NEW DIGS!!!!!

Sorry to do this to you all, but the WordPress platform was really starting to get on my nerves. My new blog is HERE.

http://www.iwhim.us

Is The C-Word Still Jarring?

Kathleen Deveny wonders if the word is starting to lose it’s acerbic effect.

The C word has been in use since at least 1230, according to the Oxford English Dictionary online, when it referred to a street name, Gropecuntelane (bet I can guess what went on there). It has gradually been finding its way into mainstream American culture since the 1970s. Think of Travis Bickle’s rant in Taxi Driver, Hannibal Lector’s delightful salutation to Agent Starling, or the last words Adriana heard before being shot to death on The Sopranos. And don’t forget Citizens United Not Timid, best known by its acronym, a Hillary-bashing group that got media attention during the last campaign.

For decades, such feminists as Germaine Greer have advocated reclaiming the C word, in a take-back-the-night kind of way. While I’m all for this, efforts to redeem loaded words can be problematic, as we’ve learned from the N word. Besides, most women just don’t seem to have the stomach for it.

Great Moments in English Usage, Care of the Dollar Store

Harry Crews

Interesting thoughts from an interesting man.

Why I Won’t Be Eating Eggs Anymore

I’ve been thinking about going to an egg-free diet for a while now, and this video and article reifies why I’ll now be doing so:

Hy-Line admitted to the Associated Press that “instantaneous euthanasia” (e.g. grinding up male chicks) is a standard practice and claims that it is also supported by the animal veterinary and scientific community. (Male chicks are less valuable because they can’t lay eggs or be raised quickly enough for meat.) Mercy for Animals estimates that 200 million male chicks are killed annually and United Egg Producers confirmed this figure.

No federal law exists to ensure the humane euthanasia of animals on farms or hatcheries. According to the Humane Society of the United States, even egg farms that sell cage-free eggs, get their hens from hatcheries that kill their male chicks. (This to me is the worst news of all because it means few commercially sold eggs are truly “blood-free.”)

Are Twitter and Facebook Making Kids Better Writers?

Stanford Writing & Rhetoric Professor, Andrea Lunsford, posits this very idea:

The first thing she found is that young people today write far more than any generation before them. That’s because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text. Of all the writing that the Stanford students did, a stunning 38 percent of it took place out of the classroom—life writing, as Lunsford calls it. Those Twitter updates and lists of 25 things about yourself add up.

But is this explosion of prose good, on a technical level? Yes. Lunsford’s team found that the students were remarkably adept at what rhetoricians call kairos—assessing their audience and adapting their tone and technique to best get their point across. The modern world of online writing, particularly in chat and on discussion threads, is conversational and public, which makes it closer to the Greek tradition of argument than the asynchronous letter and essay writing of 50 years ago.