Wednesday, October 3, 2007

What??? (in writing)

Walking around campus, I always see different things written in chalk on the sidewalks. It makes a lot of sense to tell others about events or almost anything this way because all of the students spend a lot of time walking around from class to class. One that I saw recently said "Google Ron Paul." This one was obviously trying to get people to find out more about the candidate Ron Paul, and hopefully, by getting people more interested in him, have more people vote for him. What was really interesting about this particular chalk writing was that not too far away, facing the other direction is a chalk writing that says "Who is Ron Paul?" What I found interesting about this one is that I, as the reader, do not know if this is supposed to be a question and that this chalk writing is hoping to have a similar effect as the first one. By asking a question, the writers of this chalk writing may be hoping to start some curiosity in the readers. But this chalk writing could also mean something completely different. It could be mocking the first chalk writing. As the reader of this chalk writing, I do not know what this second chalk writing is supposed to mean. In written language rather than in spoken language, it can be much harder to grasp the meaning of words. When someone is speaking, as the listener, it is easy to tell what they mean because you can hear emphasis and tone. But when something is written, these things can be much harder to find and know, thus making the meaning of such language much harder to understand.

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