Response to "Who's in Charge of English"

Digging into “Who’s in charge of English” is just like cracking open Mein Kampf. If you don’t go into it with the right mindset or past experience it just reads like an opinionated Facebook rant. I felt put off by the topic to begin with. I sensed as if the writer just didn’t know how to reach half of her audience so she basically said “screw it” and went for a full blown rant. As a man I know I have issues understanding and even being sympathetic in understanding feminist views but if this paper was meant to persuade me it out right failed.

In the reading the author provided plenty of support but honestly it was distracting and boring. Half way through the reading I found myself checking my phone and checking how much was left. The author obviously went to great lengths to support her arguments but eventually it damaged the piece as a whole. The writing itself had a purpose that was clear but what the issue is other than feminist intellectuals this has a narrow audience. I found myself asking “Why should I care” or “why do we need to change the English language for you?” I felt as if I was being spoken down to as the oppressive man, the one who holds women down with the all-powerful use of pronouns. That just feels utterly ridiculous and it is.

In conclusion I do have a serious insight into why the author has a point but is not ultimately right. The author is correct in the fact that our use of feminine words and describers have an effect on our depiction of women and she is also correct on how this affects our view of mankind. However, the culture of our world is ever-changing and I believe descriptors like actress, and hostess will fade from our vocabulary. This will not be from some great social change but rather for convenience. Another shortening in the ever shrinking words of modern tech influenced English. But along with this change our assumptions and beliefs regarding the languages will not change. There will obviously always be a difference between women and men and changing how we write and speak will not change that.

Reaction to "How to Say Nothing in 500 Words"

Coming into this reading I was critical to say the least, I was expecting it to be just another stuffy college level essay written by an old white guy. Even though I was correct on the “old and white” aspect I found the reading to be insightful. The author succeeded on multiple fronts especially on reaching his target audience but there are a few things I took away from the reading specifically that I want to focus on. The first is more along the lines of “Ok, now what?”

What am I supposed to do with all this great information? Personally I like to be told what to do, and while reading the article I was waiting for the section that would read “how we fix this”. I was disappointed to not be given this. However this may be the writer’s intent, to provoke different individual thought not only in writing but how we might fix it. This however greatly separated from my comfort zone. This being that I like to be instructed on exactly what to do, but that might be exactly the thinking that the writer wanted the audience and myself to secede from.

I now walk away with a bad feeling though, a feeling that says all my papers have been fluff. A shabby skeleton with feathery fluff to fill it in. I think now to my papers in high school and my freshman year in college which must have been painful for my teachers to read. I just focused on word count and bare minimum. But now I also see how my writing has progressed since then, and although it still needs work, I am proud of where I have come from. But even now I still struggle with separating from mainstream ideas in responses to research or readings. This struggle comes from not tossing those aside like the author addresses and digging deeper. Deeper into my inner most thoughts, ones that I have from personal experience and learning.