone. i downloaded an app that gave you just random facts. well there were some facts about writing and the english language and i thought i would share them with all of you. i will comment that i'm typing it straight from the app, so don't mind that bad grammar, it's not me, it's the app. hehe.
~ stewardesses is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
~ it was accepted practice in babylon 4000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month we know today as the honeymoon.
~ in shakespear's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. when you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. hence the phrase 'goodnight, sleep tight'.
~ no word in the english language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple.
~ the first novel ever written on a typewritter was tom sawyer.
~ the longest one-syllable word in the english language is 'screeched.'
~ stewardesses is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
~ it was accepted practice in babylon 4000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month we know today as the honeymoon.
~ in shakespear's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. when you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. hence the phrase 'goodnight, sleep tight'.
~ no word in the english language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple.
~ the first novel ever written on a typewritter was tom sawyer.
~ the longest one-syllable word in the english language is 'screeched.'
Monday, May 31, 2010
play by play
so while watching the stanely cup (go blackhawks!) the annoucer used the word tutteling. and i just loved it! when do you hear the word tutteling in hockey?! it was amazing. and i just had to share my excitement.
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