Saturday, June 6, 2015

John McWhorter — Why Kim Kardashian Can’t Write Good

Essay-level writing as a basic skill is no longer the norm. Speaking is, however, and that style has influenced our writing. Get over it, grammarians. 


(via The Daily Beast)

 “Today marks the 100 year anniversary of Armenian Genocide!” Kim Kardashian tweeted on April 24. All have had a field day mocking her misuse of the exclamation point, not to mention the capitalization of Armenian Genocide as if it were a theme park ride. 

But I’m beginning to think we need to accept writing like this as normal. 


Stay with me. No doubt, a Kim Kardashian of yesteryear would not have released a public statement with such, shall we say, individual usage of capitalization and punctuation. The letters modestly educated soldiers wrote home during the Civil War attest to the centrality of refined composition in the American culture of yesteryear.


 - See more at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/10/why-kim-kardashian-can-t-write-good.html