> It goes with
> the prevailing academic culture that language is nothing more than a
> container, a bag which can be thrown away once the factual/content potato
> chips have been eaten. If "the person/s the writer addresses" assume that
> all expository language should really be "clear and concise"--a concept
> which modernism baptized and technological society nurtures--then there's
> no room for verbal play. The problem, it seems to me, lies in the culture
> behind the person/s addressed: communication is only for "clear and
> concise" writing; and there is a wall between "literature" (where anything
> can happen and which isbn't really part of the "real world") and "real
> world writing" (in which language is only a container).
>
> Mike
Thus the beauty of edible containers. Language is a taco shell, a cone
for ice-cream, a pepper stuffed, a cabbage leaf filled, a tortellini
pregnant with cheese; it can be digested in whole, food for thought, that
once eaten can be still, unlike your proverbial cake, be had.
Nick Carbone, Writing Instructor
Marlboro College
Marlboro, VT 05344
nickc@marlboro.edu