Tuesday, November 17, 2009

twit

ok so nobody writes a blog any more.
we all do that twitter thing.
but really, 140 characters?
has our attention span become so feeble?
i say if a point is worth making, it's worth labouring.
y uz 1 wrd wen u can uz 1,000?
here we are, english speakers, blessed by the rich history and evolution of our mother tongue and all its origins.
the descendants of those whose well chosen words changed the world, wooed the ladies, reduced the hardest bastard to a quivering wreck with a well aimed turn of phrase.
i'll admit, there is merit in the need to be concise; i enjoy 20/20 cricket but it's nothing compared to the ridiculous glory of an ashes test.
abe lincoln's gettysburg address is famously short but nonetheless, a powerful and stirring call to arms at a time when the union craved nothing less.
but the gettysburg tweet would have read:
"4 score and 7 years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty. now let's not fuck it up."
my fear is that as we encourage ourselves to communicate with fewer characters, we end up communicating with less character.