All my posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551
or search for 'martin cadwell -caldwell' Take note of the position of the minus sign to eliminate caldwell returns or search for 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser.
I am not on YouTube or social media
[ 4 minute read ]
Jagged and Jarring Doomsayer
I have so much more to learn
I recently came across someone who had written a piece in the second party narrative. In case you don't know what that is I shall demonstrate, though clumsily because it is really difficult for me:
You got out of bed, looking un-rested, and rubbed your face. Each morning you felt the same, confused and curious simultaneously. You knew you had been somewhere and you always know that everyone else knows where, but you can never remember. Your daily new tattoo told you nothing, but today the black dragon on your right thigh jogged one of your memories.
First person narrative would be this: I got out of bed, looking un-rested, and rubbed my face. Each morning I felt the same, confused and curious simultaneously. I knew I had been somewhere and I always know that everyone else knows where, but I can never remember. My daily new tattoo told me nothing, but today the black dragon on my right thigh jogged one of my memories.
There is an edginess to the same piece when it is written in the second person narrative, that is simply not there when it is written in a form we are, as readers, strongly familiar with, such as first person narrative (above)
(A thought came to my head just then that in verbal arguments, bickering between two people, saying 'you' is usually accusatory. Of course, 'you' is also used in complimentary statements).
In there is also an order to where we place the 'subject'; 'verb'; and 'object'. In British English, this is SVO (subject; verb; object) - 'I eat custard'. In Star Wars, Yoda that ugly little wise thing - I have never seen any Star Wars film - uses a different order (OSV) - 'Custard you eat'. This is not an uncommon order; it is only appealing or wonky, however you find it, in English. Those of us who have English as a first language instantly know that we are speaking to someone who does not have English as a first language if they do not use the appropriate order. There is also VSO, I think.
ThoughtCo has this: 'The initialism SVO represents the basic word order of main clauses and subordinate clauses in present-day English: Subject, Verb, Object.'
If you are not into linguistics, or creative writing, you probably won't ever be interested in mixing second person narrative written in English with a different SOV word order. That is something that I find impossible because my command of prepositions, articles, clauses and other stuff, educated I was not! I know there are a few people who read this who are able to do this; I am not one of them.
Well, that went well!
I used to buy magazines of logic puzzles. In today's world, solving the mess above with A.I. would have meant me just buying the answers at the back of the book. There is no fun in that. I would suggest a jaded mind who has no wish to learn buys answers. When I was in the second year of Primary school we had Beta Book 2 for our maths (Am. 'math') text book. In W.H. Smith, a UK high street stationers, I bought the Beta Book 2 answer book. I got caught cheating and it was confiscated from me. I wonder ff the school thought I had stolen it. I never heard from my parents one way or the other. Thinking about it, I suspect that the teachers never needed an answer book and so there were never any in the school anyway. Buying answers is cheating.
I feel like an old sex worker, retired from 'knowing' many clients; though, for me, less of the physical contact and more of the knowledge. I might throw a blanket description over the Western World, of how some of us might consider an experienced sex-worker once they have retired (it is an expletive). Let me elaborate a bit.
There are somewhere around 8.23 billion people living on the planet this morning. 3% of us, all have an IQ of 130 and above. China has around 1.14 billion citizens. That means there are 34.2 million Chinese with this extraordinary level of brilliance to choose from, to educate; select for suitability; and put into power, tyrannical or not. Of course, many of the Chinese population have SO FAR not been sufficiently nourished in the womb or throughout their lives to develop their full potential. So, maybe there is a viable group of 5% of that 34.2 million. This means that 1.71 million Chinese workers with an IQ of 130 or above may already have been deemed suitable for powerful roles in the Chinese Government. Does that sound like the right amount to run China? Of course, for that number to be used they need to work from birth to death.
Compare that to India which has more people than China. Not so advanced we think. Has anyone heard of BRICS by any chance (The economic group which was initially made up of Brazil, Russia, India and China and still contains these countries)?
Just saying, right?
Jagged and Jarring Doomsayer