h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

To me graffiti does not refer to the scribble you find on bathroom walls or the names you find scratched into subway cart windows, but several different dictionaries tell me I am wrong, graffiti is, usually, unauthorized writing, drawing or scratchiing on a public surface.

To me it's always been those big, colorful unreadable things underneath bridges and on sound walls. It's what the local artist paints on the street and sometimes it's what IBM uses to sell products*.

I like graffiti. It lights up the world. Gives me something to look at. To me it's art. Of course to someone else it's vandalism. I don't see why it has to be one thing or the other.

The scribbling on the other hand. That just makes the world look old and worn and cheap.

It's interesting to note that graffiti comes from Italian, it's a diminutive of graffio, a scratching, scribble.

*http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/industry/04/19/ibm.guerilla.idg/