Electronic VS Hardcopy Blog Post

I kind of go both ways on the issue of whether to have hard copies or go all electronic.  Personally, I love the feel of a hardback book in my hands and I would never want to totally get rid of all books.  On the other hand, I can see where having electronic copies of everything would really help, but I think they should continue to make hardcopies as well.   There are tons of benefits to using each one, so it is not like one is so much better than the other.  With electronic copies, one can access them almost anywhere and it is usually much cheaper to access them than to go out and buy them from an expensive bookstore.  With that being said, I could go to a thrift store, a used bookstore, or a website like Amazon and get them just as cheap.

I would not ever give up my hardcopies though.  I cannot even describe what it is about a book, but I just love picking up an old book smelling them.  I love the smell of an old book.  I also love to look through them to see if I can find if the previous owners had left a little something in them.  It is always sad to get a book at the thrift store and see where someone has written a note to their mother, father, or child, and they get rid of it.  I would never get rid of the books my mother bought for me as I was growing up because they mean so much to me and an electronic copy could never do that.

Wikipedia Blog Post

I really enjoyed reading this article about Wikipedia.  I will be the first to admit that I use Wikipedia far too often to research things of interest.  I mean, I would never quote Wikipedia in an essay, but it is a great tool to go to when I know little to nothing about a subject.  That being said, I never take anything I read on Wikipedia as being the actual truth because anyone can edit it.

Had I not read this article, I would probably never have looked at the history of Wikipedia, although now I really want to search on Wikipedia for Wikipedia to see what it has to say for itself.  I never new that behind the scenes, Wikipedia is really complex and that the creators had actually designed it to be used by people with limited knowledge on a subject.  Or at least someone who was not an expert on it.

I found the terminology and names the users employ on Wikipedia to be fairly amusing.  I had no idea that some people were that addicted to Wikipedia and basically had their own terminology for it.  I am really glad I read this article because I have just never taken the time to learn anything about Wikipedia and how it operates.

Acts 3&4

After reading acts three and four of “Pygmalion,” there seems to be a difference between the way Higgins’ acts during the play and during the movie.  In the movie he does not seem like he is being that rude.  It just seems like he is very amused at her. In the play, however, he is just downright rude and I would not have expected that of him.  He seemed like a gentleman at the beginning, but I guess it was just because he was a professor of phonetics and knew how to conduct himself as a gentleman, but only chose to do so whenever he felt it was necessary. 

I was slightly confused at the end of act four because although Higgins seems very angry, it looks as though he is more angry at himself for acting the way he did toward Eliza.  I may be completely off base here, but that is the way I see it.  I also thought that Pickering was more of a gentleman at first as well, but he also took part in the bet with Higgins completely forgot about Eliza.

Pygmalion Blog Post

Pygmalion threw me off slightly when I started reading it.  Everything I have read up to date in this class have been very old writings that are pretty hard for me to understand.  Reading this more up to date play was pretty refreshing.  It is very easy to understand and is fairly humorous like the part where Higgins and Pickering meet.  Pickering gets all excited to see him and Higgins is just like “Come and see me tomorrow.”  The only problem I have with this play as of yet, is that I don’t really see a purpose for it.  I’m sure it will develop later in the poem however.

I thought the preface to Pygmalion was very interesting as well.  Shaw talk about how the English have no respect for their language and I think this relates to our society today.  We are always looking to shorten words to make it easier for us to learn and comprehend.  When we are not writing formally, we use things like lol, wbu, and tons of other little abbreviations to save time.  I know I use them too, but a lot of the time I spell them out so I do not get into the habit of writing like that.

Politics and the English Language

This article really interested me for several reasons.  I have always hated seeing bad grammar on websites and similar places, although I can’t seem to see it in my own writing.  I read a lot of articles on football and I can just read through briefly and find about ten mistakes of varying degree.  It is like they don’t even re-read what they have written or something. 

Abbreviations also get on my nerves really bad.  I obviously use them while texting sometimes, but sometimes I even see them in essays.  In high school, my senior class was looking at some sophomore or junior student’s papers, and the one I was reading actually had lol and other things like that in it.  I could not believe that students actually believed that this was acceptable.  I guess when you get so used to using it every day, you don’t even think about it.

Another thing that I see a lot is the incorrect use of their/there/they’re and to/two/too.  I mean this is just basic English and most people do not know it.  I want to correct it, but this would obviously make me look slightly odd, so I refrain.  I realize that Orwell is talking about slightly more complicated things than this, but this is how bad it is getting.

Wuthering Heights Feminist Criticism

I found several interesting things about this reading that I had never thought of before.  One such thing is how the author, Kristeva, associated feminine writing with the female body.  She then goes on to say that when women write, it also gives them more sexual freedom.

            I also thought the part where it shows the terms father/mother, active/passive, masculine/feminism, sun/moon, head/heart, son/daughter, intelligent/sensitive, brother/sister, form/matter, phallus/vagina and reason/emotion.  Some of these are kind of obvious, but I had not heard of others.  I did not know that the sun and moon were related to this so that was pretty cool.  The form and matter relation didn’t really make sense to me though.