prescriptivism is such a red flag because people who subscribe to it are always like “THERE IS ONLY ONE CORRECT PRONUNCIATION OF X AND IF YOU DON’T USE IT YOU HAVE BRAIN WORMS” and then you push them a little further and they’re like “foreign people and poors…..i don’t care for them”
like languages don’t die, prescriptivism kills them lol
what’s more is it splits hairs over and over again to the point where it’s almost impossible to “win”.
Language cannot evolve because that is bad and wrong when we already know the Right word/way to pronounce it. Life would be better if everyone rigidly stuck to that. Change is bad and the only good way of sorting things is to slot people into categories ranging from best to degenerate based on their language or how they speak it.
prescriptivism is just linguistic colonialism lmao
taurus: a very homely place. vaguely smells like coffee. you look to the left. you see a cat. it meows, demanding money
gemini: two people viciously arguing over a violin. it is an empty room. all is quiet. no noise. yet, they still argue. they do not stop. you break the violin. they stare at you until you leave
cancer: a doll screaming. it is screaming so much. it is telling you to place your infinite trust in it
leo: peel the skin off your face right now
virgo: you sit in a rocking chair facing the woods. it is dark out. completely dark. you can’t even see anything. you start to feel nervous. you hear the crack of a branch
libra: a crowded room full of people. they are all wearing masks. you are wearing a mask. a masked man takes you by the hand. you are unable to break free so u bite it off
scorpio: a child is eating dinner with her family. the father seemed to have made a funny joke. they all laugh. they are eating the mother. the child learns a valuable lesson that nothing really matters.
sagittarius: a nice day, a nice dog you see as you walk to the clinic, a nice nurse, a nice doctor. you leave because you are happy. you are happy. make sure you are happy. it won’t be long
capricorn: you desperately turn on the light. you cannot see anything. you turn it off. you see it. it is in the corner. it is waiting. be ready
aquarius: you are coloring something very pretty. you color on your skin. three snake-like figures whom you don’t recognize approach you. they ask you about what you’re coloring. you answer in a language you do not understand
pisces: drive drive drive drive!!!! into the sea!!! they are awaiting your return!!!! you hear them speak!!! they are there!!!! there is something inside you that doesn’t sleep well
Climate change has reversed the temporal order of modernity: those on the margins are now the first to experience the future that awaits all of us; it is they who confront most directly what Thoreau called ‘vast, Titanic, inhuman nature’. Nor is it any longer possible to exclude this dynamic even from places that were once renowned for their distinctiveness. Can anyone write about Venice any more without mentioning the aqua alta, when the waters of the lagoon swamp the city’s streets and courtyards? Nor can they ignore the relationship that this has with the fact that one of the languages most frequently heard in Venice is Bengali: the men who run the quaint little vegetable stalls and bake the pizzas and even play the accordion are largely Bangladeshi, many of them displaced by the same phenomenon that now threatens their adopted city—sea-level rise.
“Loneliness is difficult to confess; difficult too to categorise. Like depression, a state with which it often intersects, it can run deep in the fabric of a person, as much a part of one’s being as laughing easily or having red hair. Then again, it can be transient, lapping in and out in reaction to external circumstance, like the loneliness that follows on the heels of a bereavement, break-up or change in social circles.”
— Olivia Laing, The Lonely City – Adventures in the Art of Being Lonely
“If a person can’t get out of bed, something is making them exhausted. If a student isn’t writing papers, there’s some aspect of the assignment that they can’t do without help. If an employee misses deadlines constantly, something is making organization and deadline-meeting difficult. Even if a person is actively choosing to self-sabotage, there’s a reason for it — some fear they’re working through, some need not being met, a lack of self-esteem being expressed. People do not choose to fail or disappoint. No one wants to feel incapable, apathetic, or ineffective. If you look at a person’s action (or inaction) and see only laziness, you are missing key details. There is always an explanation. There are always barriers. Just because you can’t see them, or don’t view them as legitimate, doesn’t mean they’re not there. Look harder. Maybe you weren’t always able to look at human behavior this way. That’s okay. Now you are. Give it a try.”
(And a footnote I didn’t see explicitly covered in the article: laziness still doesn’t exist when it is you yourself making no progress and not knowing why. You deserve that respect and consideration, too, even from yourself.)
countervisuality 