What Our Written Language Illustrates About Our Culture
to bother with text so dingdong dull. And this is what we expect for twelve-year-olds, the sharp-tongued, precociously sophisticated creatures they tend to be today?" (150)
But he's careful to state that the schools are not to blame for any language decline. They are merely representative of the culture, a culture which no longer values formal language. He uses countless examples of speeches, both famous and everyday, of love letters, of excerpts from Time Magazine, to illustrate his message. Here are two examples:
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1942) in his State of the Union address a month after the Pearl Harbor attack:
We have not been stunned. We have not been terrified or confused. This reassembling of the Seventy-seventh Congress is proof of that; for the mood of quiet, grim resolution which here prevails bodes ill for those who conspired and collaborated to murder world peace. That mood is stronger than any mere desire for revenge. It expresses the will of the American people to make very certain that the world will never so suffer again.
McWhorter: "This is a carefully crated piece of expression. It made a great impression on those who heard it" (46).
George Bush the Elder's (1992) State of the Union address:
And you know, it's kind of an American tradition to show a certain skepticism toward our democratic institutions. I myself have sometimes thought the aging process could be delayed if it had to make its way through Congress. But you will deliberate, and you will discuss, and that is fine. But my friends, the people cannot wait. They need help now. And there's a mood among us. People are worried. There has been talk of decline.
McWhorter: "Repetition substitutes for careful word choice." "One simple phrase follows another like toy train cars." "No resonant words like Roosevelt's resolution, prevail, or bode." (46)
Still, careful not to judge, McWhorter doesn't say the current American situation is good or bad, or the fault of the schools, and he doesn't sigh about a return to past times, only ponders where we are headed. He seems to admit sadness at our times because, in his words, even preliterate societies at ceremonies sat and warmly anticipated beautiful speaking. And he goes on to chillingly state that because formal writing and elevated speech are no longer valued, because of our dependence on cell phones and TV, as the print culture is dying, and
Latest Articles