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How Good Software Makes Us Stupid
siliconbits writes "The BBC has an interesting article about how ever improving software damages our ability to think innovatively. 'Search engines' function of providing us with information almost instantly means people are losing their intellectual capacity to store information, Nicolas Carr said.' This sadly convinced some journos to come up with wildfire titles such as 'Google damages users' brains, author claims.'"
"Never memorize what you can look up in books." - Albert Einstein
As quoted in "Recording the Experience" (10 June 2004) at The Library of Congress
I will not mourn that which I never had to lose. - Unknown
Do you not mean "Meet your demise in a sea of flames"? Clearly, your claims of not suffering from a degraded lexical range are mere fabrications.
I prefer "Perish in a conflagration," myself...
You ought to learn a bit of the history of English. It would help you understand the examples you gave.
"cough" is spelled that way because when spelling was standardized, that was how it was pronounced. It has little to do with bad ideas about Greek. (try it - a fake german accent helps) Same with words like knight and through - yes, even the 'gh' was pronounced.
You can have standardized spelling - or you can have spelling that makes sense. Pronunciation changes, so take your pick.
Swam, swum, swimmed. How a language deals with tenses (past, present, future) can change over time. Adding 'ed' is the new way. The old way(s) were different. The more often a word is used, the more likely it is to retain it's old form. Most rare words have already changed to the new way. Some are in transition, spelled is the new way, and spelt the old way. Both are considered correct (for now). English_irregular_verbs
T
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
You're just flat out wrong about double negatives. Double negatives in English did not negate each other until the 1700s when people like Samuel Johnson made that rule up out of thin fucking air.
Going back through Shakespeare, Chaucer, and the Old English period repeated negatives are used as intensifiers. This 'double negatives cancel each other out like negative numbers being multiplied' is a fabrication of the 18th century. Chaucer wasn't breaking any rules with his multiple negations.
Moreover, there are a number of languages where multiple negations still function in the same way they did in Old, Middle, and Rennaisance English (including some dialects of Modern English).
It's been said before;
Tell me and I will forget,
Show me and I will remember,
involve me and I will understand.
That said exercising your brain may be fun and give you that spandex in the morning feeling but push comes to shove a person is likely to die from cancer or alzheimer's so what's the point after all?
- Dan.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.