Language Paper

I'm about to finish ENG-350: The English Language and this is my last weekly paper. I thought it might be worth posting for all the drunks out there.
For even better wisdom, try this: Toast to a Tippler
Here's the paper, for better or worse:

Mary Clark describes a two year-old's speech as “The Telegraphic Stage”, meaning a language lacking in inflection and function words. Much like the old-time telegraph, where word-count was at a premium and brevity was paramount, little kids get by with a focus on economy of words. Who needs “I think I'd like to eat that” when a kid can point and say “me eat”? Naturally, as the kid progresses along the development road, he/she grows into more sophisticated language structures to convey more complex meanings. But when you're two, who needs the sophistry, right?

Little kids, and one other social group: the catastrophically drunk. There's nothing like seeing a drunk guy cornering a girl in a bar and telling her, “you very pretty”. There's an advanced level of inebriation that strips away the structural elegance of language, leaving only a bare-bones armature of intention. A few drinks can have the opposite effect: garrulous chatter, circling around the long way to get to the point. But if the drinking continues, eventually the drinker enters the dire verbal wasteland of the telegraphic stage: clumsy gestures and simple phrases of brute-force intent.

Yeah, drunks are funny; but, on further thought I was intrigued as to how the abysmally drunk can devolve in such a parallel to the normal evolution of language. It begs the question of how language develops, how layers of meaning and sophisticated verbal constructs are learned and become second nature to the average adult; but when those cognitive processes fall by the wayside (a wayside littered with beer-bottles), language becomes a matter of bare functionality. It becomes primitive. The silky imagery of Byron becomes the grunting of the caveman: she walks in beauty like the night / of cloudless climes and starry skies becomes you berry pretty lady. No artifice, no elegance; just bare brute intention.

It takes years of development to gain the arcane skills of language, and only one good happy-hour to lose it all. Thanks to this class and Mary Clark, I'll never see another bar-room courtship quite the same way again. I'll leave this, my last POP of the term with a few words of wisdom from that magic place where toddlers and tipplers meet.

Screw It...

I've given up on politics, fashion, religion and philosophy.
I hereby devote my days to blowing shit up and drinking beer. Battlefield 2142. Like a Tom Clancy induced boner.
Do you have any idea how much frigging fun this shit is? Oh my God, it gets into your brain like some bizarre parasite.
Screw ya'll, I'm off to go blow shit up online.

Disillusionment, Bitterness, Politicus Interruptus

This is what it looks like when prostitutes are workin' it. That's Sweet-cheeks John McCain on the left, Luscious Barack Obama on the right, and look at the Big Money trying to be inconspicuous in the cute little Dodge Neon.

I mean this shit.

There's some real frustration in the world. I just read a blog from someone whose judgment I've come to trust (as well as I can know/trust anyone who is only manifest as a disturbance in the informational ether), and I'm picking up on some bad vibes coming from her way. And her bad vibes are echoes of my own.

Fact: Al Gore can preach carbon footprint all day, but he's jetting all over the world to do that preaching, dumping more environmental damage in one trip than any of us could manage in a lifetime. AL GORE DOESN'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT. AL GORE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT AL GORE.
Barack Obama seems like a good guy, and he gives a mean prepared speech. But he's politically untested, and he's had as many shady back-scratching political relationships as the rest of Washington. BARACK OBAMA IS NOT JESUS CHRIST. WITH LUCK HE WON'T BE THE ANTI-CHRIST.
John McCain is a registered, card-carrying war hero. He served his country under conditions of extreme duress, and he acquitted himself admirably. But that was thirty years ago. In the mean-time, he has been playing Washington political insider games. Just like everybody else. JOHN MCCAIN IS NOT THE ANTI-CHRIST. BUT HE IS A POLITICIAN. THE MAVERICK BULLSHIT IS JUST THAT: BULLSHIT. HE WILL TELL YOU WHAT HE THINKS YOU WANT TO HEAR, JUST LIKE THE REST OF THEM.
Sarah Palin is an unknown with a ton of personal charisma and a goddam drop-dead pair of legs. She might be a Fundamentalist who denies evolution in favor of 'creation science' (an utter oxymoron). Maybe she has a list of dinosaurs that Jesus rode, including the Jehovasaurus Rex and the VelociRapture. SARAH PALIN HAS REALLY NICE LEGS, AND THAT'S ALL I'M WILLING TO VOUCH FOR.
George Bush was inept, but he is/was not the devil. Don't blame him for everything. KNOW THE FACTS: KARL ROVE AND DICK CHENEY ARE AN ABOMINATION IN THE SIGHT OF THE WORLD. BAD, BAD, BAD GUYS. AND THEY ARE WILLING TO RAPE THE WORLD TO GET WHAT THEY WANT. Poor old W was a tool (in both senses of the word).

So what do you do? I hate to admit it, but I look at our government, our economy, our willingness to plunder the planet and our own futures for here-and-now profit, and I despair.
It's time for a change, I'll agree with Obama on that. But he ain't it. McCain ain't it. Democrats and Republicans only differ in who gets their palms greased.
Who is a change agent these days? The outsiders. The Naders, the Libertarians, the Ron Pauls of the world. But they can't even get a foot in the door, because nobody gives a shit. Until we give a shit, until we grow the collective cojones to force some REAL change we can look forward to more rape-n-plunder politics.
*steps off soap-box*
Thank you for your time.
~Jack