Ralph Fiennes blames Twitter for 'eroding' language
74 replies, posted
[QUOTE][IMG]http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02038/ralph_2038925c.jpg[/IMG]Liam Neeson presented Ralph Fiennes with his award Photo: PA
[B]By [URL="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/author/lucyjones/"]Lucy Jones[/URL][/B]
4:09PM BST 27 Oct 2011
[B][IMG]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/template/ver1-0/i/share/comments.gif[/IMG][URL="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/8853427/Ralph-Fiennes-blames-Twitter-for-eroding-language.html#disqus_thread"]266 Comments[/URL][/B]
Speaking at the BFI London Film Festival awards in Old Street, London, the actor said that modern language "is being eroded" and blamed "a world of truncated sentences, soundbites and Twitter."
"Our expressiveness and our ease with some words is being diluted so that the sentence with more than one clause is a problem for us, and the word of more than two syllables is a problem for us," he said.
Fiennes, full name Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, said that students at drama schools were especially suffering thanks to social networking sites.
"I hear it, too, from people at drama schools, who say the younger intake find the density of a Shakespeare text a challenge in a way that, perhaps, (students) a few generations ago maybe wouldn't have."
The actor's directorial debut, Shakespeare's Coriolanus, premiered at the London Film Festival this week. Fiennes questioned whether the playwright was even relevant in a time of dumbed-down English language.
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He said: "I think we're living in a time when our ears are attuned to a flattened and truncated sense of our English language, so this always begs the question, is Shakespeare relevant? But I love this language we have and what it can do, and aside from that I think the themes in his plays are always relevant."
Fiennes, who does not use Twitter, is not alone in his theory. JP Davidson, the author of Planet Word and a linguistic expert, talked this week about longer words dying out in favour of shortened text message-style terms.
He said: “You only have to look on Twitter to see evidence of the fact that a lot of English words that are used say in Shakespeare’s plays or PG Wodehouse novels — both of them avid inventors of new words — are so little used that people don’t even know what they mean now.
“This could be viewed as regrettable, as there are some great descriptive words that are being lost and these words would make our everyday language much more colourful and fun if we were to use them.
“But it’s only natural that with people trying to fit as much information in 140 characters that words are getting shortened and are even becoming redundant as a result.”
Ralph Fiennes was speaking after he received the British Film Institute Fellowship at the BFI London Film Festival awards in Old Street.
In 2007 Fiennes won the James Joyce award given by the Literary and Historical Society.[/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/8853427/Ralph-Fiennes-blames-Twitter-for-eroding-language.html[/url]
This man speaks the truth.
Text messaging did this, not twitter.
So what? Language has been changing even without twitter and it will keep changing as people change.
I personally think Shakespeare wasn't even that good. His books were about boring love and predictable stories. Maybe it was the bomb back in his time, but now it's just eh.
Yes, because English, a bastard mongrel of truncated latin languages, is the golden standard of pure language, and isn't actually the result of the erosion of latin and french in the middle ages.
I think people have forgotten that Shakespeare himself "bastardised" the language of the time in the eyes of the more literary-minded with scores of colloquialisms and whatnot.
I've seen people use "lol" and "what r u doing" and such in [I]essays[/I].
idontwanttoliveonthisplanetanymore.jpg
[QUOTE=CheeseMan;33021315]I think people have forgotten that Shakespeare himself "bastardised" the language of the time in the eyes of the more literary-minded with scores of colloquialisms and whatnot.[/QUOTE]
English was to Latin and french what african american english/ebonics is to English today.
[QUOTE=CheeseMan;33021315]I think people have forgotten that Shakespeare himself "bastardised" the language of the time in the eyes of the more literary-minded with scores of colloquialisms and whatnot.[/QUOTE]
the day shit like 'lmao' and 'epic fail' is considered on par with the work shakespeare did is the day i fucking off myself
whoa this post was terrible i'm not sure what i was thinking
[QUOTE=Hamsterjuice;33021385]the day shit like 'lmao' and 'epic fail' is considered on par with the work shakespeare did is the day i fucking off myself[/QUOTE]
I don't see how a word or two can be on par with entire books.
Language is changing, you guys need to accept the world is rapidly changing as we progress through the information revolution.
If you think writing now is bad, go read Geoffrey Chaucer, his writing almost looks like crap if you think modern day language is.
I never shorten my words, even on Twitter.
lol whats voldemort talking about
dis is crp
My [I]Higher Level[/I] english class in school got told off for using "u" instead of "you" in [i]exam[/i] essays.
Some of us had to be taught the difference between "[I]You're and Your[/I]" at 18 years of age.
FP sounds like a bunch of old grandpas. "In my time everyone wrote correctly, people today are stupid"
That's bullstuff.
This doesn't give solid proof that the level of the language is decaying.
People talk shit all the time to quicken the process of getting the message across.
But presented an official/formal setting, it's just as easy to snap back into the niche of "proper" English.
I don't believe language is changing, at least not for the worse...
[QUOTE=just-a-boy;33021742]That's bullstuff.
This doesn't give solid proof that the level of the language is decaying.
People talk shit all the time to quicken the process of getting the message across.
But presented an official/formal setting, it's just as easy to snap back into the niche of "proper" English.
I don't believe language is changing, at least not for the worse...[/QUOTE]
Language is changing. Language always changes. 200 years ago English sounded much different and 400 years ago English sounded even more different.
While it is changing, it is not eroding, it is evolving.
[editline]29th October 2011[/editline]
[QUOTE=Contag;33021375]English was to Latin and french what african american english/ebonics is to English today.[/QUOTE]
English is a Germanic language.
[QUOTE=gamefreek76;33021906]Language is changing. Language always changes. 200 years ago English sounded much different and 400 years ago English sounded even more different.
While it is changing, it is not eroding, it is evolving.[/QUOTE]
[U]at least not for the worse...[/U]
Honestly grammar is better on twitter than a lot of places on the web.
It was definitely text messaging that did this. Also, this must be the forum with the best English on the planet, seriously. No other place on the internet is this grammatically correct. It's wonderful.
[QUOTE=Hamsterjuice;33021385]the day shit like 'lmao' and 'epic fail' is considered on par with the work shakespeare did is the day i fucking off myself
whoa this post was terrible i'm not sure what i was thinking[/QUOTE]
You are aware of the fact that Shakespeare was known to use a very large number of neologisms in his day?
It's cool how they're both together in that image; they were both important characters in Schindler's List.
[QUOTE='[CWG]RustySpannerz;33022109']It was definitely text messaging that did this. Also, this must be the forum with the best English on the planet, seriously. No other place on the internet is this grammatically correct. It's wonderful.[/QUOTE]
Thank the smartness system of a few years back.
[QUOTE=wraithcat;33022998]You are aware of the fact that Shakespeare was known to use a very large number of neologisms in his day?[/QUOTE]In the future they will be saying the same about lmao and other stuff and praising it as superior english.
[QUOTE=Contag;33021375]English was to Latin and french what african american english/ebonics is to English today.[/QUOTE]
wow.
how fucking racist
[QUOTE=Ladowerf;33023196]wow.
how fucking racist[/QUOTE]He meant ghetto.
[QUOTE=gamefreek76;33023108]Thank the smartness system of a few years back.[/QUOTE]
The smartness system taught me to spell properly! I can't be the only person it helped.
Whenever I think of Ralph Fiennes I always think of In Bruges. He was brilliant in that and hilarious
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFX5rZZzCp4[/media]
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVtzM8za53Q[/url]
[QUOTE=wraithcat;33022998]You are aware of the fact that Shakespeare was known to use a very large number of neologisms in his day?[/QUOTE]
I remember my drama teacher telling us about how, in Hamlet (obviously,) Hamlet asks Ophelia if he may lay his head in her lap. She tells him he may, and he responds with "or did you think I meant country matters?"
I can't help but wonder now if, if translated to today's terminology, Shakespeare basically just had him say "did you think I wanted to eat you out like a two-pence whore?"
lol wat r u tlking abuot it wuz alwys lik dis
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