The blink below about the new ‘aliteracy’ has stimulated some discussion offline. While not solely, or probably even centrally, attributable to the computerization of our consciousness, it’s worth asking what technological advances are doing to the English language and language in general, as MIT media technology professor Michael Hawley does in Things That Matter: Waiting for Linguistic Viagra.

It’s important to communicate. It’s important to have a lingua

franca. But it’s also important to think differently. The most fertile,

thriving cultures have a balance of order and chaos, with

constant ferment. But today’s computer media are flat and

Anglocentric. Things are a bit too stuck, a bit too ordered. Both

within the machines and across the network, we could enjoy a

little more linguistic turmoil. Technology Review

By the way, my gratitude to Fred Lapides for pointing out to me this epigram by Hawley — who’s an interesting, prolific, guy — atop Mark Woods’ wood s lot: “Language is the mind’s opposable thumb.” I like that… as much as William Burrough’s comment about language being a virus… and Laurie Anderson’s immortalization of the latter in song. Looking at wood s lot today, you’ll find, from Wittgenstein: “Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.” And speaking of minor bewitchments by language, Mark, I know, you’re “Woods”, not “Wood”, so “woodlot” just wouldn’t work, but the lack of an apostrophe in “wood s lot” has always struck me like an itch I can’t scratch. [Oh, there, I just scratched it.]