How a word can be more successful than another, and how dangerous it can be sometimes relentlessly in search of a synonym or a paraphrase elegant!
the wake of these considerations, it is back in the hands of Calvin a reflection on the Italian technical and bureaucratic, exit to the Day of February 1965. Beyond the context of discussion for which it was written, it hits a target very accurately, which covers basically anyone who wants to write to communicate and be understood .
We are pleased to read an extract below, believe that every writer, beginner or said that may be, can benefit from them.
Every day, above a hundred years from now, an automatic process now, hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens mentally translate the speed of electronic machines with the language Italian in a ' antilingua nonexistent. Lawyers and officials, ministerial offices and boards of directors, editors of newspapers and news programs speak write nell'antilingua think.
dell'antilingua main feature is what I would call the "semantic terror," that the escape in front of each word that has meaning in itself, as if "fiasco" "stove" coal "were obscene words, as if "go" to "find" knowledge "indicating actions abhorrent. Nell'antilingua meanings are constantly removed, relegated to the bottom of the prospect of words by themselves do not want to say anything or want to say something vague and elusive. [...] Who is the
antilingua always afraid to show familiarity and interest in the things of which you speak, believes he has to imply, "I speak of these things by chance, but my" function "is more at the top of the things I say and I do, my "function" is higher than everything, even myself. "
dell'antilingua The psychological motivation is the lack of a true relationship with life, or at the bottom of the self-hatred. The language is living alone in a relationship with life that becomes communication, a fullness of expression that becomes existential. So the triumphant antilingua - of the Italian people who can not say "I did," but must say "I did" - the language is killed.
The full text can be found in Italo Calvino, Essays (1945-1985) , Mondadori, 1995.
(Many thanks to Ildueblog for having saved the transcript ...)
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