Thursday 19 September 2002

Pic of the day: Is there anything as sweet and simple as a chocolate bar? Well, some people's language perhaps.

Sweet and simple?

I was writing a new Alien Letter in my head today, but something changed my mind. I talked with a woman who had read a book about the tax code. She had laughed out loud, she told me, because it was so vague and hard to read. "Why don't they just say it as it is?" she said. That's a mighty good question, I realized.

Some years ago, I had to write letter to customers. I prided myself in being able to write simple letters. Short words, short sentences, simple grammar. So why don't I do that here? I have thought about that now. I think I have an answer.

Back then, I imagined the reader as a factory worker who did not read much by choice. Perhaps the sports pages in the papers. No books, no magazines, nothing difficult. Frankly, I imagined him as not very bright.

Today, here, I imagine my reader as a woman in her 30es with college education and an office job. (After all, who would read this stuff on their free time??) Bright, talkative, and sharing my love of the rich language that is English. I still enjoy writing in a language with an almost endless supply of words. (I actually thought "virtually inexhaustible vocabulary" here. That is not a good thing, I guess.)

***

I don't write long and complex sentences to impress you, and I don't use old or rare words to show off. I had a time in my childhood when I did that, but I do not need to anymore. I know I write well, especially for a foreigner. (My mother tongue is Nynorsk, New Norwegian.) But just like someone in good shape likes to run just because he can, so I like to jog the language. I like to choose just that special word that I feel best fits the meaning. So what if it is a word people don't use anymore? The reader is bright, she will understand it. And I feel that it gives my prose the style I want.

Like when I write the Alien Letters, I want them to look like they are really written by someone more intelligent than an average human. And I want it to look like they are not used to speaking with humans. So they call babies "larvae" because that's what they are used to from home. People walk on two legs, so they are "bipedal". We don't call people "bipedal" because OF COURSE they have two legs! What else? We don't call people "radial symmetric" because OF COURSE the left and right side of our body are like mirrors of each others. Aliens don't take things for granted. That is why I wanted to write like them.

***

I am no big fan of grammar. Why write complete sentences? People know what you mean. I use too many commas, and too many periods. I use them to shape the text, to make it into blocks. I want the text on the screen to be like the text in my head. And in my head, the text comes in small chunks. The small chunks fit together in bigger chunks, and so on. That is the way I think, in chunks. Sometimes a rare word can say the same as a small sentence, and then I usually choose the word.

I guess it would be irritating to read a text with many strange words. What are draconian measures? Has it something to do with dragons? What are Machiavellian politics? Most people will guess that a titanic struggle is a pretty big thing, but why do I mention a famous ship when I write about something on dry land?

Here in Norway, Disney's "Donald Duck" is unusually popular, much more so than in its homeland. And the character most kids would like to be is uncle Scrooge. He is the old duck who bathes in money. He has a big building full of coins and scattered bank notes, and he swims in them like in water. Actually I don't think you can do that, but it looks fun. This is the way I feel about words. I like to bathe in them. I like to throw them up in the air and let them rain down over me. I like to bury myself in them until only my tail feathers are visible, then come up for air. There are a lot of them, they are valuable, and they are mine, all mine!

So now you know why I write the way I do. I may try to write more normal English sometimes, like when I write about my daily life. But there is not a lot more to say about my daily life, I think. I am not sure what is worst: The fact that the most interesting part of my life is the games I play, or that I use words like "prehensile" and "bifurcated" without even thinking about it.

But at least I am having fun, which is always something. ^_^