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March 12, 2011
canadian invasion
Last night I was reading a Canadian article about the American space program when it struck me: man, I read a lot of Canadian writing.
Of the feeds that pipe through my tablet, over half originate up North. I would expect a ratio less than 1/10th, since 1) Canada has 1/10th my country's population and 2) I have no interest in vasts swaths of their local information, like politics or sports. Yet here we are, with the majority of my RSS feeds riding the Alberta Clipper into my home.
Let us eliminate obvious factors. These writers do not know one another. They do not link to one another. I do not seek Canadian writers nor even notice their nationality until they start inserting extraneous vowels into wourds. Nope, this is a truly random sampling of writers whose work I've admired.
And there you have it: I think they're better writers.
The newest generation of American adults can barely bang two words together competently, let alone gracefully. Snark has replaced wit. Self-obsession has replaced empathy and curiosity. Your has replaced you're. Assertion has replaced argumentation (he asserts). Click-whoring has replaced interest value. And god help me, artful conclusions have been replaced by "So that's what I think. What do you think?"
Shudder.
Perhaps Canadians simply haven't caught on to the stupidity trend yet. Perhaps their educational system is still teaching the discipline of writing. Perhaps they read more than we do. Perhaps they simply don't want to look retarded, and that's why they don't proudly write should of and now a days. I don't know. I don't pretend to know the whys, here. I'm a throwback American writer; I don't claim expertise about matters I know nothing about.
What do you think?
(You knew that was coming. I telegraphed it. Sorry.)
posted by john at 12:03 AM • permalink