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two years later
Jun. 4th, 2022 10:32 amOver two years ago now, I quit studying anything related to the internet. I had been learning web development in my spare time, when I could, hoping to develop the skills needed to get a different job. My goal then, as it is now, was to broaden my skills enough to get a different job doing more or less the same thing but in a different field.
I've been an editor who sometimes writes for over a decade now. In the beginning, I learned everything I could and loved it. I enjoyed being a prescriptivist, though I was a descriptivist at heart. I enjoyed being a gatekeeper of linguistic integrity as long as I was advocating for the logical and syntactically eloquent alternative and not merely an outdated prescription that was neither logical nor commonly used in any level of society. I feel the same way about descriptivist stances now, but that's a story for another time. Suffice it to say that recent changes to the AP Stylebook prioritizes politics over logic and prescribes it not only to our major news sources but major institutions of higher learning and various other places (major corporations, nonprofits (big philanthropy), etc. I know this political influence predated my use of the AP Stylebook (under duress), but it has gotten considerably worse since 2020. Let's just say that the changes to the AP Stylebook mirrors the cultural change that has taken place where I work as well. I need to get out. If I didn't belong before (yet another story, maybe for here, maybe not), I'm certainly a persona non grata now.
Something I read back in 2020 (when I find the source, written on a piece of paper somewhere, I will add it here): "This is how books are burned: one word at a time."
I've been studying web development again, and a couple of supplementary topics more specific to writing. Even HTML is not immune to political influence, but at least (at least for now) when it is, it has to have some logical underpinning. The semantic tags in HTML help make the web more accessible to more people, and I think that's wonderful. I think it also makes the web more accessible to AI. I haven't investigated this much at all. It's a thought I had back in 2020, maybe 2019. A lot of my work concerns making documents accessible, so it's something I think about a lot.
I hate editing now, and I have for a long time. I can't get out of my current situation anytime soon if I attempt a full-on jump to another type of job, so my compromise is working toward getting a job that requires more logic and less politics. I hope to work with the beautiful logic of code and its documentation rather than the politically saturated ugliness of mindless authoritarians masquerading as altruistic experts.
I've been an editor who sometimes writes for over a decade now. In the beginning, I learned everything I could and loved it. I enjoyed being a prescriptivist, though I was a descriptivist at heart. I enjoyed being a gatekeeper of linguistic integrity as long as I was advocating for the logical and syntactically eloquent alternative and not merely an outdated prescription that was neither logical nor commonly used in any level of society. I feel the same way about descriptivist stances now, but that's a story for another time. Suffice it to say that recent changes to the AP Stylebook prioritizes politics over logic and prescribes it not only to our major news sources but major institutions of higher learning and various other places (major corporations, nonprofits (big philanthropy), etc. I know this political influence predated my use of the AP Stylebook (under duress), but it has gotten considerably worse since 2020. Let's just say that the changes to the AP Stylebook mirrors the cultural change that has taken place where I work as well. I need to get out. If I didn't belong before (yet another story, maybe for here, maybe not), I'm certainly a persona non grata now.
Something I read back in 2020 (when I find the source, written on a piece of paper somewhere, I will add it here): "This is how books are burned: one word at a time."
I've been studying web development again, and a couple of supplementary topics more specific to writing. Even HTML is not immune to political influence, but at least (at least for now) when it is, it has to have some logical underpinning. The semantic tags in HTML help make the web more accessible to more people, and I think that's wonderful. I think it also makes the web more accessible to AI. I haven't investigated this much at all. It's a thought I had back in 2020, maybe 2019. A lot of my work concerns making documents accessible, so it's something I think about a lot.
I hate editing now, and I have for a long time. I can't get out of my current situation anytime soon if I attempt a full-on jump to another type of job, so my compromise is working toward getting a job that requires more logic and less politics. I hope to work with the beautiful logic of code and its documentation rather than the politically saturated ugliness of mindless authoritarians masquerading as altruistic experts.
