HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2013-05-09, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013. PAGE 5.
I’d like to write a few lines about a
tiny word that is the very glue of the
English language, okay? Now, it’s entirely
okay if you’re not personally okay with
that, but I got the okay from my editor.
Usually she shrugs when I suggest a theme
and offers a grudging ‘okay’. But this time she
really liked it. “O-KAY!” She said. “Go for
it!”
Versatile little four-letter combination
when you think about it – especially when
you realize it can be cut in half and still
say the same thing. My dictionary recognizes
‘O.K.’ and even ‘OK’ as legitimate variations.
They all sound exactly the same to the human
ear.
‘Okay’ is probably the most well-known
English world in the world. Venetian
gondoliers get ‘okay’; so do Tibetan Sherpas,
Australian outbackers, Colombian drug mules
and Chinese money-lenders.
So where does ‘okay’ come from?
How much time have you got?
Over the years linguists have proposed
that the expression was swiped from the
Scots (‘och aye’), West African slaves (‘wah
kay’), the French (‘au quais’), the Choctaw
tribe (‘o keh’), the Finns (‘oikea’) – even
from a U.S. railway freight agent named
Obadiah Kelly who used to scrawl his
initials as a signature on bills of lading.
The only thing pretty much everyone agreed
on is that usage as an English expression
bubbled up in eastern North America
sometime in the early 19th century.
By 1840, rumours attributed the phrase to
U.S. President Andrew Jackson. Detractors
said that President Jackson scrawled O.K. on
government documents under the illusion he
was using a short form for ‘all correct’. (Orl
Korect?)
Cute story, buy highly unlikely. Andrew
Jackson was a well-educated man.
Whatever the origins, ‘okay’ was perfectly
okay to use through North America by the
1850s – so much so that it appears in the
written works of Henry David Thoreau in
1854. Now, a century and a half later, the word
has been bisected again. People often signify
acceptance with a single syllable instead of
two.
“You wanna grab a bite at the Taco Bell?”
“Kay.”
Fortunately, thanks to the work of a U.S.
professor named Allen Walker Read, we now
know the true origins of this ubiquitous
phrase. Professor Read figured it out by
poring over back issues of eastern American
newspapers published in the early-to-mid
1800s.
Turns out there was a kind of fad that swept
the chattering classes of early 19th century
Boston society, in which people wishing to
appear clever used abbreviations to replace
well-known phrases. Thus, people would say
(or write) ISBD, instead of It Shall Be Done.
Boston’s leading citizens were referred to as
OFM’s – Our First Men. And anything
insignificant was dismissed with SP – Small
Potatoes.
Another craze those early language
manglers indulged in was faux-illiteracy.
They liked to pretend they couldn’t spell very
well. Thus the Boston aristocracy (Andrew
Jackson had nothing to do with it) – brutalized
the phrase ‘all correct’ into ‘orl korrect’ –
which got shortened to O.K.
And the rest is history, okay?
Arthur
Black
Other Views
If it’s okay with you, a history lesson
We all know that the internet has
evolved. It’s not all cute pictures of
dogs and cats anymore; it has grown
into a rather dark place. As Denny Scott has
also alluded to this week (look down and to the
left) there is an evil side to the internet.
Of course, this is not news. Everyone knows
about internet trolling and cyber stalking and
identity theft. In fact, it was just a few months
ago in this very space that I wrote about
Amanda Todd’s suicide and the role cyber
bullying played.
However, a landmark lawsuit has been
launched that, if successful, will cause people
to watch their mouths (or, fingers rather)
before posting something on the internet.
Former Toronto Maple Leafs General
Manager Brian Burke, with the support of
Rogers Sportsnet anchor/reporter Hazel Mae,
has launched a lawsuit against 18 people who
spread a rumour across the internet alleging
that Burke and Mae had an affair (both are
married) and the child Mae gave birth to last
year was fathered by Burke. The rumour
suggested that the alleged affair was the reason
behind Burke’s firing earlier this year.
Near the end of April, Burke launched the
suit. The day after Burke made his
announcement, Mae supported the suit, issuing
a statement saying “Hazel Mae fully supports
the lawsuit brought forth by Mr. Burke and
feels strongly that people should be held
accountable for writing and spreading
malicious lies over the internet.”
In case people haven’t been paying attention
over the last few years, the internet is built on
a foundation of rumours and lies. Everyone has
had a conversation that went like this. “I read it
on the internet,” followed by a sarcastic “Oh,
then it must be true.”
Most often, celebrities have shaken off
rumours from the internet, dismissing them as
just that, rumours on the internet, a breeding
ground for such activity. Burke, however, has
chosen to make history and go after those who
have defamed him.
While unlikely, this lawsuit could change the
landscape of the internet, similar to the
watershed lawsuit launched by Metallica
against Napster which changed music file
sharing and the music industry forever.
The largest lesson here, however, is that
everyone, no matter how big or small, needs to
watch what they choose to post on the internet.
As an accredited media outlet and member
of both the Canadian Community Newspapers
Association and the Ontario Community
Newspapers Association, The Citizen is
required by law to print the truth. If we’re not
right and are found to print a malicious lie, The
Citizen will be held accountable in a court of
law. Those named in Burke’s lawsuit, however,
are not trained journalists, they’re just civilians
with internet access.
One of those named in the lawsuit is 20-year-
old Zack Bradley from Oshawa, who, the
Toronto Star reports, simply posted details of
the rumour on a free blogging website called
Wordpress where anyone is free to start a blog
and post what they wish.
With Burke now taking action, however, it
would seem that life online isn’t quite that
simple anymore.
Every day journalists carry the weight of
truth, social responsibility, accuracy and the
burden of fact around like a monkey on their
back. Well it seems the internet might not be
the Wild West anymore. So if you’re thinking
about starting a blog, you may also want to
invest in a fact-checking department or stick to
posting cute pictures of your pets.
Watch your fingers
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
There is a lot I could write about this
week; I could write about the scotch
tasting tour of Scotland that I attended
at the Part II Bistro in Blyth last week (an
amazingly great birthday gift from my editor
Shawn), seeing Ironman 3 with my fiancée
Ashleigh, or just how I don’t even mind my
“driver’s” sunburn because it means I’m
getting to enjoy the fresh air while driving, but
another story has been biting at the back of my
mind since I read it.
With so many of my friends being teachers,
I often find myself at odds with them when it
comes to discussions over issues like contract
negotiations, the true cost of living and
reaching out to students who need that extra
bit of guidance (I was one of them, and thanks
to some great teachers, I found my passion and
started pursuing skills that fit within).
However, one thing I whole-heartedly agree
with many of them on is their decision to
remove themselves from social networking
sites.
While the reasons vary from not wanting
their young students to accidentally get a
glimpse of their social life and think less of
them, to not wanting it to hurt their chances of
finding employment in a market already
saturated with retired teachers taking
substitute spots and closing schools creating a
surplus of teachers and a lack of positions, the
one thing that they have in common is that
they are slowly coming to the realization that
social media can hurt them.
What should a teacher do, however, when
their internet presence is being directed by
another and when the law seems incapable of
stopping someone from committing identity
theft and fraud?
Lee David Clayworth, a teacher from
Vancouver, has been the victim of such a case
for two and a half years.
Clayworth taught in Malaysia in 2010 and,
while there, was involved with a woman
named Lee Ching Yan.
Yan, after she and Clayworth broke up,
broke into his apartment and stole his laptop,
hard drive and personal effects.
Since then she has made a full-time job of
ruining his life on the internet.
From posting pictures of him to using his
log-in credentials to make it look like he is
admitting to having relations with young
children, the woman has, for two and a half
years, been relentless in the attacks, going so
far as to move from location to location to
avoid court orders placed against her.
Clayworth says he feels powerless because
he can find little help either here at home or
abroad to prevent his name from being
slandered and ruining his job opportunities
here at home.
Court orders to website owners and
operators, including popular search engines
seem to have no effect and other sites, instead
of complying, are moving to more lenient
areas to circumvent the order and promising
Clayworth that the information Yan has posted
will be up indefinitely, possibly because of the
problems Clayworth is causing in trying to get
it removed.
To me, the situation explores a very
dangerous trend in society; technology far
advancing beyond the scope of the law.
Whether we’re talking about non-malicious
cyber-stalking as has been suggested in several
legislative documents both in North America
and abroad or talking about what Clayworth is
going through, the law is inadequately
equipped to deal with issues like these.
Technology changes every day while the
legal system runs at a comparative snail’s
pace.
When this idea was first breached in a
communications technology course I was
talking in my second year of post-secondary
classes, I scoffed at the idea.
There are safeguards in place, I thought, to
prevent people from fleeing legal prosecution.
There are people who can chase people down
and there are ways to deal with ‘e-crime’ as it
was then called.
I was wrong, though.
Whether we’re dealing with file-sharing
websites, identity theft or the merciless
destruction wrought by a woman scorned with
a handful of log-in credentials, a computer and
a vendetta, the law seems to be perpetually two
steps behind anyone who has the desire to
learn technology.
For the most part, this isn’t an issue. Identity
theft is a horrible experience; I’ve been
through it once myself as a credit card number
was stolen and used to make some interesting
purchases, however, it isn’t something that
goes on and on. It’s usually remedied fairly
quickly.
Yan, however, has proven that anyone with
the resources, the time and having already
committed a crime can put themselves beyond
the reach of the law, beyond the reach of the
court and, in doing so, put relief for someone
like Clayworth well out of reach.
Normally, with an issue like this, I would try
and suggest a solution to the issue, but, short
of a complete overhaul of the Canadian legal
system (something that is desperately needed
for this and other reasons and unlikely to
happen) or the creation of some kind of self-
governing international body to maintain a
level of respect on the internet, the future for
Clayworth is pretty bleak.
In Canada, the Canadian Radio-television
Telecomunications Commission (CRTC),
whether you love it or hate it, does try to hold
broadcasters to a certain standard. It’s non-
governmental companion, the Canadian
Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC), also
attempts to keep Canadian broadcasters and
content within the lines.
Unfortunately, no such entities exist in
something as international and boundary-less
as the internet.
There is, of course, one other option that I
don’t see many people exploring: fighting fire
with fire.
While I don’t suggest Clayworth defame
Yan, I find it interesting that Anonymous, the
self-appointed hackers-turned-watchdogs-of-
the-internet haven’t picked up on this yet.
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
Technology is starting to lap its laws
“Too often man handles life as he does the
bad weather. He whiles away the time as he
waits for it to stop.”
– Alfred Polgar
Final Thought