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?

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.

Thus begins the journey that takes us from “The Dawn of Language” through to English as we know it. Along the way we learn that the Angles, invaders of Briton from the north, preserved their language, while the Normans, conquerors from the East, abandoned their own in favor of French before losing out to English once they ruled the island. We trace the development of Old English from its many roots (German, Latin, Celtic), Chaucer’s influence on Middle English, and Shakespeare’s role in the way we speak today.

From there Bryson branches out into all sorts of topics. An incomplete list of chapter titles: Pronunciation, Varieties of English, Spelling, Good English and Bad, Names, Swearing, Wordplay. He broaches each subject with humility, describes it with humor, and includes an entirely appropriate sense of, “What? Hell if I know,” when the discussion calls for it. I not only laughed out loud at passages like those on spelling simplification – “Attempts to simplify and regularize  English spelling almost always hav a sumwut stranj and ineskapubly arbitrary luk abowt them, and ov cors they kawz most reederz to stumbl.” – but much of the certainty I had about the development of our language, and its stable character has rightly dissipated. Our language’s words, conventions, spelling, and grammar have always been changing, and will continue to do so.

This read was great fun, I hope to read more of Bryson’s work in the future.

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!

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?

That’s a long list of questions, and I can’t answer any of them. I can, however, marvel at some of the ridiculous non sequitors and other strange linguistic gymnastics in this column:

Don Quixote

“I sense in the dismissal of digital technology not just nostalgia but a firm idea that these people — African Americans, gays, women, Anthony Weiner, theater people, the “perverts” on Twitter — should not be making culture.” I spend a lot of time online, probably 100 hours weekly, if you add work and play. Most of what I see on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, et al, is posted by SWMs. So who exactly started associating social media with “these people”? I believe that’s a windmill, Q.

“The video was widely viewed and applauded — lyrical pushback by a young, gay, black man living in the projects.” Apparently, those nefarious SWMs are out there advocating rape against non-SWMs, and this “young, gay, black man living in the projects” bravely stood up to them. Jerks.

“The Web has officially bugged and bedeviled a lot of people. But, like disco, it’s already done something for the rest of us that’s a little bit freaky, and a little bit outta sight.” This is the story of every intellectual technology, as far back as the invention of the alphabet (probably farther still).

Basically, this is ridiculously irrelevant commentary, that is not seeking to expose the truth or express a different perspective on the issue, but just to cash in on the much-loved pastime of bashing straight white men. It doesn’t lift up or encourage anyone – except Antoine Dodson, of course – but even then, he’s not even mentioned using social media…he was on TV (that evil, traditional, SWM-dominated form), and someone else made a YouTube video. It seems he’s only worthy of inclusion because he’s young, black and gay (and from the projects).

Why do white women seem totally incapable of seeing the rest of us as individuals, and an not as groups that can be divided and amalgamated to suit their writing purposes? Oops, I guess I’m not immune to it myself.

This test is hard.

I never had trouble with math, and I did well on the SAT (a decade ago) and the GRE (a year ago). But this test is likely to include upper level trig and differential calculus. This is not my, as they say, “forte” – not anymore. At ACU only the science and math majors were allowed to take legitimate math classes, so I was removed from the calculus class I’d registered for and put in a class that might as well have been taught from an Algebra for Dummies book. So it’s been more than ten years since I took calculus, which makes me a bit rusty.

I’ve been working through a college-level pre-calculus book, and the calculus equations aren’t intimidating anymore, but the task is still daunting. And then, once I’ve taken (and passed, I hope) the test, I’ll be teaching this math to others.

Granted, the concepts will flow more easily after a few months of work, and I’ll probably start out teaching algebra and geometry, which are not at all complex. I can even see myself studying (applied) math at the master’s level and enjoying it.

But there’s something about teaching English that keeps pulling at my intellectual heartstrings. That something is the readings I’ve done over the past few years from E.D. Hirsch, Neil Postman, Alfred North Whitehead (a math teacher, incidentally), and Stanley Fish. Language is the foundation for all of our thought and learning. The more we command our language, the more we command our thought; as we become clearer thinkers, we become better communicators; and as we become better communicators, we – and everyone around us – become better learners.

That’s a powerful idea, one that far outstrips the (admittedly high) ideal of exposing students to the best thinking and writing of the Western Tradition. It’s more compelling than the image of quality speaking and writing as a necessity to economic or social advancement. And it has more potential to raise achievement at all levels and in any subject where verbal communication is necessary (that would be all of them).

And on top of all that, I would get to teach Beowulf, and have students do artistic renderings of Grendel’s dismemberment. That idea just makes me smile.

I didn’t abandon the 52 books project completely. I reached 31 by the end of the year. Not too bad, considering I don’t think I’d read 30 books in the 10 previous years. I also picked up some new hobbies. Sketching and comic books in particular. I’m a new man for 2011, and I’ve already finished my first book, Stephen Gould’s Jumper, and started the second, Neil Postman’s Teaching as a Conserving Activity.

I may or may not write more than a blurb about the first, it’s been weeks since I finished it. But I’m very excited about this Postman work. It is, in his own words, his “vice versa” to Teaching as a Subversive Activity (which I definitely didn’t like).

I’m sure the list this year will include some graphic novels and comics, when I need to get them in. Probably not a lot, though.

Not much else to tell, really. Actually, there’s plenty; I’m just not telling. Shalom.

Moneyball

Michael Lewis’ “behind the scenes” look at the front office of the Oakland A’s was intriguing, but I just don’t care enough about baseball. There was a time in my life, a time when I could name the starting lineups of every team in the National League (and a few pitching rotations), when this would have been a really fun read. But I just found no value in reading another 150 pages about how this team chose it’s players and saving money.

SimChurch

I thought this would be a valuable book, a strong theological exploration of a conversation that has been mainly focused on technology and culture. I was really disappointed by the cheerleading and the philosophical gymnastics engaged in to redefine things like “presence”. See more of my negativity in my post “Almost Book 5“.

The Sea of Monsters

The Lightning Thief was plenty of fun, brief, and in it Riordan treated his young adult readers like young adults. The vocabulary was relatively simple, and the context was teen-oriented, but the story (with the exception of a 12-year-old beating up Ares) was good and enjoyable. The Sea of Monsters was not so.

Actually, it’s unfair of me to say so, because I only read two chapters; I couldn’t force myself to read more. The major problem is that Riordan seems to either have suddenly decided his audience is stupid, or to have written this to a different audience. Percy, the smarter-than-Ares demigod is suddenly unable to recognize that there’s something amiss about his 6-foot buddy who can rip the doors off of lockers and catch flaming rocks. Sorry, time to move on.

Sense and Sensibility

I might pick this one up again, I just got bored and there was something more interesting waiting for me…

Pour Your Heart Into It

This is a recommended book for class, and my prof gave it high praise, so I decided to read it. I don’t really like memoirs or biographies, so it was hard at first, but he began with some interesting insights about coffee, culture, and how the two relate. But it started to seem like a monument to himself and his achievements, which just isn’t my thing.

Fourteen Weeks to Go

Just three months left, and I have a real chance to reach 40 books this year, which would be pretty exciting. I’m looking forward to seeing how close I get.

1. Technological advances are neither good nor bad, but they have a message about what we find important and how we should think that we need to be aware of.
2. Technology is changing us, but it’s making our brains better.

What was his answer?

As it turns out, Carr argues that intellectual technologies, particularly the computer, which are characterized by distraction (think popup windows, OS notifications, email chimes, and instant messaging…all running at once), are changing our brains, and it’s bad for us. We lose the ability to read and think deeply, as more of our brain power is given to processing new and constantly active stimuli, and we become accustomed to consuming tiny bits of info (tweets, status updates, and incredibly brief blog posts) and skimming longer pieces of writing. As a result we are no longer able to understand or produce sustained arguments or even give focused attention.

Carr spills quite a few words supporting the thesis that the internet, computers, and distraction technology do harm to our intellectual abilities, but it would be wrong to say he thinks they’re all bad. He, like Neil Postman, acknowledges that there are good and bad contributions from these technologies, but he argues that – as far as our ability to think is concerned – the bad outweighs the good.

Based on my own experiences and my interactions with other students over the last two years, I’m inclined to agree.

Carr’s writing was direct, clear, and smooth, for the most part. A fairly enjoyable reading experience.

I enjoy the process of thinking through the book, discussing it with others who have and haven’t read it, and developing my own arguments around the issues discussed. But writing them down and editing them for posting is time consuming. It’s become worse as the number of finished but unreviewed books increases; it becomes more intimidating with each one to try to close the gap, and harder to remember what was in the book when I try.

So I’ve decided not to try. I’m no longer going to try to write an in-depth review of everything I read, only those that spark me sufficiently to do so. I’ll post short comments for those that I choose not to engage for a full review. Coming up: short reviews of The Shallows (longer commentary can be found at Christ and Pop Culture), The Last Colony, and The Andromeda Strain. I’ll post full comments about Technopoly, and Endangered Minds. I haven’t decided about Codex yet, and my comments on The Grace Awakening and He That Is Spiritual will be combined.