Content or John Hancock

Content is king or so the saying goes. While content is important so is design. Content is not the whole message, where the percentage lays I don’t know but probably nearer a balance than I would have thought in the past. Now I may be a bit biased since I am a fan of calligraphy in all it’s forms. Design can even be your signature, think about the Declaration of Independence, what would the impact have been if it was signed with a series of Xs? We still speak 200 plus years later of John Hancock’s signature as being significant. His signature made a difference because of it’s design, form and beauty. Yes King George would have gotten the message but it came through loader and cleaner because of the way it looks. My point here is pendulums swing and right now it seems to be in the “just worry about content” camp too much. The local schools no longer teach cursive writing. My question who will sign the next Declaration of Independence?

December

Frost came again last night

The garden felt deaths venomous cold bite

Frost came again last night

beginning Winter’s cleansing

Spring can’t even be imagined.

Clay

Long slender fingers

around her cup of tea.

Sculptor shaping clay.

Words Have Rights

Where is our language going? There is much talk about disappearing languages and I think it is tragic and that we should try to preserve them when ever possible. Although another part of me says that a languages purpose is to communicate and if it no longer fulfills that function then, well, it’s over for it but I just don’t like that idea. Maybe all languages will merge into one big universal mess, I think that would be a tragedy and so much would be lost, all the nuances  and untranslatables would be gone into lowest common denominator blur. Right now our language is under assault  by politicians and advertisers in particular, these two groups are making words hate themselves as the words see their meanings destroyed. Words like to have meaning, words have a soul, words are begging to be given back their power. Creating confusion is not something a word is happy with. We have allowed this to happen, I not sure how, but we need there to be accountability in speech and writing, to no longer allow doublespeak or whatever euphemism is applied to the misappropriation of a word’s hard fought for meanings.  Words have rights and we should respect them. This doesn’t mean definitions can’t evolve, they can, just as any being evolves adjusts and modifies to outside influences. A conservative ethos needs to be adopted with words allowing their meanings to be restored and in some cases remembered. With this conservation and a refusal to allow doublespeak from anyone we can get back to understanding and perhaps find the compassion needed to save ourselves.