Friday, August 31, 2012

The Language of Beats to the Famed Dictionary of Wikipedia




Gleick has an astonishing way of taking us on an evolutionary journey from tribal beaten languages to the astonishing world of the modern OED dictionary.  His analysis of showing us how we've evolved in this ever present internet society from a time when tribes banged out song on drum skins helps us realize how far we've come.  Through cuneiform's to written text, Gleick somewhat picks up where Walter Ong left off focusing more on the literal text and not so much exploring the oral means of communicating.  There is something vastly identifiable in his book to all of us when comparing where we are now with the use of the internet.  The web has expanded our vocabulary in greater leaps than we could imagine and Gleick just begins to scratch the surface in showing us where we've evolved.  The new generation of cell phone text messaging youth will bring to the table an entirely new vocabulary developed through their thumb pushing writings and email IM'ing messages.  You can already see where this is heading and the thought of what might happen to our well known English dictionary terms and vocabulary is a bit scary but also exciting.  His style of writing is interesting and filled with an excitable energy that keeps you captivated while mapping out our literal past in a way that's easy to understand.  Looking forward to this journey.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

A Very Good Review of Our First Textbook

Dear all:
Maria Popova's blog is one of the constant online resources I read. She wrote a review of the Gleick textbook in 2011 in which I think she nicely summed up the essentials of the text.
I'd like to share it with you all.
Happy reading and I look forward to our discussion over the first few chapters soon.

The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood | Brain Pickings

Mic Check 1,2,1,2

do not be alarmed, this is just a test. :)