Disclaimer: I received assistance from Omkar Shende in editing my thesis statement, which accounts for the high level of diction and the use of a Latin phrase. It means "In the beginning God created punctuation."
In
principio creavit Deus lexes Punctuatum. Or so, at least, we have been told in every English class
since the fall of man. But this is not the case. In today's fast-paced,
evanescent society, punctuation's role has been to restrict, not
facilitate creativity; we have transformed, but the orthodox rules of
punctuation refuse to, quixotic reminders of the past, not blueprints for the
future.
The
human condition is metamorphosis; we have always craved revolution, abandoning
the hunt for farms, the farms for factories, the factories for suburbs;
punctuation is among those societal constructs we too must forsake. Many
punctuation marks have, frankly, gone "out of style". Marks like the
colon and the exclamation point do not have the same effect as they had before;
today, they give readers a sense of being told how to interpret what the author
is writing (Source D). However, the greater impetus towards change over
the past half a century, technology has advanced at a resounding rate. With
this development of technology has arisen new modes of communication: social
networking. As technology develops, traditions change. These traditions of
strict, coherent punctuation are no longer deemed necessary in the modern
society; instead, new rules of punctuation arise. (Source A). Half a decade
ago, punctuation marks such as "@" or the "hashtag" (#) had
very little meaning. After the creation of Twitter, these marks have become an
integral part of modern communication. Even the Library of Congress Archives
accept "tweets" as acceptable and integral to our current society, as
is evidenced by their storage of these forms of communication for posterity.
This goes to show that the rules of punctuation constantly undergo change; it
would be unwise to follow old rules which do not apply anymore in modern
society.
While I agree with the fact that traditional rules of punctuation are far too restrictive, I don't know if they don't apply at all in modern society. But I do like the reference to the Library of Congress.
ReplyDeleteWhile you state that the great Omkar may have assisted you in this blog, I am confident in your mastery of the English language. You have written a concise blog with fantastic points to support your claim that the old rules do not apply to modern society and that we should change it just as how the world changes as time goes on. I also find your point about Twitter's hashtag very insightful since I too used that point to support my claim. Once again, you have gone above and beyond.
ReplyDeleteI love you man.
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