{"id":576,"date":"2018-08-25T23:01:02","date_gmt":"2018-08-26T06:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/?page_id=576"},"modified":"2018-09-07T16:48:11","modified_gmt":"2018-09-07T23:48:11","slug":"a-lords-english-2003","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/a-lords-english-2003\/","title":{"rendered":"A Lord’s English (2003)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\u201cThose without swords can still die upon them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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I read the Hobbit books while backpacking through Europe in 1972, and I loved the Lord of the Rings movies when they came out, years later. I even squeezed a couple of columns out of them. This one, on the movies\u2019 rhetorical style, ran in the Seattle Times on December 31, 2003.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Lord of the Rings\u00a0<\/i>movies have been praised for their plot, characters, theme, setting, music and special effects.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

But say something also about their English.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Consider the scene in\u00a0The Two Towers,\u00a0<\/i>when Lord Aragorn finds Lady Eowyn, the story\u2019s Mulan, swooshing the air with a sword. He meets it with a clang of steel, and she parries him with a flip of the wrist.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cYou have some skill with a blade,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

She replies with an answer to warm the heart of the National Rifle Association: \u201cWomen of this country learned long ago: Those without swords can still die upon them.\u201d She adds, \u201cI fear neither death nor pain.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cWhat do you fear, my lady?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cA cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them, and all chance of valor has gone beyond use or desire.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Politics aside, that is voluptuous English \u2014 and much of it right out of the fantasy J.R.R. Tolkien wrote half a century ago.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Eowyn could have said, \u201cI can\u2019t count on men like you to protect me, and I don\u2019t want to rot in some cell. I have to be ready to defend myself.\u201d But Eowyn and other high-status people in this story speak a dressy English. The hobbits are more colloquial, and the orcs \u2014 a subhuman race \u2014 speak among themselves like lowlife Americans: \u201cMeat\u2019s back on the menu, boys!\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Lord of the Rings\u00a0<\/span><\/i>uses high English to separate Middle Earth from us \u2014 and it certainly does. But formal English used to be an important part of our public life, and remains so in most other English-speaking cultures.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

University of California, Berkeley, linguist John McWhorter argues in his new book,\u00a0Doing Our Own Thing\u00a0<\/i>(Gotham Books), that Americans once used formal English regularly, and used it in great proclamations not so long ago. In 1941, Franklin Roosevelt spoke of \u201ca date which shall live in infamy.\u201d Even as recently as 1961, John Kennedy thought it was fitting to say, \u201cAsk not\u00a0<\/i>what your country can do for you.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

For the speech of today, page through We Will Prevail<\/em> (Continuum), the recent collection of speeches of George W. Bush. A few bright lines jump out, such as \u201chistory\u2019s unmarked grave of discarded\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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lies.\u201d But most of Bush\u2019s talks are as functional as cotton underwear. Bush would not say, \u201cAsk not.\u201d He would say, \u201cDon\u2019t ask.\u201d And it\u2019s not because he\u2019s a Republican. Read the speeches of Howard Dean. Read the speeches of Gen. Wesley Clark.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not about mangling impromptu lines. These are prepared speeches. If their rhetoric is flat, it is meant to be flat.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, even a presidential address to Congress comes clothed in a sweater and Dockers. McWhorter argues that this is more than a change in style. Americans, he says, are reverting to an oral culture in which standards are set by TV sitcoms, talk radio, rap music, e-mail and cell phones. We read less and talk more. To us, \u201cthe visceral, spontaneous and elementary\u201d seem genuine and real. \u201cOratorical, poetic and compositional craft\u201d seems false.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

McWhorter argues that this shift in our English affects our song lyrics, our movie dialogue and the prose in\u00a0Time<\/i>magazine. All have become more informal, more like talk, with sentences shorter and words simpler. The use of formal English is a flag that says:\u00a0This is to be taken seriously.<\/i>To replace it with a kind of linguistic egalitarianism is a dumbing down. McWhorter says: \u201cA society that cherishes the spoken over the written is one that marginalizes extended, reflective argument.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is\u00a0not\u00a0<\/i>an argument for duded-up writing, what Mark Twain called a \u201cmonkey with a parasol\u201d style. Some writing needs to be presented in sweater and Dockers, and some in the buff. But sometimes it should dress up. Those who savor their English will find that some of the best writing wears a top hat and tails.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Viewing again the\u00a0Rings\u00a0<\/i>movies, I thought: Why do I like these so much? The plot, the characters, the setting \u2014 yes, yes, yes. The imagery, the music, the special effects. All of that. But it was more. I like the way they talk.\u00a0I like their English<\/i>. It is clear, elegant, beautiful.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And in an imaginary world. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>\u00a9 2003 The Seattle Times<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I received a lot of response from this column, including a note from Tom Fortin, my yearbook teacher from Meadowdale High School, 1968-1969. Having a newspaper column is great for connecting with people you haven\u2019t seen in decades.<\/span><\/i>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThose without swords can still die upon them.\u201d I read the Hobbit books while backpacking through Europe in 1972, and I loved the Lord of the Rings movies when they came out, years later. I even squeezed a couple of columns out of them. This one, on the movies\u2019 rhetorical style, ran in the Seattle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-576","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":694,"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/576\/revisions\/694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}