What does "End of literal file" mean? Every time I swipe my credit card on that tiny machine in any sort of retail establishment, that is what is says on the screen. It makes we think, Well, that's it, the literal is over, onto the metaphoric and surreal. Or maybe, it is saying,"You know, by using this credit card, you Barrie, really have not actually paid for anything, so don't take this transaction literally. Don't forget, this is all virtual money." Sometimes I read the phrase incorrectly and think that instead it reads, "End of literary file" and I feel very sad and morose and melancholic, like literature and the literary is closed forever, the going out of business, everything must go kind of closed and that, that is it, that the gigantic file with Woolf and Faulkner and Baldwin and Proust and Stein and all the other writers I love, has been deleted or thrown away into a dumpster or has just ended, like there is just no more hallway to the hallway. And then I am glad that, that is not the case and it is like waking up from the briefest nightmare. And then I quickly move on and think about the phrase, "Swipe your credit card" and how really weird that is because swipe to me, is really more about stealing. I know of course that the way it is being used is most likely derived from "sweep" and so it is a broom type of action these language-makers are meaning, not thievery of one's own posessions but why not say, "Sweep your card?" Perhaps because that implies doing something "to" the card itself and not something "with" the card. Wouldn't it be great if it was "shmear" your credit card and then everytime you shmeared it, you would think of bagels...
1 Comment
|
Barrie Cole
|