A cool article about how exacting Fred Rogers was about the language used on his show so that it wouldn't confuse or accidentally mislead kids: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/mr-rogers-neighborhood-talking-to-kids/562352/?single_page=true
I especially love the examples given.
@MightyPork Which example? The one about where its safe to play?
@benhamill
Considering online conversations tend to also be plagued with literalism, I wonder if Freddish could be a useful on social media...
@benhamill
this is really cool
thank you for sharing
One thing that I especially like about the Rogers language thing is the awareness that he was on TV and the limitations that imposed if he wanted to be trustworthy. "Your parents" ➡️ "your favorite grown-ups" because he can't know for certain who he's talking to. "X will tell you" ➡️ "X can tell you" because he can't speak for people he's never met and what they will or won't do, but he can talk about what they're capable of.
<<Rogers also wrote a song called “You Can Never Go Down the Drain” because he knew that drains were something that, to kids, seemed to exist solely to suck things down.>>
This was me until age, um
actually it's still me
@benhamill I had never heard of Mr. Rogers and his show, yet I was not surprised to find T. Berry Brazelton mentioned as one of the sources for his approach.
@benhamill on that note, Mr. Rogers also edited his shows to keep them current - the example given is if he used 'he' instead of 'they' or assumed the role of a woman... he would GO BACK and edit the show - refilm it! so it didn't offend!!
I love his work. https://kottke.org/18/06/mister-rogers-fixed-old-shows-if-he-felt-they-were-wrong
@lauraritchie That's so awesome! Wow. I was already pretty impressed with that guy, but the more I learn, the more impressed I am.
@benhamill as a kid i would probably be completely confused by the example sentence (and still have trouble parsing it). It started out ok but then lost it