Here’s a dilemma for the writers, the linguists and the grammar nazis.
Kanye West’s new album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy has received rave reviews…
“With his music and persona both marked by a flawed honesty, Kanye’s man-myth dichotomy is at once modern and truly classic.” Pitchfork
“After the celebri-beef and ALL CAPS blog posts fade away, Fantasy will stand as an album that dared to push the entire medium of recorded music forward, for better or worse.” American Songwriter
“The end result is a body of work that pushes hip-hop in a bold new direction and puts Mr. West back at the forefront of the culture once again.” XXL
Indeed. This album will not only go down as a classic hip hop album, but a classic album of the 21st century.
Yet despite his huge success, and by his own admission, Kanye struggles with the English language…
So here’s the dilemma.
As writers, as linguists and as grammar nazis, how do you feel about a man leading a generation – a generation who will memorise, recite and replicate lyrics spouted by a man with a limited grasp of the rules of the English language? There’s a good chance that his success will mean that his catch phrases and his structure will become common and perhaps even eclipse the traditional structure. Does this scare you?
There’s nothing we can do about it but I would be interested to know your thoughts – especially when you lot can be as crazy as Kanye himself.
Nathan Bush is an Interactive Strategist at BCM
Bushy, I don’t think it matters. What does matter is what is communicated effectively. How that is done is irrelevant – IMHO.
What makes people like us potentially uncomfortable is that it “isn’t how we do things” and “isn’t how we were taught” so we get scared that a comma might not be in the right place or sentence structure is flawed.
But why does that matter? That stuff is only there to facilitate effective communication. If people can communicate effectively without them then why use them?
The big question is “IF”. In saying that, however, it amazes me how often smaller communication mediums like Twitter (140 characters) spawn less misunderstanding than an email (unlimited characters).
There is something weird about the easier/relaxed “tone” you read things like tweets and Facebook statuses in compared to how you can read an email.
The horse has alreddy bolted, bro. The random apostrophe’s have taken over. Spelling and prounounciation and shit duznt matter no more – its the feeling what counts. The old rools have dyed. Free2choose is king.
So what if words become so interchangerble that the engineers cant quite understand whats written in the plans. sure a few bridges might fall in the sea, but at least nobodys gonna feel like they neva got the chance to express themselfs to the world.
Nathan, I suspect you wrote this just to goad me on to comment – and you’ve been successful! First up, as someone here has said earlier, spelling and grammar are all about effective communication; and as I have no idea how to pronounce this guy’s name (is it spelt correctly?), I’m finding it hard to imagine he will single-handedly change traditional structures for more than 5 minutes.
More importantly, as society continues to become more litigious, I believe lawyers will have more influence over our language than hip-hop stars. So sadly, those people who know only how to speak hip-hoppish(?) will become more and more disadvantaged. How will they understand the language of all the stuff they need to read just to get through life these days e.g. bank loan applications, insurance policies, Centrelink forms etc.
I do feel for them – you’d think being tone-deaf would be disadvantage enough, wouldn’t you?
Nice one Nath.
Many centuries ago William Shakespeare said….” I understand a fury in your words, but not the words.” You can’t help but wonder what he’d make of Kanye’s handiwork with the Websters with gems such as….
“Too many Urkel’s on your team that’s why you’re Winslow,
Don’t make me pull the toys out huh?”
Then again, isn’t Kanye West just yet another artist expressing rebellion in a way that’s guaranteed to upset the establishment? People worried that the English language would never be the same when Elvis did his thing.
They screamed that it was the end of world order when the Sex Pistols spat on the audience and incited riots by singing about Anarchy in the UK. Now Johnny Rotten and co play the occasional reunion gig in venues where folks who were there at the time jump around reflecting fondly on those violence inducing lyrics from the past. Those boys!
Fast forward twenty or thirty years and I ‘d love to think we’ll see middle aged folks with their hands in the air like they just don’t care when Kanye West and his band of homies roll into the Kedron Wavell Services Club as part of his greatest hits tour.
Sing along everyone…”Pop some nines, so I give you the Fifth. Something, something, yeah. That’s my bitch, That’s my bitch.”
Number 27 in the meat tray, number 27 in the meat tray.
I can’t wait… fo shizzle!
Oyster – very deep. But good points. It’s also the expectation – people expect full explaination on email when in fact it could be better used as a quick fire medium.
ab – i fink your bang on da moneyz
Deb – Yes… I got you! The fish are biting. Have you tried to fill out a tax form? That shiz is off da hook.
YO Al, I’m really happy for you, and ima let you finish, but the Sex Pistols had one of the best RSL stage shows of ALL TIME!! Of ALL TIME! But seriously, that was hilarious. I just pictured you dressed up in a mini-me costume rapping some Kanye.
We are all screwed. Auto correct makes it so you don’t have to think when you type. Twitter and texting makes everything abbreviated so that even mistakes can’t be deciphered. Then throw in a little bit of slang, pop culture and people that spell words like memorize with an S (i kid i kid). . .
You’ve got yourself a disaster.