The Fate of The Journalist
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008Is the paid journalist on her way out? From a recent WaPo article “The Fate of The Sentence: Is the Writing On the Wall?“:
This assault on the lowly — and mighty — sentence, he says, is symptomatic of a disease potentially fatal to civilization. If the sentence croaks, so will critical thought. The chronicling of history. Storytelling itself.
Setting aside the obvious Luddite hysteria–for Linton Weeks the demise of the sentence is caused by text crazy teenagers, troglodyte advertising copy writers, and (naturally) blogs–the most enraging thing about this article is that Weeks’s writing suffers from the same maladies it decries. His polemic, tucked away in the “Style” section of one of the nation’s preeminent newspapers, has no style. Is full of fragments. Like that one.
But it’s cool. Perhaps he is being ironic. Or maybe fragments are now considered good form?
“I’m an optimist myself,” she says. “We’re still using sentences. Maybe they are fragments of sentences, but good writers use fragments. I would have to see more proof that the sentence is dying.”
I’ve seen the light! I should probably write every subsequent post in fragments just to show how great a writer I am, huh? But I never be as Hemmingwayesque a writer as Linton Weeks’s fragments show he is:
In complete sentences.
“Language as a method of instruction, not a portal into critical thinking
Of 1937.
And that’s the way it.
If there is anything that is causing the youth of day to write poorly, it is not text messages, IMs, blogs, email, advertising copy, or leetspeak. Teens understand the difference between mediums for writing; if they don’t, they can be taught. No, if anything is causing the youth of today to descend into the utter chaos that awaits us when the sentences swoons and collapses, it is Linton Weeks. Who writes in fragments in respectable publications. That teens are taught to emulate. Wither the paid journalist of today? If he can’t write any better than the very teens he rails against…well let’s just say I’m not shocked that WaPo doesn’t have an email address on file for him.
In closing, an alternative perspective:
My impression was that the author intentionally used ill-formed sentences and fragments to illustrate the point. At least in the initial and final paragraphs. As an English teacher, I agree with the idea that students can’t identify or produce good sentences anymore, in any style or context, so I understand the concern. However, as a linguist, I do think that email, text, etc., is simply another form of communication and that language will adapt. I took a class in computational linguistics where we briefly discussed the impact of computers on language (the focus of the class was not nearly so interesting…it was about programming and text analysis for development of speech synthesizers, etc.–not exactly my forte). Anyway, it may be that email and text are the mediums we need to rid descriptive grammar of outdated rules (ex: ending sentences with prepositions). As a linguist, as long as it is comprehensible, it is acceptable. I think that the language will adapt. I do agree that students need to be taught better grammar and writing style, however, because the language of casual communication is not always acceptable in the classroom. Once a student can make that adjustment, however, then I see no cause for concern.