Survival of the fittest. When I hear these four words I automatically think of evolution. It is Darwin's theory that says only the strongest genes wil survive, cleaning the gene pool. I would have never imagined that this concept could be applied to grammar. Yet, Nicholson Baker is able to do this and the living beings in Darwin's theory become commas, semi-colons, etc. This way he is able to demonstrate how these punctuation marks have changed throughout time, becoming either better or worse.
It is not only grammar that has changed, though: It's words as well. Today slang is commonly used by about everybody who speaks English. There's slang as classic as "'cause" but new terms have emerged recently. There's words like "LOL," "JK,""OMG," and "WTF" - excuse my language if you understand - which began as efficient texting abbreviations and have now become commonly-used "words."In addition, words that have existed for quite a while are having their meanings colloquially changed. There's some everybody knows like "hot" and "cool" as in "he's hot," and "you're cool." However, there are more recent ones like "legit" or "literally,"which have had their definition altered completely. Legit and literally have always refered to something that actually happened. However, they are now used to add emphasis, even if it's not actually true. The best example I recall is from the movie 500 Days of Summer, in which a character says "She took a giant shit (excuse my language once again) on my face. Literally." To this, another character asks, "Literally?" And the character who was initially speaking replies "Not literally! That's disgusting. Jesus, what's the matter with you?" The girl obviously didn't poo on his face, yet he uses the word literally and expects everybody to understand exactly what he means. This is what we have become, a society with made-up words. Those words we don't invent, we create our own meaning to. And then, whoever isn't up to date with the new terms invented, will barely understand a thing.
No wonder it's hard for new generations to understand classic works such as Shakesperean literature. They are still read in Middle School and High School, but many students have to look for act summaries in order to understand them. Some teachers are even giving up on trying to have students understand the no-longer-used vocabulary and sentence structure, and are having them read modern versions. This is what I had to do in seventh grade. So instead of reading the actual book by Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, we would read a modern version of it through Sparknotes. It was obviously much easier to understand, but wouldn't it have been a lot better to simply try the original one?
Despite the fact that many people don't understand the terms used more than a few decades ago, they still use quotes said by characters of these epochs. There's people quoting Gandhi, Einstein, and famous philosophers all over today's social networks - Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc- and also on school and college papers. Many of the people doing so don't know what the quote is saying - some even make-up the quotes, but that's a whole other story - and only use it because they think it sounds wise and will therefore have that effect on them. However, simply stating a quote won't make anybody seem any smarter. It only shows what another person thinks, not what they do.
That's what paraphrasing is there for: To include a quote into your own thoughts or opinion. Although there are English teachers who have given up on attempting to teach students what is usually taught, there are still some that remain. In English we are being taught exactly what the two essays, "Survival of the Fittest" and "Q as in Quotation," are explaining. Grammar changes, so it is important to pick up on the good aspects, which many people aren't doing. In addition, one must not simply quote what another person has said. S/he should apply it to what is being said or change it to his/her own words. Because, why use somebody else's opinion when you have your own?
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