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TECHNEWS STAFF

Editor-in-Chief
Assistant Editor

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Hannah Larson

Opinion Editor Mike Pu rdy
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Swasti Khuntia
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The mission of TechNews is to promote student
discussion and bolster the IIT community by
providing a newspaper that is highly accessible,
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TechNews is written, managed, and edited by the
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editorial decisions deemed necessary.

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SUI
u...’

ILLINOIS INSTITUTE I//
OF TECHNOLOGY

 
     

 

MIKE PURDY opinion@technewsiit.com

   

Ethiopian Expedition:

Getting there is half the battle

By Sebastian Morales Prado
TECHNEWS WRITER

After what has definitely been the longest
and most stressful trip in my short but very
appreciated life, I finally find myself in the crib
of human existence. Where the time is weird, the
calendar is weird, the language is weirder, and
for the first time, there is not a trace of Mexican
culture anywhere I look: Mother Ethiopia!

But first, let’s go a back in time, just
enough to see myself missing my plane in that
beautiful city with horrible weather; London. If
there was any doubt that I was about to embark
on the adventure of a lifetime, it was destroyed
when I realized I had just under three hours
to change airports and make my connection
flight to Egypt. All hope to make the connection
disappeared with my luggage, and when the
luggage finally appeared, that three hour
connection had transformed into an hour- and-
a-half-long sign of desperation. Luckily for me, a
Dutch woman was in the same - and with ‘same’
I mean similar - but much better situation. We
decided to share a taxi to our connection airport
and subsequently save 49 pounds.

Remember the movie “Snatch” and
their description of London? “London. You
know: fish, chips, cup ‘0 tea, bad food, worse
weather, Mary Poppins. LONDON.” Well,
they forgot to mention the really annoying
traflic when you are in a hurry trying to reach
Heathrow airport from Gatwick airport to catch

your flight to Cairo.

Upon arriving at Heathrow, I heard the
announcement, “next plane leaves at two,” which
meant I had a couple of hours to relax. And by
relax, I mean stress out and make sure I got a seat
in that plane. Hours passed, and the only seat it
seemed I would be sitting on was my luggage.
Managers spoke to managers, who then spoke to
more managers. My hopes of getting to Ethiopia
on time were still high, but only in the sense that
I have high hopes that one morning I will wake
up understanding every language.

“Give us 75£ and we’ll get you in the next
flight,” might not sound like a great deal, but
considering that they were asking for almost
one eye (in pounds), I found myself running
through the airport trying to change all my
dollars into pounds just to get onto the plane
that would let me see the Great Pyramids from
the sky. With empty pockets, but a full smile,
I was now running towards gate E-40, which
obviously happened to be the last one in the
terminal.

Without wondering too much about how
the people helping me at the airline’s desk had
teleported to the gate, I decided to make myself
comfortable in my new seat on the airplane,
sleep, and maybe wake up for dinner. And what
a dinner! Just when I was convinced that no one
could make carrot cake like my mother, they put
a layer of white chocolate on top. Barriga llena,
corazOn contento (full stomach, happy heart)...
and back to sleep.

I awoke as whispers turned into mumbles,

TechNews I Tuesday, February 28, 2012

which then turned into shouts of excitement.
Through the window, right under our wing,
shining on top of what appeared to be an
infinitely dark sea of oil, we saw the Great
Pyramids of Giza!

More than 36 hours had passed since I was
first riding on the Blue Line to O’Hare. My coat
was now gone, but my excitement was still very
present. I was finally in Addis Ababa, except for
the 20 dollars that kept me locked away from
freedom. I needed to get my visa, and with the
ATM not working, I couldn’t get it. Lucky for
me, the money exchange in the airport was still
open. But, my story couldn’t finish so easily:
after converting all the currency that I managed
to dig out of my pockets and harassing my fellow
passengers, I ended up getting only 17 dollars,
13 birr and 100 pesos. Thank God this is Africa,
though. I was able to skip immigration, go out
of the airport, meet my dear friend Eyu, get
some extra cash from home, go back into the
airport, pay my fees, get a my visa sticker on my
passport, and finally walk out of the airport with
my luggage. I felt, as I imagine an ex-prisoner
would, finally walking out of the gates of hell
towards a new life of freedom and wealth.
Well, maybe I exaggerated a bit with that last
description, but I hope to never find out (unless
of course for some reason I end up in prison).

This is the first of three installments covering
Sebastian’s sammer trip to Ethiopia. Do you
have something similar to share or an opinion
to declare? Email opinion@technewsiit.com for
more information.

 

Photo by Sebastian Morales Prado

 

Informal, proper use of language, punctuation changing

By Chris Roberts
COPY & LAYOUT EDITOR

I came across a comment a few days
ago which has left me troubled: “Email in
my opinion is not electronic mail, despite its
etymology; it is just that: email.” Statements
like that make me question why I bothered to
become literate.

First Off, there is the missing hyphen
in “email,” but I will get to that later.

Secondly, how could someone have
the fluency in English needed to construct that
sentence while at the same time specifically
believe that “email” has no relation to what it
actually is?

If “email” is not electronic mail, can
anyone tell me what it is?

The more significant issue here is
the popularity of spelling e-mail as “email.”
Try to pronounce “email” as it is written here.
Personally, I end up with something that sounds
like “em-ale.”

Incidentally, did you notice the
hyphen that I used there, to convey that the
two parts are intended to be pronounced
individually? Written language has mechanics
which convey to readers how the text is
supposed to be interpreted, since the author is

not present to clarify what was or was not meant.

Some people object to such precision
use of language with the fact that language usage
changes over time, as though that, in and of
itself, counters any criticism that could ever be
made.

Despite how pedantic this article
may come across as, this is not an objection
to two words being fused into one word. For
starters, “e” is not a word; it is a representation
of the word “electronic” that has been shortened
through the use of a hyphen. If people want to
make e-mail one hyphenless word, it would be
electronicmail. This is about acknowledging that
written language has mechanics for a reason.

Commas differ from semi-colons;
exclamation points are not the same as periods—
although, judging from some Internet posts,
maybe that idea has not gotten around yet.

I would not be so bothered by this
informal alteration/misuse of a term if said
misuse was not being considered correct. People
frequently misspell words, but no one concludes
that since an error is happening often that the
error must be correct.

However, as you will see in this
publication, “email” is used constantly. This is
not because copy editors are slacking on the
job. It is because the stylebook of the Associated

Press, adhered to be nearly all newspapers,
changed its formal standards to accommodate
spelling e-mail as “email.” This change is not
because electronic mail somehow mutated
between printings of the stylebook. It is because
of the sheer, overwhelming use of “email” in
online writing. There have been pages calling
for the stylebook to change its logical and fully
justified use of e-mail in favor “email,” what is
essentially a popular typo in my opinion, “like
a normal person.”

This sort of argument never happens
in other intellectual systems. Math professors
do not read errors in equations and change
textbooks to redefine the errors as formal proofs
because they are close enough.

At what point did formal use of
language, much less a single keystroke, become
such an intolerable mental hurdle that the
very meaning of a term can be completely
disregarded?

Until humans develop telepathy, can
we at least humor the idea that language needs
consistent rules and mechanics in order to be
used effectively, especially in an increasingly
diverse society in which common ground,
unspoken cues, and other informal tools cannot
be relied upon?

Then again, maybe it’s just me...