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A few weeks ago in her weekly column, Katherine O’Leary wrote: “Cows are already going to the dairy, ready for the next breeding season.” As is my job, I query anything that I don’t understand as maybe others won’t either. I hasten to add that I did query this particular line with a few others before picking up the phone and was none the wiser. So I rang Katherine and she howled in laughter down the phone at me: “I could write an entire column on you not knowing what that means, it’s just the polite way of saying that the cows are bulling.” Enlightened, and semi-laughing at myself, I replied: “Well why can’t we just say the cows are bulling so?”
Language is a strange thing and lots of things can be lost in translation. Dialect and accent can add another layer of complexity. I was marking a paper once, in my teaching days in the UK, and the student had written on the top: “Amii, your Irish accent was particularly strong that day and I couldn’t understand a word you were saying.” I badly wanted to point out to her that it was all on the PowerPoint presentations that I had laboured over, if she had taken the time to read it.
There has been a huge expansion in the supply of reading material online, which has harmed the appreciation of printed media to a certain degree, but this is not so much an issue if people are still reading
It is generally easier to understand the written word for these reasons. Articles are usually meant to be understood by the reader. There has been a huge expansion in the supply of reading material online, which has harmed the appreciation of printed media to a certain degree, but this is not so much an issue if people are still reading. This is also not a new phenomenon, with a decline in reading observed by Dutch researchers back in 1995, which they attributed to competition from television.
In a previous job, I came into work every morning to a newspaper. The days that I was in the office, I would flick through it and, if time allowed, I would spend longer absorbing the news of the day. I assumed the majority of my colleagues were doing a similar level of reading, with the paper unopened the days they were not in the office.
The spat was between two individuals who interpreted the article to be confirming their own existing beliefs. I found this amusing and wondered who had read the article in full
Economics ultimately demanded shared papers and I will be honest, my level of paper reading dropped off somewhat. Radio and online news consumption (and it’s a considerable bugbear of my husband’s) replaced my daily paper and although I pay my subscriptions so I get the right information, on busy days I may only read the headlines. Over the weekend, I saw a bit of a spat online over an article. I had read it myself and there were some valid points and some drivel in it. The spat was between two individuals who interpreted the article to be confirming their own existing beliefs. I found this amusing and wondered who had read the article in full.
I often now see articles online prefaced with “one-minute read” to lure you in, or “long read” as almost a warning that you cannot skim this, that it’s good stuff and requires a cup of tea and a chair.
This, however, is where we are – lots of people are skimming, picking up only a headline or a sentence of interest to them that aligns with their own opinion. It might only be on a Thursday or a Sunday when I get to fully enjoy a long read, but I definitely feel more informed for the effort.
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