Someone has to analyse the situation and, heavens above, The Onion did it!
Here in downunder Oz I'm never too sure who is aware of The Onion. Before The Chaser, The Cane Toad Times and The Bug was The Onion - born in beautiful dairy blessed Wisconsin from whence comes my favourite NFL team, the Green Bay Packers.
Seriously, though, Networkers, Miss E believes that we, as a society, are moving away from text to the pre-Gutenberg days of a visually based society. In fact, it is quite likely that the only thing that will save text is not the paper it is printed on but the screens it is displayed on. The screening of text is probably the only way it will ever compete with the visual - television, internet movies, art, graffiti, theatre, film, news.
And what will happen to our thinking and our discourse, do you think? Will the printed and transcribed word become once again the province of the educated, of monks tucked away in monasteries with quill pens? Will text be only of value if you have to write a thesis for a PhD? Or will PhDs be done as videos or will PhDs be in text but only be available on line and never will the text contact paper? Is there hope that Reflex copy paper will disappear and we can save the Thompson Dam catchment from logging?
And I reckon it is odds on that the language will take a turn for the better or worse and certainly for the vernacular. So much is dropping off the cart. Just the other day that leading light in Rupert Murdoch's Australian stable didn't know the difference between an informal vote and a donkey vote. However, this might not be language related. It may well be a case of brains turning - well, past tense, having turned - to jelly.
For now, though, says The Onion....
.....millions of panicked and exhausted Americans continue to repetitively search the single column of print from top to bottom and right to left, looking for even the slightest semblance of meaning or perhaps a blurb.
No comments:
Post a Comment
This blog does not take Anonymous comments. Experience shows that comments cluttered with "Anonymous" are boring and people don't know whether "Anonymous" is one person or many. This is not a decision about freedom of speech. It is a decision about boring or unwillingness to be known by even a pseudonym.