Language and context

In a YouTube search for Kinetic Typography I stumbled upon this video ‘Language.’ It was, to me, so thought provoking that I thought I’d share it here. So first of all, if you have a few spare minutes, take a look at this:

Now, that you’ve finished watching, what was your first impression? I’ll admit my thoughts were scattered all along the spectrum throughout the clip. At the beginning I felt like I connected to his point immediately. His statement “for me it is a matter of some upset that more anglophones don’t enjoy language....” I thought, “yes! I agree.  Language is just, well, fun!” Then he moved on to talk about those who go about ‘defending’ language in what he calls the “wrong way.” At that point, my thoughts weren’t quite as agreeable as they were in the beginning of this clip. I began to think, “well, yes, perhaps people ought not be so busy nit-picking little grammatical things, or ‘whipping out their sharpies’ to correct signs at the grocery store, but we don’t want the entire English language to fall into a state of complete disarray.” So on that point, I began to debate with myself. 

This head conversation I had while watching this clip reminded me of how I have been trying to develop my voice in writing. I have a well established technical and I might even say professional writing style, but that isn’t the type of atmosphere I want to have here on my blog, in my journal, or in a personal letter. In those instances I want to feel free to use language {even if it has ‘flaws’} that fits seamlessly in context. 

Overall, I took from this video that the context of writing {and of language} is everything. For my personal writing, {which includes this blog} I am free to write like I speak. Writing that way doesn’t mean I lack knowledge of language, it means I am choosing not to follow the rules simply because in context, it works.  Do you have any thoughts about this clip? I’d love to hear!