Comments on: clément gallet: “ritn eng iz ded”.

By: liam finley

liam finley — Tue, 06 May 2008 23:40:23 +0000

i think it’s a good idea.
sentences robbed of their capitals feel apathetic, which matches perfectly with the apathy prevalent in wired society. a writer shouldn’t adhere to the new for the sake of newness any more than they adhere to the old for the sake of oldness. capitals are for those who care too much about their sentences, and the person reading them.
they’re also great for removing the uniqueness from a subject. a secret service agent no longer works for the secret service–he just serves, secretly.
big brother is nothing more than a brother, older than yourself. whether or not he’s watching you.

By: sedgehammer

sedgehammer — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:55:36 +0000

Text novels, you say? What about the Japanese cell phone novel? I think we are well on our way towards new, shortened forms of expression. Look at what email has done in the business world, especially in regards to informality. I agree that the change does not necessarily spell the end of certain art forms or forms of communication - the existing forms will, however, need to adapt.

By: EnglishGirl

EnglishGirl — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:05:58 +0000

Text speak is great, although I don’t agree with it, making for lazy slobs who don’t know when required how to write correctly… take another look at the book cover, is the full stop necessary in textspeakland, I don’t think so, shame about the typo!

By: cat cassidy

cat cassidy — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 02:15:18 +0000

hear hear! i have not been using capitals for years now (probably inspired from ee cummings way back in my hs days) although, have used them for essays in class. its required

free will? no caps at all.

besides, the lower letters have more character than the caps. its visually delicious

By: Graffinity

Graffinity — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 09:36:49 +0000

Yeah, I did notice actually. If you take out capital letters then you’ll begin to take out apostrophe’s, commas, etc. I don’t think it’ll ever happen. At least, not in our life time which is basically the same as saying it’ll never happen because even if it does, which I doubt, how would we know?

By: Julia Grint

Julia Grint — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 07:22:44 +0000

As Wittgenstein pointed out, we all play language games - every human sphere of interest and occupation has its own lexicon which those involved understand and use. Clearly, Gallet is happy to communicate in the written equivalent of grunting, which may suit him and those with whom he deals. However, for those with more subtle and advanced needs, the breathtaking beauty and complexity of civilised langauage remains both desirable and necessary. It’s horses for courses, really.

Also, he doesn’t understand the difference betwen ‘less’ and ‘fewer’ - but he wouldn’t consider it to be important even if he did, presumably.

By: Derek

Derek — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 04:20:45 +0000

I looked at the title and it took me longer to figure out what was written than it would have taken if he had written it in standard English.

There are many strategies that readers use to identify words. Context is one. Word shape is another. This proposal causes the shapes of known words to change, which, I would imagine, would actually result in worse comprehension, especially in a business environment where documents are written to be scanned for the information the reader wants, not read in their entirety.

By: John Handelaar

John Handelaar — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:15:45 +0000

You’ll notice he’s not proposing we fuck up any of the official languages of Switzerland in the same way.

By: cory

cory — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 22:16:48 +0000

I don’t agree with this. Just like any medium, such as black and white photography or oil painting, things such as the written english novel will still exist.

I think that this book is cleverly done, but the point of it is already too clear. The book is stating that there must be a quicker more concise way of speaking an idea, but this is already happening with text messages, facebook wall posts, and twitter notifications.

The telephone was the first object or norm of society whose transformation helped bring in a different way of speaking with the creation of the cellular phone. It allowed one to call someone anywhere, thus ridding the need of having to cover a lot more information while only being able to use a phone at home, where it was wired to the telecommunication system. Then, text messages, like you said at the beginning, gets rid of phonetically communicating altogether, instead leaving the communication to short and quick written texts.

Yes, there is change to communication, but it’s already here and known about. It is facebook, and it is text messaging.

Black and white photography still exists, oil paintings still exist. Written word will still exist, albeit with new mediums in which to communicate.

By: Crystal

Crystal — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:21:12 +0000

Where can you buy this?