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Ralph Fiennes blames Twitter for 'eroding' language
telegraph ^

Posted on 10/27/2011 9:24:22 PM PDT by traumer

Speaking at the BFI London Film Festival awards in Old Street, London, the actor said that modern language "is being eroded" and blamed "a world of truncated sentences, soundbites and Twitter."

"Our expressiveness and our ease with some words is being diluted so that the sentence with more than one clause is a problem for us, and the word of more than two syllables is a problem for us," he said. Fiennes, full name Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, said that students at drama schools were especially suffering thanks to social networking sites.

"I hear it, too, from people at drama schools, who say the younger intake find the density of a Shakespeare text a challenge in a way that, perhaps, (students) a few generations ago maybe wouldn't have."

The actor's directorial debut, Shakespeare's Coriolanus, premiered at the London Film Festival this week. Fiennes questioned whether the playwright was even relevant in a time of dumbed-down English language.

He said: "I think we're living in a time when our ears are attuned to a flattened and truncated sense of our English langyuage, so this always begs the question, is Shakespeare relevant? But I love this language we have and what it can do, and aside from that I think the themese in his plays are always relevant."

Fiennes, who does not use Twitter, is not alone in his theory. JP Davidson, the author of Planet Word and a linguistic expert, talked this week about longer words dying out in favour of shortened text message-style terms. He said: “You only have to look on Twitter to see evidence of the fact that a lot of English words that are used say in Shakespeare’s plays or PG Wodehouse novels — both of them avid inventors of new words

(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Computers/Internet; Education; Society
KEYWORDS: fiennes; ralphfiennes; twitter
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1 posted on 10/27/2011 9:24:22 PM PDT by traumer
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To: traumer

LOL !


2 posted on 10/27/2011 9:24:50 PM PDT by traumer
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To: traumer

2 B, or nt 2 B...That is te ?


3 posted on 10/27/2011 9:32:42 PM PDT by NCDave (AKA, "That idiot over there")
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To: traumer

He’s right.


4 posted on 10/27/2011 9:35:16 PM PDT by Borges
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To: traumer

WTF HE t b


5 posted on 10/27/2011 9:44:46 PM PDT by max americana
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To: traumer
I would be tempted to say Fiennes has class except for that incident in the mile high club with a flight attendant.

Definitely not classy.

6 posted on 10/27/2011 9:47:17 PM PDT by Siena Dreaming
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To: traumer
Ima calling Righthaven Right as soon as I leave, or is that left know.

Bastard took everything from MY BOOK "BIGHEADFRED'S INCOMPREHENSIBLE AND INCOHERENT RANTOGRAPHY" without the sleetest thinketh of recomprehensation for my A B C thru F Forts. Bastognes of Alphatripendicular to Oh Megan's pumpkin breed me just because it is the eve of I can prove to you just how dead I am by skipping the rest of the hollowdays in reese's treat of human sacrifice and cannibalism.

7 posted on 10/27/2011 9:54:37 PM PDT by bigheadfred (Eat too? Only if you can caeser)
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To: traumer

Father time is a cruel man.

8 posted on 10/27/2011 9:58:47 PM PDT by CaptainK (...please make it stop. Shake a can of pennies at it.)
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To: traumer

I blame Strange Days for eroding my interest in Ralph Fiennes movies.


9 posted on 10/27/2011 10:11:24 PM PDT by Darkwolf377 (Obama: The stupid person`s idea of a smart person.)
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To: traumer

Our language is being obliterated. And with it go our founding documents, our liberty and our way of life.


10 posted on 10/27/2011 10:15:14 PM PDT by WhistlingPastTheGraveyard (Some men just want to watch the world burn.)
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To: traumer
He's completely right, we are losing our beautiful language. Just look at the posts on this forum.

Not only do we not use flowery and elegant language anymore, but most people these days can barely write a coherent sentence.

Don't even get me started on punctuation or misspelled words.

Examples:

Then and Than

Too To Two

Your You're Ur

There Their They're

Last but not least: putting apostrophes at the end of every word that ends with the letter "S"

11 posted on 10/27/2011 10:16:37 PM PDT by IDontLikeToPayTaxes
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To: Darkwolf377

I blame Flash Forward ... oh wait that was Joseph Fiennes ... ah bugger the both of them!


12 posted on 10/27/2011 10:25:03 PM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: Siena Dreaming
"I would be tempted to say Fiennes has class except for that incident in the mile high club with a flight attendant."

Depends on whether he did the deed in First Class or not.

13 posted on 10/27/2011 10:25:48 PM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: IDontLikeToPayTaxes

You forgot “noone.”


14 posted on 10/27/2011 10:38:22 PM PDT by Inyo-Mono (My greatest fear is that when I'm gone my wife will sell my guns for what I told her I paid for them)
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To: bigheadfred

Sir, put the bong down and take two steps back, please


15 posted on 10/27/2011 10:47:32 PM PDT by sofaman (An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes. Thomas Jefferson)
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To: IDontLikeToPayTaxes

“Your You’re Ur”

Ur. Isn’t that Chaldean?


16 posted on 10/27/2011 10:51:11 PM PDT by Stormdog (A rifle transforms one from subject to Citizen)
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To: sofaman

Texting is the end of the English language. ftw
(for the win).


17 posted on 10/27/2011 10:53:00 PM PDT by 3Fingas
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To: Inyo-Mono
You forgot “noone.”

That's “noöne.”

18 posted on 10/27/2011 11:13:40 PM PDT by Oztrich Boy (New gets old. Steampunk is always cool)
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To: traumer

So glad I don’t tweet; tweeting is for birds, not people.


19 posted on 10/27/2011 11:22:18 PM PDT by SoCal SoCon (Conservatism =/= Corporatism.)
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To: IDontLikeToPayTaxes

your right people dont write good any more


20 posted on 10/28/2011 12:17:26 AM PDT by ETL (ALL (most?) of the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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