I needed some relaxation, so like many Goanetters, I opened Goanet to see the topic d' jour; which this time was "The Open Letter ...". I was chuckling at the dialog. And, ... I fell off the chair reading the post of Augusto Pinto (I believe Professor of English in Goa) replying to Cornel DaCosta (I believe Professor of English in London). I am unsure that even after Augusto's post that young Goan readers understood the take home message. Cornel's perennial problem was displayed in his latest post, which follows his past patterns. Likely, Cornel is not likely to change his writing style or his mindset. So my efforts to write this post is aimed to discourage other young Goans from making the same mistakes. Augusto presented a breathtaking hilarious glimpse, which with a satirical pen, destroyed the conventional wisdom. The wily old fox from Bardez (no disrespect intended) de-fanged the Londoner. Writers with a Shakespearean bent and a colonial mindset, try to present themselves as language snobs. And if one comes (or pretends to be) from Mother England, one goes a step further in presenting oneself as an aristocratic country squire. This works well in-front of untested readers and listeners; and those uncertain of themselves. Yet as Augusto displayed so well, there are many who may be even more linguistically fertile, and can see-through the 'scholarly' befuddlement of the presenter. In equally sophisticated terms, Augusto was suggesting Cornel's long essay as, "a bunch of rants that aren't grounded in truth." The thesis / thinking often goes that people who write in a complex manner have a large vocabulary, a higher level of thinking, and read complex material. To some extent this is true. Yet there is a fine line! The writer may merely be trying to impress others by just presenting their bombastic style which displays the individual to be pompous and full of themselves. They are more presenting their attitudes than communicating their thoughts and ideas (if they have any). Writers with a good grasp of the ideas and the subject-matter along with their writing skills, will present their material in a clear, coherent and comprehensive manner. So in today's world, a long essay likely rebuts the commonly held thesis. And a merely stylistic writer or speaker (with no content) sooner or later will end-up with too much egg on his face to be taken seriously. As we say in America "a good presenter must have sizzle as well as a steak". In an international world, the above is not merely an essay. Below is a study of a psychologist at Princeton along with the web-link to the study http://www.collisiondetection.net/mt/archives/2006/04/study_using_big.php Daniel Oppenheimer, took a handful of writing samples and used a thesaurus to replace the simple words with needlessly flowery ones. His conclusions were, "As the grandiosity and complexity of the language increased, the judges estimation of the intelligence of the authors decreased. ... When an essay is filled with these sort of swapped-in synonyms, it winds up having Frankensteinian seams: You can feel its cognitive artificiality, its constipated straining to convey a higher meaning. No wonder the judges thought these essays seemed dumber." Now that I have praised Augusto Pinto about this linguistic prowess, can I ask something that this supurlo Goenkar could not find his Webster's dictionary? What is "obnubliating" (see last word below) Regards, GL ----------- Augusto Pinto wrote:
Frederick Noronha has been subversive, misleading, misguiding, twisting,, impairing, misaddressing, abusive, deflowering, demoralising, clouding, misdirecting , weakening, get downing, debasing, counteracting, sulking, conflating, vitiating, profaning, dejecting, lead Strong, defiling, desecrating, sophisticatng, sabotaging, loading, contemning marring, taint, overturn, stretch, invalidate, deprave, adulterate, dilating, twisting urinating, undermining, bung voltage, greasing one's palms, outraging, cast downing, wooding, dispiriting, depressing, bribing, misusing, perverting, disarming, debauching, spoiling, cryptic subverting besmirching, fogging, Kuomintang, fouling, infecting, overcasting, beclouding, baffling megalomaniac, slandering, dapple, cloud, misdirect, debase, pervert, demoralize, sullen, deforming espousing, watchdog, profaning, obscuring, misting, staining, hang over, tinting, seaming, denigrating, depriving, mottling, tarnishing, befogging, smirching, spoiling, and obnubliating.
