Re: English on the internet

Jay Lemke (JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU)
Thu, 18 Apr 96 11:57:04 EDT

Thanks to Joao for the ideas of his message, but also for giving
me some insight into how Portuguese puts words and meaning together
differently from English, and perhaps a tiny inkling of how
English must sound odd to native speakers of his lengua. What
a wonderful mirror to try to see ourselves in -- is that why we
try so hard to cover these mirrors over? why we demand perfect
English, or perfect Portuguese, so we will not have to hear and
struggle with the _unnaturalness_ of our own language conventions?
not have to see/hear them as arbitrary, as limiting as well as
empowering, as not a mirror of the way things are (or a transparent
glass through which to see them), but as our special lens and
filter? And how much easier to acknowledge that there are different
such lenses that we can _switch_, if we never have to experience
what happens when they _blend_ in print and speech, as they surely
must do in us. How strange that a culture like ours that so much
prizes ego-integration insists on total language schizophrenia. JAY.

JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
BITNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM
INTERNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU