Words Should Be Words

Garner's and Greene's language debate was pretty much between the relative extremes, debating whether it should be one side or the other. I do like better Greene's ideas, as they seem quite moderate and reasoning, as long as they comprehend the world. There's places for different types of language, that's why it's not an equation or something a computer can do. I think that language rules or how we perceive it should take into account the context. It's not the same to write an academic paper than a business plan, a blog or a cellphone text message. I like the descriptivist side better, given that language certainly evolves and changes so there isn't an all-time way it should be used, but I understand that in some cases regulations are necessary.
Language evolution is good, it improves how we express our ideas and communicate with each other, but when writing for professional purposes it's not the perfect time to get creative. A standardized language is essential for things where clear communication in crucial. The UN General Assembly needs heads of state to, well, state things. A business proposal or a financial report shouldn't include alternative spellings and a poetic grammar. The prescriptivist side of language is necessary for communication to work in such cases. I'd like to see how the peace negotiations with FARC work with made up words and colloquial diction.
While we do need some rules for formal things, for language to be expressive and continue changing for better, informal writing should be approached in a descriptivist way as long as it's words have meanings. The recent texting era has made people change language to words that are shorter, faster to write and sound "cool." I get the point if you're a frustrated teenager seeking to feel popular through your internet personality, but nonsense grammar and short phrases don't communicate much. Overall, I feel that language should be free and approached in a descriptivist way as long as it doesn't start having an evolutionary degeneration. Language evolution has been considered good so far as it has made expression complex in a good way, but if it becomes something that destroys communication, I'd go for the prescriptivist side of the debate.

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Descriptivist: Someone who describes language as it is used (generally more accepting in how it can be used).

Prescriptivist: Someone who focuses on how language should be used (generally less accepting in the proper use of language).

Memoir Collection

http://issuu.com/aplangcomposition/docs/the_essence_of_remembrance

Behind the Mockery

I started reading Naked by David Sedaris and was soon trapped by the amusing satire. The memoir is composed of autobiographical essays without a unifying theme but definitely all tied together by Sedaris' dark humor. The first couple of chapters related to his early childhood. He wrote about his arrogance and presumed superiority and about his random ticks, both worthless are experiences but good examples to analyze everyday life. I might be just guessing based on the first few pages, but the essays seem to be satirical and entertaining ways for the reader to reflect and for Sedaris to explain how he is. The first chapter, just a few pages long, especially made me laugh as the author analyzes a child's selfish perspective into the adult world, and the stupidity that many of the never get rid of. Referring to his mom and her constant pregnancy, Sedaris writes, "Rather than improve her social standing, she chose to spit out children, each one filthier than the last" (pg. 6). As he ridicules his growing family and their lack of a private jet, Sedaris mocks human behavior, mostly his own. On the next chapter, "A Plague of Tics," he mocks how the world responded to what was just OK for him. Worried that he licked every object, touched everything with his nose and enjoyed making high-pitched squeaks, his mom and teachers met in efforts to end his tics but rather drank all night to the point of inviting each other to vacations. 

More than just funny and amusing, satire is a way to analyze human nonsense. As I kept reading the book, I did laugh about his Greek grandmother's tendencies and the usual clash she had with her daughter-in-law, but there's more to it. Based on the first impressions I got from the memoir,  I think Sedaris, like many do through satire, will be mocking human behavior, the way our society works and many personal things to criticize and observe them. 

The Bitting Words

As a type of art, language is about expression and liberty. While there are some rules that writing must follow, these change over time and are just a  guidance for writers to communicate themselves. Even so, the modern way of living, as has any change in history done, limited the path of language. Technology, like the printing press, has strictly regulated language and globalization and mass communication has made the way we communicate uniform and controlled. Education hasn't remained untouched, and, therefore, students like me have been influenced by these rigid rules of writing into believing that it is structured, predictable and otherwise wrong. In "Survival of the Fittest," by Nicholson Baker and "Q as in Quotation," by Durs Grünbein, the authors show how language shouldn't be limited but rather encouraged to flourish in each person's way. These two essays themselves show that an essay is not a five paragraph passage with the thesis located in a defined sentence, but rather a free way of communication that should look to express ideas as an art. As I read these two essays, I remembered reading an online article for my English class in ninth grade. Titled "The Age of the Essay," the article exposed that writing is a way for us to communicate. If language is limited and firmly structured, we would be deprived of expression. I honestly recognize that my writing lately has been dull and driven by the five paragraph essay idea, but the essays I mentioned above have made me see what I could improve.

Although good writing requires a freedom of expression and means of expression, we must also keep in mind that some ways of writing and taking too much liberty make it bad. Last year in class, we worked on removing clichés from our short stories, something I could relate to "Q as in Quotation." This essay talked about the use of quotations in writing and expressed that it can be both a blessing for the writers as well as a clear example of lack of ideas and originality. I fell that sometimes I use quotations because of a lack in analysis. I don't do it in purpose but looking back it shows as if I was a lazy thinker or simple couldn't analyze things. Writing, as this essay made me see, should be about the best way of communicating ideas. Both, the quotations as explained by Grünbein and the evolution of language that "Survival of the Fittest" describes, show that a good writer needs to use language to express good ideas and expand on them. In Baker's essay, he explains the development of punctuation in language through the last centuries, to show the overall progression of language. Perhaps it's the standardized global education, as seen in the SAT deeply regulate essay, or the way the mass-oriented present society works that has made people like me write essays as if they were filling in a checklist. Both essays made me think about the lack of originality my writing has come to, especially in formal writing.
Words and language shouldn't limit writers, since if they did there would be no language. The reason the early-homosapiens squeaks evolved into such complex languages like English, Spanish or Chinese was that people dared to go further.

Rayuela written by the Argentine writer Cortázar, explores and analyzes the meaning of language and regulated language when expressing oneself. The deeply metaphysical main character, Horacio Oliveira, explores what he refers to as the black bitches, or words. Oliveira often changes the spelling of words, as the narration shows his inner metacognition, and expresses his disgust towards words as he shows that they are deceptive and harmful for the free flow of ideas.
Cortázar starts describing words as black bitches that bite him and terrify him. They have their own lives, and as furious ants, eat the world. According to what the character thinks, people use each phrase of words as a virgin brothel, showing how he believes words limit us to non existing ideas that control our minds. Angry at his metaphysical observations, Oliveira gets frustrated by thinking of the spelling of words. In some chapters, as he can't bear thinking that the words he thinks have specific spellings, he imagines them being different. His philosophical thinking is made up of "el hego y el hotro" (pg. 541), which translates to the self and the other, as his descriptions include words like hasuto, hercrucijada, hactivo or hespectador, all which are wrongly spelled in Spanish. Cortázar, using the character to do so, suggests that language should be free and unregulated. Other chapters change the spelling of every single word and make up others, as the author maintains the idea understandable. He shows the reader, through a constant dialogue between the reader and the author, that writing is about ideas and conveying them. Cortázar also uses a lot of allusions and quotations for his dialogue and plot. About half of the chapters consist of merely citations from other authors, in several languages. Nevertheless, he is not lacking means to express himself or unable to analyze texts, and he is definitely not a lazy thinker, he is using language in the way that best did what he wanted to do. Just as Oliveira criticizes the way his girlfriend speaks her made up language, glíglico, rigid language rules limit us. Perhaps it is something unavoidable, those like Oliveira who want more freedom understand the fact that some guidelines must be keeps and others obsessed with the rules once in a while go beyond them, something that works quite well. A balanced yet free language that lets people put their ideas into words is what seems to me ideal. I'm not an expert at all in language or writing, but these ideas have motivated me to improve the way I write.

The Intricate Author

Through her writing, Silvana Paternostro wishes to reveal how difficult her life is as she struggles with an identity crisis and investigates the turmoil of her homeland. Paternostro writes with an informal diction, as she makes the reader feel familiar with her and, therefore, sympathize with her intricate life. The content of the book seeks to inform a reader who is concerned with world events and wants to analyze them, so Paternostro approaches that by having an informal diction that makes it interesting for the reader. As opposed to writing an academic book, as the journalist she is, she informs the reader through an easy going and amusing memoir. The plot of her memoir has anecdotes of her life, showing how the armed conflict of Colombia affected her and, in the author's opinion, made it her Colombian War.
Paternostro's writing, for that purpose, shows how fascinating yet understandable her life apparently is. She describer her afternoon jogging as going running "down memory lane." This evidently cliché phrase seeks to make the reader familiar with her, with an informal and familiar register. As she runs down Riogrande, wishing to rediscover the neighborhood she used to live in, Paternostro connects with the reader through as she makes questions. Through her questions, the reader is able to understand the intricacy of her life.
She says, "I wonder who keeps it so white now that they are in Miami?"(pg. 109). In another part Paternostro says, "'Mami, please,' I would ask every day" (pg. 111). She also uses quotation from things she has said to show the way she is.
Overall, Paternostro uses her memoir to talk about her self as she informs the reader about the armed conflict in Colombia. The author wants to explain the difficulties of being an expat Colombian that feels  like an American but isn't really one, as she analyzes Colombia. Her run "down memory lane" shows how she uses her anecdotes do describe her homeland and the problems it is going through. With her informal and slightly familiar diction, she is able to attract a reader who wants to understand Colombia through a nonacademic way.

El Spanglish

The reader Silvana Paternsotro targets for her memoir is someone who wants to understand Colombia, its culture and its internal armed conflict. A good way for her to do that is to use the language Colombians use. As she writes about a country that doesn't speak English, part reading her book, if one isn't Colombian, is to learn the Colombian slang, especially that of the costeño elite. The following words show how she uses Colombian words for the reader to understand the Colombian culture:

Finca: Paternostro probably uses this word in Spanish to show its connotation. As opposed to simply writing farm, she wants to show that fincas are simply giant tracts of land that families rule upon. An American farm would be devoted for agricultural production as a company, not like the Colombian feudal finca.

Corroncho: This words is used by upper class costeños as Paternostro says, to describe low class or nouveau riche things. I don't think there is a term in English that translates the Colombian classism, so the author uses the word without translation.

Costeño, cachaco: Paternostro, in order to show the way Colombian politics and society work, shows the largely felt regionalism. She uses the local slang for describing each region's inhabitants and to show what they mean. She describes the way the costeño personalities of her family affect they way they are.

Negrita: Paternostro refers to the street sellers that sell alegrías as the negritas. She is not being racist but instead showing the racism behind Colombian slang. White people often refer to blacks in an alienated way that shows compassion. Those poor, little and distant negritos.

Choferes: Instead of translating this word to chauffeur or driver, Paternostro keeps the Spanish word to show the special status that drivers have in the Colombian societies. They aren't people who work as drivers as they are choferes. As Paternostro describes, they wait outside museums or wherever their employers are and relate with other choferes.

All these words as used by Paternostro play an important role in understanding the way people like her family in Colombia think. The words she uses in Spanish show cultural, political and historical aspects of Colombia that wouldn't be otherwise understood.

Is a Revolution Really Necessary?

Being half Colombian and half Puerto Rican, my parents have exposed me to both cultures. On one side, Colombia is the last country in the hemisphere with an ongoing political armed conflict. Although it's democracy has only been interrupted for a couple of years since its independence, so has its war. Colombia is a country that even today the fear of being kidnapped is spread along the situation. On the other side, Puerto Rico, after it was invaded by the US in the Spanish-American War, was introduced to the strong American market economy. For about twenty years, when the Americans decided to name it Porto Rico for their convenience, the island was ruled under a strictly military and colonial regime. American companies and missionaries rushed to transform the island. Around the fifties, Puerto Ricans started to demand more freedom and political rights. They had already got their American citizenships back in the military draft for World War I, but they wanted their own governor. By the time they obtained a free-associated political status, Puerto Rico had an enviable GDP per capita for the rest of the world, and with quite low inequality.
In My Colombian War, Paternostro hints socialist or communist comments, probably because of abuses she saw by Colombian aristocrats as well as her identity crisis. A lot of rebel groups and political parties have wanted to make Colombia a communist country, but I truly believe it's not a good solution. If one compares Cuba with Puerto Rico, it is evident that capitalism has worked for Puerto Rico. The things that people claim are good about Cuba, like health, are actually better in Puerto Rico, which has a higher life expectancy and lower maternity death rate along other better statistics like almost twice Cuba's GDP per capita. All these countries, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Colombia, have very similar backgrounds so, in an barely educated opinion, I think that Colombia should take the track that has worked for most. Capitalism if definitively not perfect, but where do people have better : Cuba and Myanmar or Puerto Rico and Singapore? If my grandparents had divorced in another Latin American country, my grandmother probably wouldn't have been able to raise her daughters as she became a prominent lawyer through meritocracy. Again, capitalism is not perfect but it does reward good works and allows people to improve their lives.
As I read Paternostro's memoir, set up in Barranquilla, I can perfectly imagine many of the things she says in Puerto Rico about fifty years ago. The revolutionary groups the author talks about could be compared to the Puerto Rican Macheteros, an independent and socialist group, who was fueled by the Soviets. They make me think of the M19 in Colombia, except they eventually died out, unable to defeat the US, the world power. Puerto Rico kept on being capitalist and a colony, whether for good or bad, and the economy is currently on crisis. Nevertheless, Puerto Ricans struggle to get the latest iPhone model or to buy tickets to visit their long gone relatives in New York, not to get food or electricity. When Paternostro complains about the mean feudal Colombians, she should also consider that the situation can evolve into a relatively helpful capitalism.
The following link compares the Cuban and Puerto Rican economies, you be the judge: http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/Cuba/Puerto-Rico/Economy.

Modern Servitude

As I read last class an excerpt written by Frederick Douglass, a prominent runaway slave from the Civil War era that advocated for emancipation, the topic of whether maids in societies like Colombia are modern slaves. It came up in the perfect timing, as the last chapters I've read in My Colombian War have discussed household service in the late twentieth century in Barranquilla. Although maids are technically not slaves, it is evident that in many households they are treated as if they were and follow the same slave-master relationship.
Silvana Paternostro talks about Remberto, a boy who worked at her house, the numerous maids, and Imelda, her friend by her family's orders. Paternostro shows everyone that worked for her family as maids without freedom. Imelda talks about having a salary that barely supports the basic necessities of life. As if she was a slave, Imelda was sent by her family to be Paternostro's hired-friend. Her job was to entertain her. Remberto was also living in her house as a servant, also instructed to follow the little girls' orders. The rest of the service came back and forth from her finca and were handled as human capital, moved around as it seemed convenient. There's two sides when observing household service nowadays in Colombia, both equally important. In one side, it is necessary for rich people to hire as much maids and drivers as they can--it is a way for money to filter down through society, giving jobs for the least educated of all. It can be seen as selfish not to hire maids if you can afford it, as someone could really benefit from that. It's probably not the most common cases, but a small city salary can feed many families from a maid's hometown. On the other side, the low salaries and bad benefits (like healthcare) many maids get are very unfair, an authoritarian act from Colombia's upper class. It does help that they pay something, but sometimes the salary is just symbolic and the maids become dependent to following orders if they want anything to eat. It's difficult to judge this situation, whether having maids helps society or it doesn't, but I am certain that if managed correctly it is very good for everyone.

The abuses Paternostro's feudal family made were too much, but there are a lot of families, especially in the present, that do help the maids' lives. A minimum salary is not hardly enough for living, but if a family pays two minimum salaries or above, with the healthcare the law demands, it does help a lot poor people. Americans are shocked when they here two minimum salaries, about $400 or $500, but the cost of living in Colombia is much cheaper and the economy is simply poorer. A maid additionally gets housing, which is mostly not luxury living, but it does include good meals, all basic necessities and surely an improved way of living. If a maid lives where she works, she only has to spend money for the weekends, including the clothes. It is very mean for people to take advantage of poor people and make them become dependent to the job, but I rather look at it in an optimistic way, seeing that as time goes by, Colombia becomes less feudal and people like maids improve their quality of life.
My grandmother has often mentioned her childhood maid or nanny. Her job was to take care of my grandmother and another brother, and she did so with a lot of dedication. She was completely dependent of my great grandfather and she had to spend over a decade raising kids that weren't hers, but after they grew up, my great grandfather bought her a house, not a mansion but good enough, where she later was able to start a family of her own. She was able to sustain her family with her salary as a maid, and as my great grandfather helped her organize her savings, she was able to educate her kids and eventually, probably with financial aid, send them to college. I don't think her descendants are millionaires, but they do have a very good way of living that they would have never accomplished if her mother hadn't worked as a maid. Of course there are a lot of families who just keep their maids dependent and as slaves, but if they find a right employer, maids' lives can change completely. My mom right now is sponsoring my maid's daughter in the Hogar Nueva Granada. It is not the same as Colegio Nueva Granada, but that contribution will definitely transform the family of an almost illiterate mother. Hopefully, as Colombia develops, the role of maids will shift for their jobs to be as formal as any other and a possibility for them to improve.

What's Her Purpose?

As I read My Colombian War, I struggle to identify what is Paternostro's real purpose in writing the memoir. She definitely has a strong opinion about politics and violence. Paternostro also has an interesting personal perspective, as an upper class Colombian rediscovering her roots. Her writing is good--she keeps it interesting and manages well her polyphony, as she talks about her life as a child, her life in New York, her trip to Colombia and other relevant stories. But what is her point in writing all this? At first I thought it was to criticize the Colombian aristocracy and back up the communist rebels. I also considered it might be just to narrate how it's like to be a journalist. With a lot of potential in her memoir, I believe she settled with simply complaining. It might be that she wanted to keep the juicy stuff for later in the book, but so far all the author has done is complain.
Silvana Paternostro complains about the violence in Colombia, the negligence its citizens give to it, the poverty in the country, the lack of education, basically, she is dissatisfied with the country as a whole. It's a valid point to criticize the inequality in the country, or to try to make a point in that Colombians should act upon their situation, but she doesn't do either thoroughly. Paternostro protests that Colombians don't care about their armed conflict unless the guerrillas are on their "finca's living rooms." Nevertheless, she only states that she dislikes that. She could try to use her book to convince people to do something, but she doesn't. In another point, the author suggests that she dislikes that women sit in the back of the cars when with their drivers, and that her driver didn't want to join her in the museum visit. Again, as an author and journalist, she could try to make a point, but she doesn't. Instead of appealing to logos and giving arguments for people to do what she thinks is right, but she only seems to be using wrongly pathos for her rhetoric, talking about how eager she is to go to her finca at El Carmen. I think that Paternostro has really good material for a detailed and informed social critique, but so far, I've only read complaints. I'll keep waiting for her ideas to actually form an opinion or analysis. Although I believe the memoir lacks that component, it is still interesting to read her book, since, like I said before, she has interesting stories about Colombia that are worth reading.

The American School

Although I disagree with Silvana Paternostro is basically everything she has said so far in what I've read, I can relate with what she says about the school she used to go. The author grew up in Barranquilla, where she attended the American school. She doesn't talk about it much but what she has said made me reflect about some aspects of my life.

As I go to CNG, Bogota's American school, I can understand the what Paternostro says. Paternostro shows her school as being a very different American environment, which is probably true in regards to the teachers. I feel like in CNG, even though it's not a completely separate world from the rest of Colombia, students do live in a bubble from the rest of society. The author shows her school as a unconnected place with society. While students at CNG are not ignorant about their country and do relate with the rest of society, a lot of times we do it as if we were looking at it from the outside. Most Colombians feel poverty and inequality, but I am only aware of it from the reading about it in the newspapers or being shocked by statistics. I do notice the superficial side of it, people asking for money outside my car's window, or simply seeing the inadequate houses that cover Bogota, but that is not living the problem. The author talks about her seeing an M19 sign outside her house and just going into her school where everything was different. I don't see anything related to the guerrillas before going to school but it is right next to a slum and, even though the school helps the people who live there with the Hogar, we live in separate cities.

Another thing that Paternistro reminded me of are the classist expressions students at CNG use. The author says that people at her school used the word corroncho. At CNG people use the word pacho or pacha, which refers to anything middle class and below. Paternostro has helped me notice that this commonly used slang is offensive and very politically incorrect.
Even though I disagree with Paternostro in a lot of things, mostly political, she does convince me that Colombians can be very wrongfully. classist.

Her Accurate Observations

As I complained with my sister about how a publishing house would let such an uninformed book be distributed to the public, I realized that I don't actually hate the book, I deeply resent the author. The book is wonderful--it has accurate and interesting imagery, good expression of her emotions, it even has  deep and insightful metaphors about Colombia, that, if I didn't know anything about the country I'm from, I'd think the author is poetic and has an amazing ability to represent the reality. While I read the book I indeed reflect about Colombia and I relate many of the things she says to other things that actually happen. I feel emotive and inspired as I disapprove on what Paternostro says, my nationalism is triggered. Perhaps she is successful as a writer in making the readers be alarmed about the violence at Colombia. Nevertheless, I feel like her rhetorical purpose gets tangled up as she tries to write a sellable book. Silvana Paternostro narrates events on her life while dumping in interesting facts, most of them subjective, about the wars in Colombia. Maybe she's having an identity crisis and, consequently, messes up her ideas. I intend to have an open mind but most of  Paternostro's thoughts are simply inaccurate.

The author describes her encounter with a young marine going to fight in the Colombian drug war. She says, "He can be my next story. Will the New York Times Magazine want it? Maybe it's best for Rolling Stone. I wonder if my friend's friend is still an editor there" (pg. 24). There are infinite ways to respond to an American going to fight in the country she grew up in. As an author, she could have made a point about what American intervention could mean for Colombia, but she decided to express how thrilled she was to benefit from an armed conflict. Even when she does talk about important things related to the subject, Paternostro has a really biased version of reality. She thinks that every Colombian man would want to be like the American marine, showing how unaware she is about the Colombian culture. It is true that many Colombians migrate to the US looking for a better life, but I am sure that in the minds of Colombian men, becoming a handsome American that is going to fight in Colombia is not a priority. A paragraph later, in page 25, Paternostro refers to Pablo Escobar as, "a boy with an absent father and no money who hated discrimination and the difficulty of achieving upward mobility for someone average." I respect her opinion as an author but I'm not falling for that. Pablo Escobar might have suffered a lot but he is not an innocent little boy, as the author tries to portray through her misleading pathos. When she talks about drug dealing and the armed conflict, Paternostro at least informs the reader, whether I like the way she does it or not, but there are moments in the book where she simply sounds unintelligent, not to say something offensive. Her perspective on American military influence on Colombia is: "I am sure he will have a chance to practicar his español. Charlie is coming to my country to fight, to have a good time, to learn a language, to flirt, to get paid good money" (pg. 28). She also says that she was going to Colombia to fight a personal war, making me doubt her reputation.

As I kept on reading, I just kept running into ignorant comments from the author. Paternostro believes that FARC wants to attack only the government, not the civilians, which is a really outdated point that no one actually believes since the 1980s or earlier.  The author also believes that Colombia is the new Vietnam, which is not at all correct. Paternostro continues trying to fit Colombia into a stereotype--El Salvador, the Balkans, or anything that makes her story interesting. She actually thought that Colombia was going to be the new Cuban Revolution, perhaps as a way to get attention as a Colombian in the US. So far the comment that I find the most uninformed yet was when she said that the Colombian economy was fueled by drug production. The author has a really twisted version of reality.
The author personally seems to be yelling for people to notice her. She writes about how worried she was when FARC was about to take over Bogota. She also shows her self as a victim, as Colombians rightfully see her as a traitor. Paternostro complains about the campaigns that promote Colombia's image, as if they were hiding the reality for worse, when they actually seek to promote optimism and foreign investment to improve the country's situation.
At the end of chapter two, Paternostro states that she wants to make Colombians conscious about their situation. When Colombians are asked if they're happy or not, they don't just forget about the armed conflict and the history of civil wars. Colombians, whether she likes it or not, are usually warm, grateful and try to look at the good side of things. "Colombia, they continue to insist, is a happy place, the best place in the world. To them, Colombia might not be at war. But I am in war with Colombia" (pg. 40). Paternostro has a twisted way of thinking. All I have to say is that when someone doesn't vote, they don't have the right to complain.