English 5361: Week 9 Post – Erasmus
Bizzell and Herzberg note that Erasmus "seems to encourage a sort of superabundant verbal play" (p. 583). When reading Copia, I picked up on that playfulness. Erasmus seemed to truly enjoy words and presenting these words. Although the work categorizes words and breaks them down, much of the usage of these categories is left to the reader to decide. When should one use an archaic word? When is a word vulgar and when is it appropriate?
These struggles with word usage follow us to this day. When writing a blog, which words do i choose to express my thoughts on the topic? Which words will I use when writing my contemporary dialectic and will I need to use different words when analyzing it? Which words are appropriate for that work e-mail? Am I speaking to colleague or client?
Though we have may more or fewer categories for the words in our personal repertoire, we do indeed categorize them and decide when to use them. Perhaps not in any formal manner, as described in the text, but we do make a decision. That decision is based on our analysis of what is appropriate to the situation, much in the same way described by Erasmus.
These struggles with word usage follow us to this day. When writing a blog, which words do i choose to express my thoughts on the topic? Which words will I use when writing my contemporary dialectic and will I need to use different words when analyzing it? Which words are appropriate for that work e-mail? Am I speaking to colleague or client?
Though we have may more or fewer categories for the words in our personal repertoire, we do indeed categorize them and decide when to use them. Perhaps not in any formal manner, as described in the text, but we do make a decision. That decision is based on our analysis of what is appropriate to the situation, much in the same way described by Erasmus.
posted by Jessica Badger at
9:21 PM
3 Comments:
Jessica,
I completely agree with your position on the value of classification. Classification is a great tool because it saves us some grey matter in that we only have to know group traits rather than individual traits. And, I think that Erasmus’s attempts to classify represent an important step towards a broader understanding of rhetoric---in fact, all the rhetoricians we’ve read about seem to try to group things and classify things: rhetoric vs. dialectic, the appeals, the types of proofs, etc. Categorization is perhaps one of the most fundamental---and most critical---of all of communication strategies. Of course, on the other side of the coin is its misuse, too. If things are misclassified or classified in a way that defies logic, then this tool can become a weapon for misinformation, too----suggesting that classification must be guided by morality and knowledge/education, which is a testament to some of the fundamentals of Plato, Isocrates, and Cicero.
Cris
Jessica,
I completely agree with your position on the value of classification. Classification is a great tool because it saves us some grey matter in that we only have to know group traits rather than individual traits. And, I think that Erasmus’s attempts to classify represent an important step towards a broader understanding of rhetoric---in fact, all the rhetoricians we’ve read about seem to try to group things and classify things: rhetoric vs. dialectic, the appeals, the types of proofs, etc. Categorization is perhaps one of the most fundamental---and most critical---of all of communication strategies. Of course, on the other side of the coin is its misuse, too. If things are misclassified or classified in a way that defies logic, then this tool can become a weapon for misinformation, too----suggesting that classification must be guided by morality and knowledge/education, which is a testament to some of the fundamentals of Plato, Isocrates, and Cicero.
Cris
Choosing the right word can be difficult and it is always a nightmare when the wrong one comes out. I agree with your observation that Copia is playfull and I wonder if Erasmus did this in order to help make the criticism of incorrect language usage less offensive. As Mary Poopins says "a little bit of sugar makes the medicine go down."
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