vocabulary miniver The focal point of criticism should be freely aimable at whatever a critic desides to criticize, including the 'written symbols of the language we use and how these symbols are arranged', as much as the ideas and thoughts behind and within those symbols. And not even necessarily apart from the ideas and thoughts. And I'm afraid I can't so easily allow the dismissal of the very logic and philosophy and science of linguistics. I think it is pertinent to keep in mind that those 'ideas, thoughts, opinions, observations' -- the 'what is being communicated' through language -- are, indeed, being communicated through language. Thinking is certainly distinct from language: language is a mechanism for communicating what is thought. However, language is also a product of our evolved thinking minds...and, somehow, I don't think that it was any accident that language has developed with the structure that it has (ahh, yes -- such beautiful, fuzzy-logical grammar!) There is a reason this structure has lasted so long that it can be called "traditional", and that is its grasp at, and birth in, the humanly-universal structure of the brain. So, fine. We can say "fuck the tradition". But we'll still be thinking in the same way that the tradition developed in the first place. Those people whose writing seems to rise above the system? They are the writers who know and use the system better than anyone. This includes e.e. cummings, and, incidentally, e.e. cummings' extensive vocabulary. 000830 ... miniver It seems I have grown a theme. I don't quite know how to feel about that. Or, shall we say, I don't quite know how to most efficiently systematize my emotions on the matter.... Aha. 000830 ... klairchen Weak is mine. The more I read into the past, I realize I keep using the same tired words over and over again. 000920 ... marcellus circumvent, i wonder if they have a page for that? i dont think that it makes much of a difference. Tomarrow will come around and you'll treat me like a jerk again. it's okay, i am a jerk. 020306 ... phil Well put, although I hate agreeing with you. I too am a conasewer of fine tace and deilkacy. 020306 ... phil But I won't just mock your honest words, and then leave. I do agree with your writing. It is most pleasurable and a desired taste, most of what is left for easy reading I find very uninspiring, even ugly. I am sure the disregard for proper grammar and vocabulary results from an undervalue of the writers. Writers who are not aware of themeselves, in this rapid fire, single shot industry. For some reason people fear themeselves, there ability to be unique, a fear that there is nothing out there waiting for them. I certainly don't want to contribute myself to people who will use it purely for efforts of money. I don't want to be a puddle of rain, in this sponge of a world. But just for a moment, I would like to say, enrichment; quality; and relief. 020306 ... User24 following on from miniver, Is vocabulary the language of thought? I don't think it is, for myself, I think in words all the time, but I get the feeling that the idea is being translated into words by my brain, so, in order to get a clearer idea of the nature of thought I'd like to ask how do you think? I'm not talking about the processes involved, but the actual way in which your ideas manifest themselves; pictures, sounds, emotions? please tell. 030625 ... phil memories 030705 ... oldephebe let me post my pointless placard to the threads by miniver and User24 - right then - so the language this whole omnibus lattice of syntactic codification that's all fine - yes - we speak within the mutually understood construct of the apparatus - but to really make our arguments is it polysyllabic parading pedantry that reaches out and connects people or makes the sky behind the eyes rain fire and blood or renovate the interiors of some perhaps in the throes of blasphemous despair? the words that weld into that luminescent charismatic argument - or even the argument that enrages - don't they come from that sacred singularity of sentience - words are great - reading great- matriculation is great - but what if what we say is dead and lifeless - and never touches the party we're trying to communicate with - i can be as inpenetrable and turgid as the next guy but what is the point of awe inspiring cognition that approaches an omniscience that rivals godhood or super-genious if you can never touch or connect with any one by what you say - but you've been rigorously loyal to the rules of engagement - this minuet of the dreary and the interlocuter is like completly intwined in this inextricable morass of ... see i've already so adeptly made my point by lapsing into .. bah! language should sing! Okay? and yeah not all contexts make this totally feasible - its something to aspire to i think - and maybe my words don't leap off the page and stir and maybe i make a dissonant shriek but it comes from the truest part of me - minerva you've got some serious things to say and you are eloquent and intelligent as i'm sure you know but (wow but isn't quite right 'cause but always seems to precede an inelegant or obfuscatory deprecation or delineation or something so .. - look ma i'm being turgid and didactic and pouring my pleonasns out in a real wordsprawl - if i can't bludgeon them into aquiesance then i'll just impale them send them reeling into catatonia) wow i'm really sorry that was so ever an inexplicable tangent - i'm done 030706 ... ferret in answer to user24's question, i often think in words too. but when i really try, i can just let a thought exist without translating in and still understand it. the_language_of_babies? perhaps 030706 ... User24 ferret, I do that too, but I usually forget what the thought was, I think the thought in itself comes to you, then you translate it into words in your head, and somehow, this solidifies it in memory. 030731 ... User24 oldephebe, you have words and they are fun to read, I can see your thoughts through your words, the processes going on are (obviously) complex and entwined, but I like the way you don't waste time trying to sort them, for me, I calculate my words, re-edit them and then deliver, but your words are so full of raw thought that it's quite truly amazing, the way distractions are not cast aside but explored and followed is really very different to most people's nature. What country are you from, originally? 030731 ... oldephebe that was high praise and coming from you User24 i count it an honour - umm i'm a pretty harsh judge of my writing -and ah i'd like t be more succint - more polished as a writer - i've enjoyed the things you have written as well what country am i from originally? USA ... 030830 ... oldephebe yeah i'm a space head or whatever - the way i write probably stems from my love of improvisation - i play the saxophone and i ah am quite enamoured of stan getz, charlie parker, cannon ball adderly, sonny stitt, stanley turrentine, maynard furgeson, paul desmond who i view as a kind of musical grandfather because my first teacher patterned his sound after paul desmond - and i've been told on many occasions that i sound like paul desmond so.., dave koz, frank zappa, and a whole ton of others - but yeah the gestalt of my narrative flow is distinctly improvisational - thanx again 030830 ... Spare Change Fencing is fine and sometimes you score a hit, But fist fighting has more impact. I get it. 030831 ... oldephebe yes but there is nothing idle about raising you hands to dismantle irrevocably your advesary if you are a person who plays for keeps. Therefore I choose to only use my hands if i am being physically threatened..and then the threshing begins. I have people who are dependant upon me and so i must commit my darker impulses to the Source, er to answer those initial, reflexive testosterone impulses with Light and humility. No need to wind up behind bars for assault and battery or attempted manslahughter over a petty difference or the darkness in anothers soul. ... 031117 ... lassuns Very beautiful expositions here, indeed. I know that some people will say: try than with French. But it is not my intention to rule myself out of mainstream. 040122 ... Pagan of the Word [Oh bravo Phil, bravo! You deserve so much better than to be shown blantant disregard and respect for the English Vocabulary. You are the bastion of proper pronunciation, grammar and spelling, the rest of us heathens are blinded by the searing white hot truth and light of it.] "For some reason people fear themeselves, there ability to be unique," ^ . l . . 040122 ... Tropylium We're all collaborating to a specific kind of a vocabulary right now, aren't we? 060314 ... z do you mean "contributing" where you have "collaborating", or should "to" become "in". 060314 ... Tropylium Conjunctions schmonjunctions. Yeah, the latter. 060314 ... z then i would say that we are all collaborating in a not very specific kind of vocabulary. 060314 ... zobz i like to speak casually. i dress very casually and act that way. sometimes i use big words but i don't like to come across like i'm trying too hard, which sometimes i can be. i don't want to insult oldephebe too hard but i don't really like that kind of talk too much. i prefer a more modest means of doing anything. sometimes more exotic words come with some kind of connotation that the simpler word doesn't, sometimes a connotation that the person saying it is the only one who feels or understands, which is all good, but often i think it's just excessive and showy. maybe that's just my bias. 060314 ... zeke for me, some things can not be said without the right words. nuanced thinking is hard to stuff into language. it takes children and sage poets to make more of few simple words than they seem to be on their own. dashell hammett and ee cummings did pretty well. i will continue to struggle to invoke the eidolon of thought with whatever tools i have at hand. in truth, i love words independent of my needs for them. i suspect this may be true of many of the denizens of this labyrinth of indigo curtains. walls part to reveal beauty at every level of examination. that basic fascination and delight in the words themselves never diminish. why else are we here? 060315 ... z see: ineffable 060315 ... z see: thought 060315 ... hsg reference_base useful... but there_come's_a_point when the Quality of how one uses words may be more effective than merely increasing the quantity of words from_which to choose. you can use Big_Words -OR- you can find more creative ways to use them. IE, what_is 1-80? (let'sa y our vocabulary has 80 words) & what is: using 60 key_words more effectively and possibly better received by the audience? not that a large voc is a liability but only when it blinds us from our ability to relate with the audience. 100209 what's it to you? who go blather from