Sammie heard it was Talk in Third Person Today...

Sammie was sitting in her RA staff meeting today, bored, like usual. One of the announcements on the itinerary was that today was "Talk in Third Person Day". Sammie thought to herself, "Damn, I wish I would've known this all day, this would've been fun!" Sammie (still not paying attention in the meeting) continued to think about the great possibilities that could've happened today if she would've known it was "Speak in Third Person Day" today...

While sitting at her desk tonight reading Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students, Sammie thought of a great idea to write on her blog about "Voice and Rhetorical Distance". Voice is the relation that author has when talking to someone else in a rhetorical situation, whether it is written or electronic media. There are many different kinds of voice, with many different emotions and meaning behind them. Voices can range from angry, happy, content, blissful, gloomily, sincere, sad-- the list goes on. Sammie uses her voices often and people can usually tell what kind of mood she is in depending on her voice. Distance is a metaphor for the physical and social distance between people when they speak. There are two forms of Distance: Intimate and Formal. Intimate is closer identification, more persuasive and potential. Formal is less identification, less persuasive potential. Underneath Intimate Distance is more attitude, and under More Formal Distance is less attitude. Sammie thinks all of this is very interesting, and very obvious and true. Sammie thinks she is a combination though because she talks more formally, but has attitude and can get intimate when she talks. It all depends on the situation though and who she is talking to. Sammie realizes she is kinda just rambling on this post... but to get to the point of why she thought to write about this is because the book discusses Third-Person Discourse. Third person discourse creates almost no intimacy between the writer and the reader. Third person is usually used to present an issue as objectively as possible.

Third person is pretty cool way to talk if you ever get bored, definitely give it a try! Third person is an interesting way to write, also. Sammie thinks it'd be a different and exciting way to write a novel if it was completely in Third person. Sammie also thinks that'd be an interesting way to view certain issues. For example if a young girl had to have an abortion for whatever reason and she was defending herself, she could phrase the whole argument/essay with a lot of pathos. She could talk in Third person the whole time and at the end be like: "Oh, surprise, by the way, this whole article was about me and my life story". Sammie think that'd just have a whole lot more emotions than just hearing a story verbatim for someone else or without knowing that the author was talking about themselves. In some way it is also more personal if you were to talk that way Sammie thinks. Because at first you may believe that whoever you're talking to is referring to someone else, but then when you realize they're talking about themselves it Sammie believes that it just adds another level emotions and intimacy.

Sammie thinks it's late and that she's rambled on for long enough, probably not making any sense. Oh well, since Sammie is learning rhetoric she could probably have an awesome argument to defend herself (hopefully....).