The Art of Writing
We all write every day. Reading and writing are part of every job, every school assignment, every game, and even our interactions with each other. We value literacy so highly that it’s one of the first things we teach our children. With the advent of computers and the internet, writing has become easier than ever. With a little training and practice, the average person can produce more than 30 words per minute. That same person can then publish his or her work for the whole world to see on the internet. Many people find great satisfaction in publishing in this way (myself included). And yet, most people (school-aged people especially) hate writing. Perhaps the reason is the effort required, or the rules to follow Perhaps it’s because for most people writing is a chore, an assignment, or a punishment. Whatever the reason, too many people are unused to writing seriously. The result is a large number of people who are unable to form complete sentences without resorting to slang, or worse, vulgarity. I attended a production of on of Shakespeare’s works last week. The program stated that Shakespeare used over 20,000 words–1,500 of which had never been seen in print before. It also claimed that in his day the average person used more than 1000 different words in every day speech. In comparison, it claimed the average college graduate uses about 600 different words every day. The truth of this claim is perhaps suspect, but the trend is true. We don’t use our language enough. The art of eloquent speech and writing is dying. That’s why inventions like blogs that let the average American publish his own words are so important. More and more people are writing, about anything and everything. They are reviving writing as an art form and introducing it as a form of recreation.