Post by George61 on Jun 7, 2004 4:07:33 GMT 7
Iliad made ezeyr 4 u
By Julie Henry
June 7, 2004
This literary masterpiece is looking a little battle-scarred. "Sing, goddess, of the accursed anger of Achilles, son of Peleus, which brought uncounted anguish on the Achaeans," Homer may have written in The Iliad.
Computer giant Microsoft, however, prefers something less lyrical. "Wot hapnd when Agamemnon n Achilles had a barny?" it asks in a new version of The Iliad produced to appeal to the text message generation.
The interpretation of Homer's classic by Microsoft, has been criticised for trivialising one of the greatest works of European literature.
The "translation" of the first five books of the 24-book Iliad condenses 37,000 words to 32 lines of mobile telephone text message language, complete with sad and smiley faces and love hearts. In book three, a duel between Paris and Menelaus to determine possession of Helen, is reduced to: "Paris went 2 fight Menelaus. But he was wiv fright. Hector told im 2 b a man. Shame on him! Helen went 2 watch from da walls."
Book five, in which mortals fight the gods in a Homeric narrative rich with visual detail and poetic invention, is compressed to: "Aeneas da Trojan hero woz hit by Diomedes n Aphrodite went 2 help im. Da Gods withdrew. Ares helped da Trojans but Athena helped Diomedes 2 spear im."
The Microsoft version was designed to explain the plot of the film Troy to the 6 million people who use MSN Messenger, the most popular instant messaging service in Britain. Trim Troy, the introduction says, allows youngsters to brush up on their knowledge of the classics.
Some teachers and traditionalists disagree, however, and have condemned the language as appalling, simplistic and an "insult to young people's intelligence".
English teacher Andrew Cunningham said: "The whole point of studying great works of literature from any language or culture, whether it is The Iliad, Beowulf or the King James Bible, is to feel the words resonate over the centuries," he said.
"This rendering of The Iliad into a blunt text message style will inspire no one. 'Muse, wot hapnd wiv Achilles?' is a fair example of just how bland the style is.
"We are constantly being told by the educational establishment just how bright, intelligent and hard-working today's young people are. To assume that they can only approach Homer in bland, bite-size chunks like this is to insult their intelligence. We are robbing them of the same sense of discovery that so inspired Keats."
The Microsoft version of The Iliad is the latest example of the spread of text message language. Examiners have reported pupils answering exam questions in text message shorthand.
Bernard Lamb, a lecturer at the Imperial College, London, and the chairman of the Queen's English Society, described the Microsoft version of Homer as appalling. "It should be totally condemned. It dumbs everything down to a very low level, giving no idea of the majesty of language in the original," he said.
"Children already have difficulty spelling simple words, so to have a huge international organisation promoting wot, woz and wiv is extremely unhelpful for spelling and clear diction."
Some teachers argue that text message language is a fact of life and makes The Iliad, thought to have been composed in the eighth century BC, more accessible to young people. Geoffrey Fallows, the president of the Joint Association of Classical Teachers, which has 1500 members, was "completely unbothered" by the bite-size Homer.
"The Iliad is a complicated story that has difficult and unfamiliar names, so if you know a bit of it through the film or other versions, it will make so much more sense," he said.
- Telegraph
By Julie Henry
June 7, 2004
This literary masterpiece is looking a little battle-scarred. "Sing, goddess, of the accursed anger of Achilles, son of Peleus, which brought uncounted anguish on the Achaeans," Homer may have written in The Iliad.
Computer giant Microsoft, however, prefers something less lyrical. "Wot hapnd when Agamemnon n Achilles had a barny?" it asks in a new version of The Iliad produced to appeal to the text message generation.
The interpretation of Homer's classic by Microsoft, has been criticised for trivialising one of the greatest works of European literature.
The "translation" of the first five books of the 24-book Iliad condenses 37,000 words to 32 lines of mobile telephone text message language, complete with sad and smiley faces and love hearts. In book three, a duel between Paris and Menelaus to determine possession of Helen, is reduced to: "Paris went 2 fight Menelaus. But he was wiv fright. Hector told im 2 b a man. Shame on him! Helen went 2 watch from da walls."
Book five, in which mortals fight the gods in a Homeric narrative rich with visual detail and poetic invention, is compressed to: "Aeneas da Trojan hero woz hit by Diomedes n Aphrodite went 2 help im. Da Gods withdrew. Ares helped da Trojans but Athena helped Diomedes 2 spear im."
The Microsoft version was designed to explain the plot of the film Troy to the 6 million people who use MSN Messenger, the most popular instant messaging service in Britain. Trim Troy, the introduction says, allows youngsters to brush up on their knowledge of the classics.
Some teachers and traditionalists disagree, however, and have condemned the language as appalling, simplistic and an "insult to young people's intelligence".
English teacher Andrew Cunningham said: "The whole point of studying great works of literature from any language or culture, whether it is The Iliad, Beowulf or the King James Bible, is to feel the words resonate over the centuries," he said.
"This rendering of The Iliad into a blunt text message style will inspire no one. 'Muse, wot hapnd wiv Achilles?' is a fair example of just how bland the style is.
"We are constantly being told by the educational establishment just how bright, intelligent and hard-working today's young people are. To assume that they can only approach Homer in bland, bite-size chunks like this is to insult their intelligence. We are robbing them of the same sense of discovery that so inspired Keats."
The Microsoft version of The Iliad is the latest example of the spread of text message language. Examiners have reported pupils answering exam questions in text message shorthand.
Bernard Lamb, a lecturer at the Imperial College, London, and the chairman of the Queen's English Society, described the Microsoft version of Homer as appalling. "It should be totally condemned. It dumbs everything down to a very low level, giving no idea of the majesty of language in the original," he said.
"Children already have difficulty spelling simple words, so to have a huge international organisation promoting wot, woz and wiv is extremely unhelpful for spelling and clear diction."
Some teachers argue that text message language is a fact of life and makes The Iliad, thought to have been composed in the eighth century BC, more accessible to young people. Geoffrey Fallows, the president of the Joint Association of Classical Teachers, which has 1500 members, was "completely unbothered" by the bite-size Homer.
"The Iliad is a complicated story that has difficult and unfamiliar names, so if you know a bit of it through the film or other versions, it will make so much more sense," he said.
- Telegraph
I just think that any English speaker should also recieve some training and practice in the standard conventions of the written langauge while at school.
(Who the hell cast this thing?) This gives Lord Geezer, um , I mean Agamemnon (seriously -who cast this thing?!?! Agamemnon has an elementary school-aged daughter at the beginning of the war. He couldn't have been as old as depicted here) the excuse he desires to invade Troy and destroy the biggest threat to his ambitions.
(In Homer's version, he takes pains to let his listeners know that he felt that the Trojans - Hektor in particular - were closest to the side of right in this mess. This was a very important undertone of the orgional. Poof. It fall down go boom.) Hektor doesn't want the stupid religious men to destroy his society (an interesting message that is in this day and age...but not present in the origional) but is too filial to do anything about it. Aww. Prince Paris makes us not think about Legolas by practicing with a bow, and thus is the stage set for the long, grueling 2 day siege.
