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Understanding McLuhan
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06608_Field_TCUM T173.txt
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1996-04-10
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821b
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15 lines
The spoken word does not afford the extension and
amplification of the visual power needed for habits of
individualism and privacy.
It helps to appreciate the nature of the spoken word to
contrast it with the written form. Although phonetic writing
separates and extends the visual power of words, it is
comparatively crude and slow. There are not many ways of
writing “tonight,” but Stanislavsky used to ask his young
actors to pronounce and stress it fifty different ways while the
audience wrote down the different shades of feeling and
meaning expressed. Many a page of prose and many a narrative
has been devoted to expressing what was, in effect, a sob, a
moan, a laugh, or a piercing scream. The written word spells
out in sequence what is quick and implicit in the spoken word.