Hemingway and Twitter
on Apr24 2012Whither goest the English language? I read somewhere, and now I can’t find the reference, that Hemingway’s years as a war correspondent heavily influenced his writing style. Words were money; the fewer the better as far as the paper was concerned. So there was little embellishment in his reports. Ergo, his style became one devoid of embellishment. What effect then, I wonder, will 140-character Twitter have on tomorrow’s writers? So far, unfortunately, it’s only leading to ungainly abbreviations and garbled remarks. I thought, years ago when I first started using Twitter, that it presented an artistic challenge, very similar to Haiku. Even found and joined a Twitter Haiku group. We are, though, a tiny drop in the ocean of laziness, indecipherable statements, and boring content.
It’s sad, because Twitter is an amazing tool, capable of spreading a thought, word, picture, or news across the world literally in seconds. When a suicide bomber blows up a cafe in some remote part of the world, almost instantly millions of Twitterers get the news — with pictures. When some famous person commits a gaffe, everyone in the world knows about it in the time it takes to hit “retweet.” Its ubiquity only makes it one more accellerant in the rapid destruction of the English language. Go to any Twitter site and mourn for the passing of eloquence.
Oh, I know the great unwashed will call me a fuddy-duddy. it’s just Twitter, for God’s sake. Okay, fine. They said that about television, and advertising, and look what they’ve done to us. Examples are everywhere. I just saw a statement on television about a show that’s almost over for the season. “There’s only two more episodes,” it crowed, in great big letters.
I wonder how many viewers happened to notice the egregioius grammar. More than just me, I hope.