A is for 'Anyone else remember how we learned the alphabet?'

Quite likely not. While many of us might have memories of the stories told or tools used, today we, that is those in the academic world, focus more on complex ideas rather than the components of those ideas. It is no different outside academia. Past grade school, one no longer looks at each letter in a word, rather he treats the word as an individual object. Spending too much time on a single word, either looking at the letters or reproducing the sounds they make, will make me doubt my knowledge and often cause me to err. Try saying 'orange' a bunch of times, you will see what I mean.

Still though, looking at letters may give us insight to the basis of our knowledge, or so argues Crain in "The Republic of ABC: Alphabetizing Americans, 1750-1850." Crain relates the history of the alphabet and eventually arrives at a summary of the three forms alphabets have taken: the swallow alphabet, the body alphabet, and the worldly alphabet. The last and most recent make up the education received by children from the 19th century on. Worldly alphabets connect letters to seemingly random words, each that start with the letter in question - 'A is for Apple,' or some other similar word. In my personal case, 'Aardvark' was used. My memory serves only to recall the alphabet as entirely animal. Yet, while children enjoy animals, whether cartoon or photographic, what would happen with different subjects? The question asked searches for what might happen if in a song or rhyme a different word was substituted. Would the meaning change?

Well, yea.

I don't mean to be trite, certainly with so much buildup, but come on. Our knowledge of the world does not spring from some magical location between a teacher and student. There is no spell which imbues knowledge sans ideology. Fortunately I was never scarred by my animal alphabet (although I did question X-ray Fish as somewhat.... forced). Unfortunately, many children do have preconceived notions imbued through iconography.

One of the most succinct examples I can come up with would be an explanation of how, as Crain argues (less succinctly), letters in an alphabet are not only in the words that are chosen as representation, but also are the beginning of all words. Letters are universal, there is no word out there that does not start with a part of your alphabet. Once you understand the word represented, it can be a cornerstone to your knowledge; a partial lens to the information you will come to grasp.

Fortunately, complex or controversial ideas rarely fit into current day education of the alphabet. A child should be expected to understand the second half of 'A is for Apple,' even if not immediately. Apples are consistently found in storied, much like a Bear, or Cat, or Dog. H would more likely stand for Horse than Homosexual, since horses are considered appropriate content for children. Arguments of political correctness are beyond the scope of this post, but put simply 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' is why 'Horse' stays in while 'Homosexual' is probably not going to make the cut.

Cartographic Distortions of Social Constructs....

See! I can make obtuse phrases too!

Ok, so I just finished reading "Maps, Knowledge, & Power" by Harley and "Mapping the Digital Empire" by Farman and I must say, while many of the points made are thought provoking, it can be difficult to sift through such dense texts, especially when the subject matter is so ephemeral, but thats just me.

As a follow up to the reading, we are asked to find two examples, one physical the other digital, where social distortions of maps occur. The task is difficult, since very little that is physical is not digital so I can only assume such a crossover does not disqualify my example.

First, the digital realm. I believe Farman has the best points, since today, the majority of maps are digital and as such have a different place in the mindset of the most recent generations. The permanence subconsciously afforded to a GIS like Google Earth makes distortion of maps hard to find. One interesting distortion occurred 15 years ago, when time zones in Windows 95 showed a disputed region between India and Pakistan as belonging to the latter. Each country claimed the land and had its own time zone for it, forcing Windows to modify their software from country timezones to region timezones. A similar example occurred between Peru and Ecuador and between Taiwan and China. While Microsoft was attempting to accurately keep time worldwide, social forces created a change in the software.

A physical realm of map distortion lies within politics. The placement of political lines, divvying up different geographical areas, is often one of enormous contention. A carefully placed district line can separate voting groups, effectively changing the worth of a single voter. Imagine that somehow, a candidate could take all voters likely to vote against him and place them into a single district. That district would only be one of many, and the candidate would take office. While forcible relocation is not currently in most politicians play books (hopefully) the idea is the same.

Where a line is drawn can have important, real world ramifications, despite the seeming immutable nature of current day maps.

Credit, not just for cards. Or something.

'The Book of Nature and the Nature of the Book,' written by Adrian Johns, concerns the topic of fixity and credit. In his work, fixity refers to the concept that a written text holds value due to its intrinsic nature of being written. Basically, that something written is far more worthwhile than something told. Credit, however, describes the idea that there are different levels of value associated with text, and while better than the spoken word, not automatically the best.

While Johns considers these ideas within the realm of the Early Modern period, I feel that today such concepts have direct impact to my functioning as a university student. Research papers are a classic method for proving the worth of a student. Since this is a blog, I feel no shame in describing how I have written my fair share and find them to be only partially useful. My abilities and intelligence can not be accurately represented through a single paper. 'Why not write more?' I am certain the professors would argue, yet each paper has a strict set of research rules. For example, Wikipedia is out, internet resources are almost always limited, and a minimum number of sources must be met. But why?

Basically, credit. Wikipedia is an excellent example of how credit plays an important role in today's written word. Wikipedia is an amazing resource, but is given to error since anyone with an internet connection can edit and change its contents. Surprisingly, unlike a majority of websites that are rendered useless through the purposeful placement of misinformation, Wikipedia is incredibly accurate and tests have shown that incorrect information deliberately placed is edited out rapidly. Despite this, Wikipedia is off-limits to research. It does, however, provide a great place to do preliminary fact-finding.

Credit seems to now be an issue no longer of accuracy, but economic benefit. Creators of artistic work, from video games to music, want to be compensated for their work, and credit must be maintained so as to create a value that consumers desire. Pirated music and videos today are often of high quality, with few errors. While yes there are mislabeled pieces and harmful files such as viruses and malware, accurate replication, due to available technology, is a moot point. As such, fixity, as addressed by Johns, is no longer as important today as credit.