Writing issues
For all my inability to communicate verbally and being unable to distinguish what’s sarcasm and isn’t, I’m incredibly sensitive to the way people write. It’s the way people phrase their words that ticks me off the most, and sadly, I’m never able to properly rationalize why a certain style of writing makes me so angry. It’s not a pattern of phrases or something that seems quantifiable… It’s just there. It’s not the content that makes me angry, but it’s just the way they write it.
I haven’t seen a pattern emerging yet, but what seems to be the general types that sets off my annoyance meter is 1. attempting to sound superior when you’re just wanking off on purple prose, and 2. the inability to understand your own phrases when you write and the general tone it conveys (usually a sense of smugness and ignorance).
Strangely enough, I’ve long since been numb to the “haizzzz…….. ~*i luv him worxxxx*~” epidemic that pervades almost any Singaporean teenage blog, and if actually given the choice, I would prefer to read that rather than someone who is incapable of understanding the choices she makes with her words and the negative impression associated with it (okay, that was a fairly long sentence). From my perspective, that style of writing, at least, lends itself to a stream of consciousness, and at least I can get a fairly decent understanding of what she is trying to convey. For the latter, stringing together a bunch of fancy words or unable to understand that the phrases you just used is indicative of your ignorance, it doesn’t make me understand you at all; you don’t understand those words, you don’t understand the tone those phrases convey, and I just get an incredibly bad impression.
I’ve had to comment block people on LJ of the simple fact that their way of writing (even just a meager sentence) made me irrationally angry. I choose not to read blogs like these because it’s not of what they write, but how they write it (yes, Azrul and Azrul-clone-stash-God-hides-in-his-cupboard).
Self-awareness: It’s a good thing, guys.
Chinese and Japanese
It’s so cold I have a headache. Ow.
Okay, time to wail about where this post (and its responses) went wrong. I tried to let the thing slide into ‘I forgot’ territory, since my attention span is the equivalent of a retarded bunny, but I forgot to disable emailing comments. So I got this comment in my inbox today, and I’m going to complain.
(Summary: Some chick decides Japanese and Chinese are pronounced the same, and assumes different pronunciations = two different names. Other people agree, also throwing in the fact that one’s name stays the same between languages. German, Spanish and English are a few of the languages that are used for comparison. In short, nobody believes that, in Chinese, Sakura’s name is ‘xiao ying’. Everyone thinks it should be just Sakura, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a moron).
1. My language is not your language.
It was rather shocking to see the amount of arrogance and assumptions everyone had in thinking Chinese and Japanese were pronounced the same and calling other people morons for thinking otherwise, or that Chinese was part of some odd universal language law that said people’s names stay the same when crossing between the language barrier.
Yes, throw in German/English, Spanish/English, Language learned in high school/English as your basis for comparison. Hey, if GERMAN/SPANISH/LLIHS does that, then it means EVERY LANGUAGE does it too!
No, it does not. Coming from a community that has already shown itself to accept that every single rule is subjective (even with topics of incest, bestiality and rape), it just made me wonder how on earth they managed to lump languages under one single umbrella with a Universal Rule to rule them all. Even English in itself doesn’t follow its own rules; why should every language need to have something in common?
The problem lies with the Japanese kanji and Chinese characters. Chinese does romanize (or Chinesefy?) English names, but the Japanese kanji creates a new rule altogether. Kanji is, essentially, traditional Chinese. Some phrasing has changed over the… decades? Millennium? (like how the kanji for ‘teacher’ are the Chinese characters for ’sir’), but regardless, kanji names are still pronounced the Chinese way when speaking in Chinese, simply because they are Chinese characters.
They are not different names. Simply because the kanji characters are pronounced differently doesn’t mean they’re two unique names with no relation to each other. Think Latin and English. In Latin, the endings of names change depending on their case, but in English it stays the same. They’re still the same person, even though they have like, 4 different versions of their names. (For the record, I took Latin too, so I have the relevant knowledge to make this parallel).
2. No one is a moron. Only you.
Go ahead and backpedal by saying the Japanese/English speakers don’t pick up on the different intonations, so for some reason, the rant is still valid(???), but that makes you look more of the moron. You don’t know for sure if the Japanese can pick them up – you’re not a native Japanese speaker. I learned both Japanese and Chinese (and Latin, hee), I can tell the difference, and that is the limit of my experience. Don’t overstep your boundaries by proclaiming that no one can tell the difference just because you – the native English speaker – can’t.
And yet again, I see projection all over. I find it incredibly infuriating when people assume things they don’t know about applies to everyone else at large, and think themselves knowledgeable when they draw parallels between languages that don’t actually exist. Look, if you don’t know the language and how it works, don’t draw parallels, because you don’t know what the other line actually looks like.
I think it will be extremely heartening to see people rein this this psychological mindset when talking to a public. I too, like to submit to projection when making snarky remarks, but not in terms of making logical arguments that will be judged by the public, in which this rant obviously did. Said person ignored my comments and continued her tirade of ribbing the fanfic author whom she was complaining about.
The lack of knowledge in people isn’t what bothers me. It’s the assumption of knowledge that creates this horrid atmosphere of ignorance and arrogance.
In short: Don’t rant about languages you know nothing about.
