I love letters and words. The art of properly putting them together fascinates me. Failing to do so may either ignite my fury to the point where I refuse to derive any meaning from the poorly written words, or it may simply make me laugh and dismiss it all the same.
Ridiculous? Maybe so, but I do have a point and that is exactly what this blog is dedicated to.
The pen is mightier than the sword and it is my creed as a cunning linguist to prove it to you. Eloquence is rare these days and sharp wit seems to have fallen behind on the list of desirable traits in a partner.
Let’s start with a good example of a nice piece of unintended intertextuality: I read the local newspaper a few weeks back, in Swedish, and there was an article about some lady or other, who, during her stay in London, had spent several weeks ‘coach-surfing’. Now, poor spelling ranks right up there with poor grammar in my book, but when the misspelled word takes on a different meaning than intended because of the spelling, it can be fatal to the entire purpose of your article. Surely, the author meant ‘couch’ and not ‘coach’, a small textual difference, but a tremendous difference in meaning. To add context, and thus add to the magnitude of the difference between the words, there has been a lot of press recently about coaches with pedophilic tendencies in the American media. The association of the expression ‘coach-surfing’ should now be rather clear without me elucidating any further. Did I read the remainder of the article? Needless to say, no I did not. I do like to pretend that it is a punishment of sorts not to. Laziness is not an excuse and neither is ignorance.
The textual style has to fit the purpose of the text. If it does not, you will lose because your meaning will not get across as you intend it to.
I will stop now, but I have more to say! Stay tuned!
