Mine English Empery

For those of you who know me, as some of you are already woefully ruing, I am a sesquipedalian bibliophile. Moreover, I am a traditionalist, an imperialist and a very shrewd grammarian. I am also seeking to become a discerning dialectician, although with the advent of globalisation, I fear that a lot (if not most) of the richness of any language will be lost with the death of its dialectic diversity.
And as some of you may be keen to guess, I was not always like this. There was a time when I (or rather, the physical origins of my body) was a single cell in the womb of my mother, mindlessly multiplying into the multi-cellular organism I am today.
But as for my linguistic history (as I'm sure you're all dying to know), I was born and raised in Toronto, Canada, a predominantly English-speaking nation. However, being born to parents of foreign birth, the English tongue was not introduced to my linguistic faculties until I was nigh six years of age. So, with a willful and determined mind (something I've seem to have lost since), I sought to learn the rudiments of English speech and spelling. I still remember to this day, the first book I was able to read on my own, as well as the first word with which I had trouble pronouncing. The book was called Hello House, and it was about this rabbit who would always manage to thwart his predator wolf. The word I had trouble reading was "house". I would first try to read it was "hoe-wu-ss". Come to think of it, I should have been raised in German; at least it's phonetic. ("Bearbeit", for example, is pronounced be-ar-bite.)
Now I was the proud owner of a set of phonetic rules of the English language, so I set out to devour as much as I could with these new tools. I read, and I read and I read. I read so much, in fact, at such a speed, that when I was placed in the "advanced reading circle", my peers there in the second grade were in disbelief that I finished reading about twice or even thrice as fast as they did.
And I wasn't a picky reader either back then. As a child with virtually no power or lnfluence, it was natural for those of my demographic (at the time) to be enticed by the concept of a skill and science that would enable the user power and persuasion. And what was that? Magic. Or more generally, fantasy.
Not to say that I dislike fantasy now, but just simply that I had no taste for literature when I was a child. Novels? They were long, but boring and dry. Who would want to read Pride and Prejudice? There were no dragons in it!
And as time waned by, after my succession of old and soon-to-be retiring teachers (with all their strict and stern rules of grammar and writing), I naturally developed a strong sense of language, that has been growing ever since (especially now with my introductory education into linguistics).
Now, by no means do I claim to be an expert on language. Granted, my interests in grammar and language are not shared by many of my age (or even by those one or two generations above me), and so by virtue of being interested in something most aren't, I automatically seem to become a leading authority on the subject. But, for example, I still don't know what a "dangling modifier" is, even though I've heard that grammatical term many times before. What are the six cases for all nouns? Nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, ablative and vocative. But what do they all mean? I've no idea what the ablative is, though after making this post, I'm of a mind to find out.
So yes, my knowledge of the English language (or of any language) is terribly incomplete, and I fear will always be so, if only because of a certain curséd fact that languages live, and are always changing.
But, I do intend to (eventually) earn my PhD in linguistics, after which I hope to teach class in university and have my nerves wracked after every class from the new generation of youth with their staggeringly incomplete and imperfect grammar.
So there you have it, the abbreviated, linguistic life and times of Joseph Tam.
Oh, and I should add that though my language has not always been as it is, I was always raised in that standard.
And although I do enjoy editing your essays (in which I hope I'm helping a friend), please have the decency to do three things (these courtesies which should be extended to any peer editor):

1. Attach a copy of the assignment so that the editor (i.e. I) have a better idea what the essay is supposed to address.
2. Allow yourself the time to go through your finished essay once before tossing it in my direction, expecting me to up its grade by 20%. While I do find the natural and subconcious errors of language intriguing, I would rather analyse those for my thesis than having to cut through them in a vain attempt to glean what you mean to say.
3. Give me at least two days to edit your essay. Especially if you know your English to be particularly weak (e.g. non-native speaker, or not very well-read, etc), certain awkward phrasing that you invent will take me a little more time than 20 minutes to phrase and re-phrase into a better, natural sentence.

So that's my English rant for the day. Don't flame me for any small error I make; I myself acknowledge that we're all human, and that we're all prone to error. I'm just a stickler for certain things because I find them to be very basic and rudinmentary. If, for example, in a friendly, casual conversation, someone says "protractor" when they mean "compass", I'll let it slide. But other howling errors (such as the redundancy contained in "from whence did you come") I will be more quick to correct.

What was the point of this post? I don't remember any more. That just goes to show what a good writer I am. Ha-ha.

Totally irrelevant, but here's a quote I found immensely hilarious:
"You don't die of heart-break; you only wish you did."

The Apostrophe

In many young writers today do I see a (what I like to call the) Apostrophe Catastrophe. Below are some (but by no means complete) list of rules for when an apostrophe should be used.

When some of a word or phrase is omitted (including contractions). e.g.:
Good morning - g'morning - 'morning
I was born in 1983 - I was born in '83 - 'born in '83
I have gone - I've gone

To form the plural of numerals and acronyms. e.g.:
In the eighteen hundreds - In the 1800's
I own many compact discs - I own many CD's.
There are so many chief executive officers in my company - there are many CEO's in my company

Possessives (of singular nouns) e.g.:
This book belongs to Stacy - this is Stacy's book
Listen to the words of Jesus - listen to Jesus' words
We're the top radio station in Toronto - we're Toronto's top radio station

Possessives (of plurals) e.g.:
All my friends have broken computers - all my friends' computers are broken
Men have few thoughts - men's thoughts are few
Sinophiles have freaky behaviour that scare me - sinophiles' freakish behaviour scare me

Although the people to whom I'm mostly directing this post probably don't read, I do hope that you, dear reader, will have found this to be at least a little interesting, if not educational.

Carpe Diem

"Live every day as if it were your last, for one day it will be."

Intellectually, I think we can all understand and appreciate the weighted meaning behind these words. That we all take life for granted, no amount of planning or plotting will prevent the eventuality of death.
But how many of us actually heed these words? I myself, after some time alone have given some thought to the matter, and I've realised that no matter how many times I'm reminded of these cute phrases, they never really hit home until I myself have a near-death experience. (Of course, it could be argued that those who don't live life fully aren't really living, so really I just need a "near-life" experience.)
How many days have I wasted this summer on pure nothing? Meaningless conversations online, random blog stalking, drawings without a future or purpose, playing piano without focus or determination. And all for what?
Even if I were to be "productive", if I truely practised piano diligently, if I went through my entire list of books to read, if I managed to improve and polish all those languages I've shown interest in, for what would it all be?
What is our purpose in life? Upon which are the foundations of our society? In the end, most of what we do in life are just chasings after the wind.
Just some food for thought.

Double Standards

There seems to be an intrinsic duality in nature. Dark-Light; Male-Female; Life-Death. Perhaps that is part of the reason why we have so much trouble conceiving the nature of the Trinity. But that is not what I purpose to discuss in this entry. Rather, that our perception often is equally binary as well (and perhaps more so in men). E.g. You are either friend or foe. After a pursued relationship, a girl can only either be a girlfriend or of no relation at all.
And it is in this vein of thought in which I first ideated the following contents of this post. How many of us have an idea of whom we'd like to be with? How many criterions do we have clearly defined for our Lady Love or Prince Charming? How many of us have a very good idea what would be the "perfect" guy/girl for ourselves?
But therein lies the problem. We're so busy looking outwards, dreaming in imaginary worlds that we often forget to stop and look at ourselves. If you have such a clear image of the perfect mate, and let us be generous and surmise that it is indeed perfection for this purpose, why would they pick you to be their partner?
(And apparently this concept is very abstract, as a certain incorrigible, obtuse, obstinate individual had great difficulty grasping at the basic concept I've outlined here.)
Simply stated, the question, then, is thus: If that perfect person exists (and let us assume that s/he both exists and matches your definition of perfection in a mate), why would they pick an imperfect you?
The basic idea is this: we, imperfect and full of flaws yearn for something "better", a sort of "perfection", a higher standard. But while all slow-witted slobs would love to marry a certain type of woman, I think it is fairly safe to say that very few intelligent beauty pageant winners would even feign to consider such an aforementioned slob.
Am I saying that you should give up on your dreams of the perfect woman because it's hopeless? Maybe, but that's not entirely my point either.
Perhaps instead of whittling the days away deranged and depraved on some desperate dream of stastistic improbability, one should instead focus on oneself. (And no, I don't mean to say that you should be more selfish.)
If one has a goal in mind (in this case, this elusive, quite possibly ethereal perfect mate), what does one plan to do about it in order to work towards its success? Yes, stereotypes are bad, nerds also have feelings, blah, blah, blah, but when it really boils down to it, are you so attractive to those to whom you are attracted?
Ah, one might argue, but part of his/her perfection would be his ability to look beneath the superficial and love me for whom I am. And while that may be true, what's stopping this perfect prince from finding someone better? And between you and someone better, why should they pick you?
So really, what have you got at the end of your useless and ultimately unproductive fantasising? minutes (or hours, or days, or eras, whatever unit of time applicable) wasted, and nothing gained. ..Except, perhaps, the temporary, false euphoria induced by indulging in such silly dreams, only to wake up to the bitter taste of reality.
(Given my tangents and my side notes, you can tell I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about the structure of my arguments.)
If it's ok for you to be so superficial to want the ideal mate to be this and that, isn't it only natural for him or her to be equally superficial in her quest for her ideal mate? If it's ok to want a girl who's gorgeous, why can she not demand that same physical perfection? (Or is that why the head cheerleader always ends up with the star quarterback?)
All of us have opinions about others and society, the outside world, philosophy, all these things which are wonderfully removed from us, however related they are to us. But how many of us actually bother to wonder about how we figure into these oceans of personalities, our place in these societies, our significance in our philosophies?
If you're so free to fantasise about your dream girl, or dream job, or dream residence, then stop dreaming and WORK! (practical examples follow)

E.g. if you are attracted to the sort of girl who is shy and proper, do you really think wiping your mouth with your sleeve is really the best way to win her over?
If you're a japanophile who only lives under antiquated and over-stereotyped views of japanese society and worship japanese animation as if it were a pantheon of gods, then you could either wake up and realise it's never happening, or learn to wash your face a little more often, learn the art of subtlety that your conceived master race is supposedly so adept at, and learn the language!

Yes, I realise that some of this is highly superficial and that the greater half of the past three decades have been spent dispelling just that. But really, some of it is an excuse for laziness. While it may be base and superficial to judge someone on his physical appearance, personal hygiene is both an attractive quality and good for your own health. "Don't judge people by appearances" and suddenly both the number of anorexic and obsese people rise up at unnatural rates (both considitions of which, aside from being equally unsightly, are problematic andd equally dangerous to one's health)."Perfection is an impossible goal" they say, and suddenly national literacy plummets. People can't spell anymore and we marvel at the 19th century citizens for seemingly having this higher mental faculty which now seems to be lacking in the modern population. "If it can't be applied, it's useless", and suddenly with the expulsion of classical languages from the classroom, diction falls into disarray; the loss of literature for law and people fail to understand simple phrases and concepts.
And I think it is due to this modern attitude, at least in part, which we have to thank for our current population of decadence, laziness and general degeneration.

So in summary, and as reinforced by the title of this post, if you've such a clear image of who you want to be with, you should also have a pretty clear image of who that person would want to be with. Don't hold people up to such a high standard if you're not willing to be held by the same (or equivalent) standard.

Yes, I realise that this all sounds awfully preachy, and definitely not one of my more politically correct posts, but it's late, I'm tired and emotionally charged about the topic as I think more and more about certain associations I've been cursed with. (Not that I'm going to name any names, but you may rest assured in knowing that some come from Waterloo.)