"hearing your WRIting voice through your KEYyboard"

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   lorlie6posted 12 years ago

   be awARE, i'll write this as i HEAR it!
   
   has anyone actually DONE THIS?  i try to write with both lowercase AND UPPERcase letters inDIVIDually to communicate my VOICE, my intention through my words.
   
   ex: "he was ONE HOT DUDE, don't you THINK? and HERE, the question mark SWINGS UPWARD to indicate said SWINging.  "NO?" here, same thing. then MAYbe you think i'm CRAAAzee."  CRAAzee is as it sounds.  but SOMETHING like "are you my FRIEND or NOT?"  poses a PROBlem.  if IT were up to ME, i'd add a 3RD tone for the 'OR'.  the TONE would be beTWEEN the upper and lower, hence 'OR' would be the MIDDle third.  sounds MUSICAL, HUH?  there's a FUNNY TONE, TOO!  SOMEtimes musical language is equated with LOGIC-language, so MUSIC-i believe-it IS.
   
   so the ONLY problem I have is with the TONES.  there are TWO in the ENGlish LANguage,  UPPER  AND LOWER tones-like in MANDARIN or the OTHer Chinese tones.  i must be having a senior MOment remembering the OTHER Chinese dialect.  I THINK it's something like their PRO[vin)*ces...
   
   ANYway, as i SAID, I WISH the English language had at LEAST 3 tones, for EXPRESSION of eMOtion would be clearer.
   
   *THIS would be where the THIRD tone would come in HANdy!
   
   WHEW, WRITing this has been exHAUSting!
   
   okay, so WHAT'S YOUR verdict?  can you HEAR the DIFFerence?  or am i simply NUTZ?
   
   thanks for READing such DRIbble, but i don't REALLLY THINK it Is!
   
   BYE,
   laurel
   PS:  LAST CHANCE, am i CRAzee or NOT?  what do YOU think?
   
   ttthat's ALL ffolks!
   
   LAUrel

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      Quilligrapherposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      This stylel is difficult to read, distracts the reader from the message. and is mildly annoying; good reasons to AVOID it.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, I can hear some of the difference, but it doesn't work for me.  I find the uppercase letters tell me to place emphasis, and the lowercase not - but there are no nuances in between.  So instead of making it sound like your voice, it sounds like a robot!
      
      I could see it working in Russian, where every word has ONE strong emphasis and the other syllables are almost swallowed. But English isn't like that.
      
      And as others have said, I don't think you can fight the fact that the younger generation sees uppercase letters as shouting.

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      Melindas Mindposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, I can hear the tone difference, and trying to read that, with the tone difference gave me a headache. It's like trying to listen to someone who gets loud and then quiet and then loud.

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         lorlie6posted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Marisa, I actually do see my attempt at tones as shouting-and I'm 55!  And at last glance, I was no robot!
         I am so very sorry, Melindas Mind-that was not my intention at all!  I'm glad you could sense the tones, however!

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            Pearldiverposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Perhaps you are emphasizing your Nasal Tones too much...
            
            But mind you...
            
            Also remember that some elderly people use hearing aids and often never adjust the TONES that they expect others to acknowledge, even though we don't use such devices, or simply (due to our ages) don't need to!
            
            I hope you master this... but hey... if not... you've always got Sign Language and the Tones used with signing are equally complex.
            
            Good questions you have raised lorlie..

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               lorlie6posted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Why thank you, Pd.  Actually, I do have a snotty nose on occasion and most-including me-hear it.
               Take great care,
               Laurel

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                  Pearldiverposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  This thread has actually made me realize how little I had learned about our language, structuring and poetic flow. I have never understood any of this and yet poetry is more 'formally' built on such.. I would love to have some of my recent work critiqued by these measures.. it would help me gain a far greater understanding of the craft.  I guess my poetry can therefore only be raw without that knowledge and usage.
                  
                  So... cheers Laurel.. I hope this thread grows.. and I promise to behave

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                     lorlie6posted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     You'd better behave, dear sir (?). 
                     I'll be working on my language skills per Greekgeek's post, sounds fascinating!

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            Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I hope you manage to find an alternative way of expressing your voice that works for you.  As it stands, I hope you've got the message that if you decide to write like that, very few people will ever hear your voice, because very few people will read it!
            
            I know that if I came across a Hub written like that, I'd just click away and not bother.

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   PaulGoodman67posted 12 years ago

   You are "simply NUTZ"!  :-)

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   Uninvited Writerposted 12 years ago

   It makes it hard to read and doesn't show any individuality

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   Eric Newlandposted 12 years ago

   I'm one of those who "hears" all-caps as shouting. To me it just sounds like you're talking normal except you're yelling random syllables.
   
   Or you're like Austin Powers. "I'm having trouble controlling THE VOLUME OF MY VOICE!!"

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      Jason Marovichposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      

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5. 79

   Greekgeekposted 12 years ago

   I'm afraid I can't read that. It's too hard on the eyes.
   
   There's better ways to let your writing voice shine through. Think about how poets use sounds and rhythm, long and short lines to convey emotion. When I'm writing fiction, I'll sneak in metrical tricks that I learned from Greek poetry to express emotion and pacing. 
   
   A few random examples of how vocabulary choices, word sounds and sentence lengths let the writer's voice show through:
   
   Seth Godin's Blog
   AngryBlackLady's Blog (profanity warning)
   Bad Astronomy Blog
   Miss Manners
   
   Words express more than meaning. They express personality. Find your own language. Don't just type... sing!

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   1. 72

      lorlie6posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Greekgeek, you seem to be the only one on this thread that truly understands what I mean.  Sorry, guys, but I don't think you really 'got it'.
      Anyway, Gg, I'd be very interested to know about these 'metrical tricks' that you learned from Greek poetry.  Short lines and rhythm and sound, etc...emotion and pacing are what I am really after.  Since the other posters seemed to think I was conveying a shouting sound, when I was really speaking of the tones I mentioned, I think I'll look into the links you've provided and begin learning how to sing.
      Thanks,
      Laurel
      PS:  I am married to a Greek!!

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      1. 79

         Greekgeekposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Sorry about the bluntness; I'm glad you took it in the constructive spirit it was given! I have bad vision, so I struggle to read anyway. And it is a common web convention that capital letters imply shouting, unfortunately.
         
         Kalimera to your hubby! That's great!
         
         In Greek and Latin, so many words rhyme that ancient writers didn't think of using rhyme for poetry. Instead, they invented lots and LOTS of complex meters, different rhythms and rhythm combinations, to express speed, excitement, weight or the actual sounds of what was happening in the story. (Remember, stories were written in poetry back then: all of Homer's big battle sequences were in verse. Greek epic meter, dactylic hexameter, was the CGI computer special effects of his day.)
         
         Remember all those poetry terms we used in school? Dactylic hexameter, iambic pentameter, spondees and iambs and all that? ALL those words are Greek, because the Greeks were crazy about meter. Minor exception: the caesura, a Latin term for an unexpected stop in the middle of a line. (Mastered to perfection by Frank N. Furter in the Rocky Horror Picture Show with "Antici..........pation."
         
         I write fantasy fiction, and I've actually used iambs and anapests -- each word-name demonstrates its meter: i-AMB i-AMB i-AMB and an-a-PEST an-a-PEST an-a-PEST -- in snatches and bursts during action sequences to make them tense and exciting. I'll use spondees and monosyllables for more lumping, heavy, short, rude, stark, and simple moments.
         
         I also pay attention to consonants. Consonant clusters make words like crack, bash, crunch sound like Klingon: they're heavy, discordant, harsh.  Words that have liquid or muted consonants like glimmer, sea, flow, leap have a different feel. The sounds are so important!
         
         For example, "jump" has a thump in it, so it tends to suggest the landing. "Leap" doesn't have a double-consonant, and the "ee" sound is higher in the mouth than  "uh," so it tends to express the top of the hop. I don't usually analyze words that consciously, but when I'm stopping to hunt from the right word from a list of synonyms, I say them in my mind and listen to the one that sounds like what I'm trying to say. (For that reason, I never, ever use the word "pulchritude." That 5-consonant cluster sounds sticky and gross, and even the vowel-sounds are ugly.)
         
         I also pay attention to the impact of long and short sentences. There's a trick I learned when I (failed) to study fencing in college: you set up a rhythm or pattern, then break it. Regular patterns lull people to sleep (so we're taught to vary sentence structure). Breaking it makes people jump, pay attention. I've seen this in ancient Greek plays, too; there's a type of fast-moving conversation called stichomythia ("row-speech") that plays with choppy, quick echanges and sudden stops.  (Scroll down on that page for examples.)
         
         I'm also a sucker for patterning poetry and prose after Sapphic Stanzas, invented by the poet Sappho: 3 longer lines and then a half-line for emphasis and reflection. I can't do it literally in English; it would look awkward. I've just loosely adapted the pattern.
         
         For the most part, I don't do these things consciously, apart from using anapests in action sequences. But when I look back at my fiction writing, and read paragraphs aloud, I'll often find that stretches are mostly in meter. I had to do a lot of poetry explication and scansion in high school and college, and apparently all those different meters sunk into my subconscious. It's not like I'll go along for a whole page of iambic pentameter, but I'll see a lot of iambs in some stretches, a lot of spondees or three-syllable rhythms in other stretches, depending on what the mood calls for.
         
         In other words, I treat words like the soundtrack of a movie. We often don't consciously notice the music, but its notes, sounds, and percussion impact how we feel every scene and conversation.

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         1. 72

            lorlie6posted 12 years agoin reply to this

            What an amazing teacher you are, Gg! 
            
            "For example, "jump" has a thump in it, so it tends to suggest the landing. "Leap" doesn't have a double-consonant, and the "ee" sound is higher in the mouth than  "uh," so it tends to express the top of the hop. I don't usually analyze words that consciously, but when I'm stopping to hunt from the right word from a list of synonyms, I say them in my mind and listen to the one that sounds like what I'm trying to say. (For that reason, I never, ever use the word "pulchritude." That 5-consonant cluster sounds sticky and gross, and even the vowel-sounds are ugly.)"
            
            How very true!  'Pulchritude' is terribly gross and even greasy to me, consonants are rough and crude.  Vowels, smarmy, if you ask me.
            
            Thanks again for such grand instruction!
            Laurel

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6. 0

   klarawieckposted 12 years ago

   I think you've just brought me up a notch on my ADD.
   
   Pretty cool, though. Very, very original.
   
   And yes, you're NUTZ...

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