Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Numbers or Words?

Numerology was not something I really delved into, but there's been a lot of this stuff out there.  New Year's Day was 1/1/11, and of course there's today, and then Veteran's Day will be 11/11/11.  Binary numbers, yes?  Wonder what that means?  I wasn't much of a math person either; hence, my chosen field dealing with WORDS.

I love words.  I love learning new words.  I love figuring out how to write words on the silly little steno machine.  I especially love it when friends share their ways of writing words that I hate to write so that I may incorporate that new way of writing.

I love reading.  A lot.  But I find myself a proofreader and it seems to detract from my reading enjoyment.  Have you noticed lately that few editors really care about the possessive apostrophe?  "Its" and "it's" happens incorrectly A LOT in my reading world.  (Not in my transcript production world, trust me.)

Richard Lederer (Conan the Grammarian?) said once that our language continues to evolve.  I suppose that's okay, evolution implying moving forward.  What saddens me is the devolution of people's ability to understand the basic constructs of our language, spelling, and vocabulary.

I guess I'm an old fogey.  And that's why I love my job with the NC Business Court - lawyers arguing using flowery language artfully.  Nobody speaks like that anymore.  I feel sorry for the younger generations that don't have a handle on the beauty that is our language and rely on paltry little words when there are so many beautiful adjectives out there to describe things.

Fortunately, I have many pages to produce where I may listen/read the attorneys' argument and sigh blissfully at the flow of words.

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