The importance of the written and spoken word

[cantunamunch]

Iambic pentameter...haven't hear THAT phrase in 45 years....

In the tiny fishing village I come from, it's about the fifth most common topic of discourse.

https://thebargainhunter.com/news/c...ut-the-secret-history-of-the-english-language

 

[LiquidFeet]

Sorry folks. I don’t know what happened. Half my post … didn’t post. It was supposed to include the original Shakespearean prologue from Romeo and Juliet in which the modernization of language did not affect the meaning. I have no idea what the glitch was.

Try again posting? Such a dialogue
would indeed add excellent flavor
to the conversation.

 

[Pat AKA mustski]

When you post it in the modern though it emphasises that Shakespeare was the King of Spoilers - imagine today he'd be starting with a blurb saying Bruce is dead or Daenerys is a mad baddy.

Guess the prologue had a important role when the only performed drama was on stage. Couldn't do as much with directed editing and knowing cutaways.

Movies still do it. They show a scene and then revert to “10 days ago” and fill in the back story.

 

[Pat AKA mustski]

Ok here is the original … spoilers are better when Shakespeare writes them!

ROMEO & JULIET ACT 1 PROLOGUE​

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.


Modern English Prologue


In the beautiful city of Verona, where our story takes place, two families, both well-known and well-respected, explode from a long-standing feud into new violence, and citizens stain their hands with the blood of their fellow citizens. Two unlucky children from these enemy families fall in love and commit suicide. Their unfortunate deaths end their parents’ fight. For the next two hours, we will watch the story of their ill-fated love and their parents’ anger which nothing but their children’s deaths could end. If you listen patiently to the action onstage, we will try to cover everything that we have missed in this prologue.

 

[cantunamunch]

Ok here is the original … spoilers are better when Shakespeare writes them!

Absolutely. The 'modern' misses many things, including the 'prideful' meaning of dignity, as in "standing on one's dignity", including R+J's mutiny against their families' strictures, including the two-meaning pun on 'civil' that creates an irony and paradox between "behaved and mannerly" and "living in the city", including the pun on 'hear' for the patient ears.

And then it actually says 'suicide' which of course Shakespeare never does.

And, of course, Shakespeare leaves the door open for a sequel - he never actually says that the grudge is over, he just says it is buried (in grief, presumably) and that nothing else could end it.

 

[Pat AKA mustski]

With Shakespeare there is always 2-3 layers of meaning, depending on how deeply the reader prefers to analyze. It’s why I prefer to read it than watch it performed. Of course the ideal is read, analyze, then watch it performed. Originally, it was performed for everyone from Royalty to lowly farmers and servants. That’s why there is the multitude of layers of meaning and play on words- something for everybody.

 

[fatbob]

Presumably he had to dumb it down for the royalty given the amount of inbreeding there?

 

[oldschoolskier]

When I was in University I had a prof (psychology) who's ex was poet/writer we had to study in High School and comment about the meanings in one of his works, hated that class.

Give that opportunity I asked her about it and her answer was, he was drunk and stoned out of his mind, there was no hidden meanings it was just s#!t he wrote and dumb people just made up what they thought he was writing.

Side note, you could definitely feel the love in that comment.

So, lesson learned was take what is written at face value, it is only that, the rest is your own imagination because you don't want to accept that's all it means.

 

[fatbob]

How do you know there weren't hidden meanings that only he knew when drunk and stoned? I'm sure any lay person who has been either of those has had brilliant ideas or creativity that only became garbage when reviewed in sober hindsight?

The fine line between genius and madness runs through us all and both sides are often amplified in the biggest succeses. Van Gogh, Cobain, Musk....

 

[Tony S]

Ok here is the original … spoilers are better when Shakespeare writes them!

ROMEO & JULIET ACT 1 PROLOGUE​

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.


Modern English Prologue


In the beautiful city of Verona, where our story takes place, two families, both well-known and well-respected, explode from a long-standing feud into new violence, and citizens stain their hands with the blood of their fellow citizens. Two unlucky children from these enemy families fall in love and commit suicide. Their unfortunate deaths end their parents’ fight. For the next two hours, we will watch the story of their ill-fated love and their parents’ anger which nothing but their children’s deaths could end. If you listen patiently to the action onstage, we will try to cover everything that we have missed in this prologue.

@Pat AKA mustski , did you write the modern version?

 

[Tony S]

When I was in University I had a prof (psychology) who's ex was poet/writer we had to study in High School and comment about the meanings in one of his works, hated that class.

Give that opportunity I asked her about it and her answer was, he was drunk and stoned out of his mind, there was no hidden meanings it was just s#!t he wrote and dumb people just made up what they thought he was writing.

Side note, you could definitely feel the love in that comment.

So, lesson learned was take what is written at face value, it is only that, the rest is your own imagination because you don't want to accept that's all it means.

Wow. Talk about spoilers.

 

[James]

When I was in University I had a prof (psychology) who's ex was poet/writer we had to study in High School and comment about the meanings in one of his works, hated that class.

Give that opportunity I asked her about it and her answer was, he was drunk and stoned out of his mind, there was no hidden meanings it was just s#!t he wrote and dumb people just made up what they thought he was writing.

Side note, you could definitely feel the love in that comment.

So, lesson learned was take what is written at face value, it is only that, the rest is your own imagination because you don't want to accept that's all it means.

Reminds me of reading an old interview with a Jimi Hendrix ex. Maybe early 80’s?She was going on about how stupid the stuff he was working on was. All this writing about castles and stuff… Basically thought it was all worthless and juvenile.
It was fairly astonishing. Guess she never heard that loser band Led Zepplin either.

 

[Tricia]

One of my interview questions is, tell me about how you would convey complex technical topics to an audience of laypeople. The answers are quite telling..

That school is right there in Lake Wobegon!



QFT. I'm an engineer that luckily has a liberal arts father that had engineers working for him.

When I declared my engineering desire, his primary dictat was that I learn to communicate well, both in writing and orally. Especially orally.

"In two minutes or less, you have to be able to explain to me why it really does make sense to replace the existing crusher system with a new one costing nearly eleventy billion dollars".

I might have been the only Chem Eng student to ever take two speech electives.......thanks, Dad!

EDIT: Funny, I was typing this as Scott was posting above.

Writing -- Less is more.

Speaking -- Write down what you intend to speak, by hand. (how often do you listen to people who repeat themselves over and over, saying just the same thing?)

Reading and listen -- not mentioned here. But that's part of the problem we have here. If no one reads what you write, why bother writing it clearly?

Funny that this topic has come up at this particular point in time.
We have been asked about our review style and why we think it works well for us, while others have a different platform with multi-page/lengthy reviews.
Our answer is always: If we keep it short and sweet then we can keep their attention through the review and then use the forum platform to engage if there are further questions. We also add to our reviews in our Long term update follow ups.

When I was in college we were told, if a speech or sermon is longer than 20 minutes you've lost the crowd.
That was back in 1985, so I'm sure the attention span of the average person is much less these days and most people prefer engagement over a speech.

 

[fatbob]

Funny that this topic has come up at this particular point in time.
We have been asked about our review style and why we think it works well for us, while others have a different platform with multi-page/lengthy reviews.
Our answer is always: If we keep it short and sweet then we can keep their attention through the review and then use the forum platform to engage if there are further questions. We also add to our reviews in our Long term update follow ups.

Dead on. I think it is most noticeable now in podcasts now they have evolved into a thing of their own and pros have well and truly penetrated the medium. A tight 30 mins, well edited and leaving the listener wanting more is worth any number of rambling 90 min streams of consciousness or uncut conversations.

And the think is no matter how long the text usually there will be some point that you wished had been addressed in any article and so q&a or a real intereactive comments does the job netter.

 

[James]

Dead on. I think it is most noticeable now in podcasts now they have evolved into a thing of their own and pros have well and truly penetrated the medium. A tight 30 mins, well edited and leaving the listener wanting more is worth any number of rambling 90 min streams of consciousness or uncut conversations.

God help us with some of these podcasts. The navel gazing and irrelevant asides are maddening. Especially when they’re interviewing people. They waste so much time and don’t get the content out of the person. All this chummy stuff should be edited out, but it’s not.
Worse, they think it’s good.

 

[Tony S]

God help us with some of these podcasts. The navel gazing and irrelevant asides are maddening. Especially when they’re interviewing people. They waste so much time and don’t get the content out of the person. All this chummy stuff should be edited out, but it’s not.
Worse, they think it’s good.

Now get off of my lawn.

 

[crosscountry]

A tight 30 mins, well edited...

However tight and well edited, it'll be far tighter once written down. And I bet the editing will be far better too.

Takes only 10 minutes to read.

No podcast for me.

 

[Pat AKA mustski]

@Pat AKA mustski , did you write the modern version?

No. That’s crap. I write much better than that but would never re-write the masters. My point was that the meaning was not changed- although the artistry and subtleties were lost in translation. It was originally intended as a contrast with King Lear where the iambic pentameter, intermixed with prose, was integral to understanding the character’s state of mind.

 

[fatbob]

However tight and well edited, it'll be far tighter once written down. And I bet the editing will be far better too.

Takes only 10 minutes to read.

No podcast for me.

That's true when it comes to pure information delivery but a bit dangerous when you're driving or out for exercise.

I do get your point and it does infuriate me when directed to look at something and it's hidden within a big audio or video clip without a transcript. Especially on forums.

 

[oldschoolskier]

Reminds me of reading an old interview with a Jimi Hendrix ex. Maybe early 80’s?She was going on about how stupid the stuff he was working on was. All this writing about castles and stuff… Basically thought it was all worthless and juvenile.
It was fairly astonishing. Guess she never heard that loser band Led Zepplin either.

The funny part was, all she gave was confirmation of what I answered in high school, unfortunately the HS teacher wasn't as enlightened.