Inequality

Visão gives us a portrait of inequality in Portugal. Inequality is a bad thing in itself or is it acceptable as long as we have freedom and everybody is better than before?

"Are you serious?"

Yes, "Homens da Luta" are joking — and quite serious at the same time. For once, I think we have a shot at winning the Eurovision contest. Or maybe not. Anyway, since the best we did till now was the 6th place and most people simply ignore the contest, we may well joke a bit with the whole thing.

And what better joke than sending an act from another decade to represent us?

Optimist / Pessimist

I'm an optimist regarding the idea that we can improve the world by small steps — the world is in a much better shape than 100 years ago. However, I'm worried about the stupid optimism of those convinced they can change the world in one clean sweep without understanding why the world is as it is.

If it is good for employers, it must be bad for employees

Raquel Varela gives us a neat application of class struggle theory, proving the new IMF-induced measures mean, in fact, a wage reduction. One of those measures is the reduction of social security taxes paid by employers. It's easy to understand why Raquel thinks this is the same as a wage reduction: if employers pay less taxes to fund social security, employees will have fewer social rights. It's a wage reduction, in fact.

Now, my argument may seem to come from another world, a world the author of the post would probably call petit-bourgeois. The argument is: in a country where most companies are small companies in which employers work alongside employees and earn wages as any employee, with mostly non-existent profits, this measure may help companies create jobs and — people will laugh, with their "employers are evil" mind-frame — increase wages in some cases. It may be a good thing.

Lazy Pessimism

It's easy to think everything is so rotten we don't need to make the effort to be good.

Does @ help women?

For those who love to use @ to express gender ambiguity in Portuguese: since English does this, most of the time, without using any specific symbol, do you think English is less prone to sexism than Portuguese (or any other Latin language, for that matter)?

Sexism wouldn’t disappear even if “tod@s” became the correct translation of “everyone”.  Sexism will disappear when people stop being sexist. No amount of linguistic fumbling will do that for us. And it doesn’t even help!

Why spend money on elections?

Today, our country was informed of the way it will be reformed and governed during the next three years.

For some, this is an unacceptable imposition of specific political options by foreigners on our democratic system.

Others will probably think this is a sensible way of reforming Portugal, without imposing any revolution.

Still, some argue that the next government will have to find incredible amounts of wisdom and courage to approve and execute the measures the package imposes on us. So, probably, we still have to choose sensibly next June 5.

SMS may even be a good thing!

I was delighted to know that Rui Baptista has read and answered to my post. I guess I came across as a bit rude – rudeness is never a good thing, but I was a bit picked by the assertion that those who use SMS-lingo “think like monkeys”.

Rui Baptista explains in his new post that he is against only those students who use SMS abbreviations in exams and essays, being incapable of knowing that the written language has spelling and grammar rules that should be followed.

Also, he says he read the article “The Language Instinct”, adding some other readings to the discussion. I’m not familiar with the net article. I recommend the book, which is not too expensive and one of the most thrilling reads for anyone interested in language and science. As Robert Lane Greene says, “whatever your views on this subject, it's hard to read the book and then happily go back to seeing language as a set of iron-bound rules that are constantly being broken by the morons around you. Instead, you start seeing this human behaviour as something to be enjoyed in its fascinating variability.”

Now, to the matter at hand. My point is: is there any cause-effect relation between SMS-lingo and badly written essays or exams? I really don't think so. In fact, some argue that SMS language can improve spelling. I won’t go that far, but I do think that students who have good linguistic skills and read a lot will write well and still use SMS-lingo in their mobile communications. Students who write poorly and mix registers would probably not write better if cell phones were forbidden or non-existent. I bet good students will tend to be even more creative and use non-standard usages more frequently than poor students, but in the right context (apart from eventual subversive mixes).

Now, think a bit out of the pessimist frame of mind created by years of noticing poorly written essays while considering good essays the normal situation (a pessimist bias Portuguese people are prone to fall into). Do you agree with me when I say that there is a stable group of good students who write well, are creative, interested and ready to discuss things and make the effort of learning? I guess you agree this group is real. Let's not discuss if it has increased in size or not (I'll agree it has decreased in relative size). Now, I believe you should know that, in their cell phones, you'll find SMS-lingo and all sorts of alternative spellings.

So, I really think Llosa is wrong. A person does not think like a monkey just by using creative uses of informal language. Calling them monkeys is insulting to all the good people who simply use their languages fully and creatively, knowing when to use each register and not limiting themselves by ancient purist conceptions of language, which curtail the normal development of the very thing that makes us humans: the spoken and written word (as you see, I agree with you in some aspects).

I know you are genuinely worried about all those students who don’t know how to spell. We should be all worried. However, saying that SMS spelling is a symptom of “monkey thinking” is an attack to their own ways of communication. If we don’t explain that this linguistic creativity is legitimate in its own space, we are erecting a barrier between those students and formal texts, since young people will normally choose creativity and freedom when they have to make a choice. Fortunately, there is no choice to be made: language is wonderfully flexible and rich.

You should forbid all SMS-lingo in exams and essays. But, please, don’t say that students think like monkeys for using creative spelling in informal contexts, even if that opinion has been previously expressed by a Nobel Prize laureate.

The pleasure of killing Osama

To justify the apparently scant proof presented by the USA regarding Osama’s death, and following the knee-jerk reaction of street talk (if Americans say so, it must be a lie!), João Miranda offers an intriguing opinion: Americans don’t need to prove they killed Osama, because killing Osama is a bit like making sex to a hot woman — the pleasure is in the act itself, not in bragging about it.

Students speak like monkeys, ain't it?

Rui Baptista thinks that the Written Word should not be prostituted by the language of SMS, social networks and politicians. He thinks, in a rather circular statement, that the enemy of language is every attack on oral and written words. Then, the usual cliché of cliché-hating, holier-than-thou Great Protectors of Language: students don't know how to speak and write. Only those who never contacted with a university student being incapable of writing a small text that rises above the common language are able to ignore the truly criminal nature of the things people are doing to their language! (I'm trying to preserve some of the convoluted nature of the original sentence.)

In a nutshell: language is under attack! Open the prison gates to all those language criminals! Because of them, young people who write in SMS-lingo speak the language of monkeys! (This must be true, because it was previously said by a Nobel Prize Laureate.)

Now, since this is such a strong defense of language prescriptivism that trying to debunk it would be like entering a Creationist museum and explaining point by point why it is wrong, let me just ask a few questions.

Do the really good students never use abbreviations and creative uses of spelling when writing an SMS? Using alternative spellings always imply the person is ignorant of standard spellings? An intelligent speaker isn't able to use and understand alternative spellings, just as anyone can understand different accents (and use different accents, in fact)? So, if I use "SMS-lingo" in my SMS (and not in my exams), am I sinning against the Religion of Language?

I would humbly advance the proposition that good linguistic skills imply a whole range of registers — and not only the strict grammar of written formal language (much simpler than spoken and informal language, to be honest). Using different registers in different contexts is a difficult skill, that most young people acquire with relative ease (despite those cases of people using SMS-lingo during exams or extremely formal talk during sex). Using the full range of our language is not being stupid or monkey-like, but just to be alive and savoring the language in all its texture and incredible flexibility.

So, relax and enjoy the ride!

By the way, if you think science is a good thing, read The Language Instinct, by Steven Pinker. Probably, your view of language will be shattered to pieces, but that's a good thing.