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Thank You, "Me" And "Willi"!!
Originally posted by Me
Originally posted by Me
Originally posted by Willi
I just love this forum, and who wouldn’t
?!! I just came back online after a long day elsewhere and guess what? There are 118 hits on a thread which has no basis in reality and which was started with a ridiculous paragraph copied from Wikipedia!!Anyway, I must immediately say “Thank goodness” for the obviously rational posters Me and Willi!! Gentlemen, just when I had started to give up (I’m not joking here!) on several of my fellow posters, you both came and restored my faith in the “thinking Jamaican”
!Much respect to you two gentlemen
!!After making my previous post this morning, I felt some amount of depression throughout the day as I contemplated the steep climb facing educators in Jamaica as they try to guide their young charges through the rocky terrain of comprehension passage exercises! And I had every right to be depressed, as if what transpired today on RBSC is any indication of present realities, then our educators in Jamaica certainly have their work cut out
!!
Simply stated, how on earth could any reader see a comparison and contrast technique in my simple comment which criticized the failure of the state in providing the type of crime-free environment and the level of law and order that returning residents have every right to expect? Where in that statement, in the context of a discussion of the woes facing returning residents to Jamaica, is there any attempt, whether explicit or implicit, in drawing a comparison with locals? 
The mind is a powerful thing indeed, and so I would dearly love to see a psychologist’s analysis of the underlying social reasons for reaching such a faulty conclusion as was done today!
But speaking on the topic of reaching logical conclusions, ever so often I’m reminded of a conclusion I had long ago reached that too many of my fellow Jamaicans, while displaying outstanding attributes in literal interpretation, often fall short on the figurative level, which is a deeper level of interpretation.
Think I’m joking? If you do, simply compare the average soca lyrics from Trinidad with those emanating from the dancehall industry!!The shift in focus here, of course, has nothing to do with any response to my post this morning, as I’m just following a thought trail as I type. In fact, as I reflect on this seeming shortcoming (a distinct preference for a literal versus a deeper level understanding amongst some Jamaicans), I’m reminded now of how an innocent comment made by US sprinter Lauryn Williams during the Beijing Olympic Games was totally (and embarrassingly so) misinterpreted by many Jamaican online commentators and posters.
In venting her frustration on the repeated failures of her team, an obviously fed-up Lauryn used figurative language in making a comment (in this case the most common of all figures of speech, a metaphor), but, to my utter shock, many Jamaicans failed to see the metaphorical context of her “voodoo doll” comment! This, like I said, has nothing to do specifically with this morning’s thread, but at the same time it does in some way as it shows up the concern I expressed, a failure to comprehend a seemingly simple statement!!
So, while many of us like to boast about our “good school” (a remnant, no doubt, of class distinctions instilled in our forebears by the colonial system which we so like to abhor), Lauryn Williams demonstrated what can result from graduating from a good school: The ability to express herself articulately on different levels!
(
And speaking on the subject of “good school,” I strongly suggest that those of us who like to boast about our good schools in Kingston check out the results of a 155-year-old school located in Georgetown, Guyana! I’m referring here to “Queen’s College,” which year after year, produces the top performer in the Caribbean’s regional CSEC examination! I’m talking here about Queen’s College students achieving outstanding passes in as much 14 CXC subjects, usually with 12 or 13 A’s and nothing lower than a “B” grade!! Year after year after year! And after checking out Queen’s College, move next to results from Bishop’s High School, also located in Georgetown!!) By the way, Me, Historian rarely engages in “rambling”! There are times, to be sure, when conciseness could have played a more pivotal role in my posts, but overall I rarely ramble! On the contrary, what is sometimes missed, I suspect, are the little techniques that I throw in my posts just for fun. To cite two examples, my reference to “excellent nonsensical (Wikipedia extract)” in my response to the silly “Histrionic personality” thread this morning is an admittedly clever use of figurative language by Historian, in this case oxymoron (a close relative to paradox). Did anyone spot this clever writing, or was the thought “There he goes rambling again” dominant in our minds
? Also, in the final paragraph of my response to that lousy thread, the technique used, quite obviously (or so I thought), is sarcasm. Writers often insert sarcasm in their prose to make a point.
But words seem to intimidate too many of our folk, which is the primary reason that I’m forever beholden to news reporters worldwide who continue to use the age-old “inverted pyramid” method of writing their news stories! If this was not the case, many of us would have been forced long ago to resort to hearsay and gossip in learning what has happened around us (that is, in getting the news)!!For those not familiar with news story writing, the inverted pyramid is the most common technique used in writing news stories, where the story begins with the most important aspects of the information and continue with the less important details in descending order of importance.
Crucial to this style is the so-called summary lead, which is the first paragraph of an inverted pyramid-style news story. The summary lead summarizes the entire story in a single paragraph (often a single sentence), concentrating on answering as much of the 5W’s as is necessary. Simply stated, without this rather simple but time-tested method of transmitting the news via the print media, many of us would not be far removed from our great, great, great grandparents as far as news and general information are concerned as we would always neglect to read the entire story
!But maybe poster Me is correct in his statement on my writing, as I suspect that I’ve begun rambling here…………..
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