In the passage “Writing is not Natural”, Dylan B. Dryer states that speech is the natural form of expression. Dryer makes the point to say that people talk about writing as if it were part of speech. He writes, “Speech is natural in the sense that as modern homo sapiens, we’ve been speaking to one another for nearly two hundred thousand years” (Dryer). Writing is not the natural form of expression because we have been speaking for much longer than we have been writing. Dylan talks about how humans gave symbols meaning and with these symbols they’ve created languages. There are different mediums writing can be performed across, and each one happens to have different pros and cons. Another point Dylan makes is that speaking is something we all naturally know how to do; and with writing we use symbols, codes, and other marks to create more complex forms of writing. Most people judge their work too harshly, and this is not wise, for writers usually have great points to make; they just don’t know how to express them. For years communication has been around and available to anyone who can hear it, but writing is a continuous learning process that constantly changes, and can be mastered by different people through the use of an array of mediums. Teachers and professors across the world go into their profession for the passion of teaching others, this is what keeps the drive alive. Writing continually evolves with more individuals becoming interested in the subject, and thus the changing of words in every language occurs. Technology also evolved with humans progressing further in fields, so simple devices are no longer of assistance. A great example is, we no longer need to learn to spell correctly due to auto-correct and other assistive writing tools.
I chose this GIF because I feel like it accurately represents how students operate in today’s modern age. It’s very easy to rattle off a quick essay or message for someone else or yourself, with the easy access humans have to technology. With spell correct and other overly-helpful tools, writing and typing has become much easier than ever before.
I then chose this second GIF to represent the most common medium writing is performed on: paper! It shocked me when I was reading this post because it’s weird to think about how speech comes to us naturally. For instance, you don’t ever think about how it comes to mind until you read passages like this. Seth Meyers is the actor in this animation, and in this scene is writing off a quick angry letter to the audience.
