Literacy Limps Into the Kill Zone 838
Ant writes to tell us that Wired has an interesting look at the current standards of writing and the general decline of spelling and grammar in today's "comic book generation." The author blames many of the problems on instant or near-instant communications stating that the slang developed is essentially eroding our ability to formulate coherent thoughts in writing when called upon to do so.
Hmmm... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
You need to go to college to learn that. I never learned anything when growing up because the school district had me labeled as "mentally retarded" and didn't want to reclassify me as "normal" since they would lose the extra money. After dropping out of high school and working for a few years, I was able to go to the community college to get my associate degree in four years. (Not having a high school diploma or completing the GED made it difficult getting some jobs even though I had a more advance education.) Started off in Introductory English until I finished with tech writing.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Funny)
dead!!
> capitalisation,
Dead!!
> spelling
teh DEAD!
> and understanding of homophones?
Sexuality, like proper spelling, is now devoid of limits - though I don't see what makes you bring it up now.
They don't realise language changes. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think these people are old thinkers stuck in a new world where communication has changed and any seventy year old would tell you they find it hard to communicate with youth but no 20 year old ever will, and it's the 20 year olds who are the future. Always.
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the problem, though. The entire point of writing (well, at least this form of writing; obviously, things like novels and poetry are a different story) is to express what you mean clearly and precisely so that people can understand you. The more you throw words that are sort of the ones you wanted out, with botched grammar that may be a little confusing but doesn't obfuscate everything, and rely on your reader to "know exactly what you mean," the more you're inviting frustrating and misinterpretation. Your reader shouldn't have to spend his or her time trying to figure out what you're saying; that time could be better spent *thinking* about what you're saying instead.
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:3, Insightful)
True however usually when we write something we try to create something that a small subset of people can understand. The one thing you forgot to add to this sentance is that the choice of audiance is getting smaller and smaller.
Historians write diffrently(choice of words, style of argument, tense ect.) then buissnessmen. Which is diffrent then scientist. It is just a basic fact of life. This thing annoys the hell out of me
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:3, Interesting)
Rubbish. If that were true you wouldn't use English, you'd use mathematics, or a computer language. English and just about every language in the world are by their very nature imprecise, open to multiple interpretations, and deeply entrenched in the culture of the day. People who think otherwise ar
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, you'd use a language that most people understood.
English and just about every language in the world are by their very nature imprecise, open to multiple interpretations, and deeply entrenched in the culture of the day.
And a writer with a decent knowledge of a language will use these imprecisions to their advantage - the true beauty of language lies in the fact that a sentence may have many different meani
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:5, Funny)
Here's a perfect example of why proper punctuation is important (not mine, I stole it from someone else, can't remember who though):
I helped my uncle jack off a horse
I'm either a very helpful, or a very sick person. Which one is anyone's guess.
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:3, Informative)
(Fashykekes) Capitalization is the difference between "I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse.." and "I had to help my uncle jack off a horse.."
Famous quote.
Famous in the tech/IRC/bash world of course.
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Does he? Perhaps in this case, because the thoughts you were trying to express were so simple. But given that sampling of your writing skills I have absolutely no doubt that you would crash and burn miserably when asked to write anything more complex, such as required in a business setting. Yes, the world does go on, but it goes on DESPITE people such as yourself, not BECAUSE of you. Thankfully there are still sufficient numbers of people who can express themselves to each other to carry on meaningful social and scientific interaction.
Testing for New Hires (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, I'll test for other things as well. Unfortunately, this may be a humbling experience for some applicants.
Re:Testing for New Hires (Score:3, Interesting)
College used to do that. But then businesses ignore degrees. They are only used to disqualify people. They earn no respect.
Of course, I'll test for other things as well. Unfortunately, this may be a humbling experience for some applicants.
Someone with an English degree will probably write a five-page essay that is nominated
Re:Testing for New Hires (Score:3, Insightful)
Please don't do this. I can quickly jot short, easily legible notes. However, I have the common geek affliction of being wholly unable to lightly grip a pencil or pen. Halfway through the first page of the essay, I'd be holding my aching wrist and cursing you and your family.
On the other hand (boo!), I think I could type an entire dictionary without problems. Never once in two decades in the workforce have I needed to wr
Re:Testing for New Hires (Score:3, Funny)
Unfortunatley, after 5 years of this hiring practice, you'll end up with 25 English PHD's working on the 50th rough draft of a technical manual of a product that has yet to see a line of code written for.
Although, it will be a very well written technical manual.
Re:Testing for New Hires (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Testing for New Hires (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation: I cannot conceive of the existence of someone whose natural abilities and strengths differ from mine, and therefore they must be lazy bastards who just don't care enough to bother learning what I consider easy.
Just imagine the response if I were to say, "I've heard, `I've never been able to learn multivariable calculus' as an excuse for a poor understanding of basic physics for years, but what that really says is, `I don't consider the details of the world around me important, since other people will probably overlook any mistakes I make when describing it.' If someone can't be bothered to understand the most basic aspects of the physical world with which they interact on a daily basis, why should I think they'll pay enough attention to other details that aren't as fundamental and immediately applicable to their daily lives?"
People would call me a lunatic if I said something like that in public, and yet writing a textbook that derives all of multivariable calculus and its applications from scratch is a trivial task compared to, say, memorizing the correct spelling for the 5'000 most common English words.
Spelling is by no means an easy task for everyone, even for many of us who haven't been diagnosed with a "legitimate difficulty with spelling." It may be true that, if we chose to dedicate a significant portion of our lives to memorizing words, we could achieve the level of competency that those with a natural affinity for the subject display. But then we'd never get anything done in those areas for which we have a genuine talent.
Fortunately, there are now tools available which allow poor spellers to communicate effectively even with those too narrow minded to overlook poor spelling. Expecting someone to use correct spelling when publishing electronic text is perfectly reasonable. Anyone who allows spelling errors to appear in electronic documents *is* being lazy, since there are so many free and painless tools available to translate our text into correctly spelled words.
To require that an applicant be capable of somehow generating correctly spelled text when necessary is appropriate; however, to demand that an applicant spell well when writing in pen and ink, when they are being hired for a job that doesn't require doing so on a regular basis, is just silly. Judge us by the job for which we are being hired, not by how closely our skill set happens to match yours.
Re:Testing for New Hires (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't protect people from their mistakes, let them learn from them.
Re:Testing for New Hires (Score:4, Insightful)
This was very important as there are several integrals that I can do by hand that baffle all calculators and the answers I end up giving are much more intuitive (most of the time). Furthermore, several simple linear algebra problems are much easier to be by hand(though those problems are few and far between outside of physics).
But then again, knowing how to use a calculator to evaluate a great deal of mundane information (especially in statistics) is very important. There is very little insight to be gained by finding the standard deviation by hand.
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, and what happened after that? look up Europe's history starting about the time when the Western Roman Empire collapsed. Feel free to go all the way up to the Middle Ages if you like.
Methinks you need to work up a better argument, sonny.
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:5, Insightful)
If only it were so. The period saw the rise of monotheistic cults, destruction of priceless scientific works from the antiquity, violence and bloodshed. It is true that less literary works remain of this period, because the said cults decided to burn and rape books, as well as severely censor (as in, flay, draw, quarter, burn at the stake) authors of new works.
Calling the Dark Ages "dumb" may not be right, but neither is it "unknown" particularly descriptive. We know well enough why literacy (and some argue, civilization) crumbled during the second half of the first millennia.
Whose language? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think what is at issue is that with the rise of universal education, we've demanded that everyone speak, read and write at a level of education that has not commonly existed but for the last century, really, just the last few decades. If you took random samples of 18yos in the early 19th century and today, no doubt you would be far more horrified at the former's ability to communicate than the latter.
I remember reading an article recently which ar
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:3, Informative)
Well, Petrarca called it Dark Ages in the XIV-th century and he certainly knew more about it than you seem to, as he actively tried to recover as many writings from Antiquity as he could. And the "Monks saved our culture" argument was dissected by a previous poster already. The scientific part, especially, went down the drain in Europe - the Arabs pre
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:3, Informative)
Or perhaps from the fact that Arabs actually did something with them. Where Europeans had all but forgotten Aristotle, Arabs actually studied it, not merely copied over Greek gibberish. Even more - while upon reintroduction in the West Aristotle became something of a dogma, the Arabs had no restraint debating it a
I'll give you a hint (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'll give you a hint (Score:3, Funny)
The problem is consistency (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The problem is consistency (Score:5, Interesting)
It's very frustrating.
I don't care that language changes - I'm a descriptivist. I care that language becomes less useful and less precise. We already have lots of words to mean "unusual," but few that mean "unique." Now we have to say "one-of-a-kind," which the folks will probably start using to mean "unusual."
Now, if someone had even a passing familarity with Latin, she would know that the prefix "uni" means "one," and that "unique" probably means, "one-of-a-kind," not "cool." That's the argument the Classicists would make, at least.
Re:The problem is consistency (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The problem is consistency (Score:5, Funny)
<Fashykekes> Capitalization is the difference between "I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse.." and "I had to help my uncle jack off a horse.."
:)
Re:The problem is consistency (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, yes... the #1 pick-up line of all times:
Say, does this rag smell like clorophorm to you?
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:3, Insightful)
Right, but is that really happening? Fact is, English has a metric ton of crap in it that just kind of accumulated over the years. Many of its spellings and rules are baroque, and as time goes by I'd exp
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:5, Informative)
If any of those quotes noted a decrease in students' writing skill that accompanied use of a new technology, then it'd be close to relevant.
--Jeremy
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:5, Informative)
All this says is that the MEDIUM changes. The language itself, and the ability for a person to appropriately and effectively communicate concepts and ideas, has nothing to do with whether it is written on bark, slate, or paper, written with chalk, pencil, or pen.
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:3)
"The type-writer will usher in a new generation of literacy as the convenience of quickly conveying thought to paper afforded by this wonderful invention permits the rapid honing of one's literary talent." -- Nat'l Scrivener's Assoc., 1894
"With the adoption of the ball point stylus, students can concentrate on perfecting their grammar and style rather than vainly contending with the fickle and messy fountain pen of their forebears." -- Teacher's G
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:5, Funny)
"Students today can't prepare bark to calculate their problems.
They depend upon their slates which are more expensive. What will they do
when their slate is dropped and it breaks? They will be unable to write!"
-Teacher's Conference, 1790
"Students today use too much paper too much. They don't know how
to write on slate without getting all dusty. They can't clean a slate.
What will they do when they all run all out of paper?"
-Principal's Association, 1815
"Students are loosing their mind. They don't know how to do the things
that get them ink. When they run out of ink they will be unable to write
all those curly letters and cute numbers until they're next trip to the
place with shops and stores. I am crying."
-The Rural Amercan Teecher, 1929
"Students 2day use spensive pens. They like, what the heck is a strait
pin and nib(?) (dont' get me started on quills). They need to stop riting
and facus on sports and singing so they can be rich."
-PTA Paper,1941
"Pens ruin teachy-smarts in US. Kids use pens. Throw pens away.
Good US goodness, not waste, gone. Shop-shop and save-save all gone.
Me eat pens. Pens good food, not write-write."
-a cave, 1950
The quotes above are real, btw, I got them using my time machine (thanks John T.), a Britney Spears album which I dropped off in the early 1800's, and Google Talk, so please no comments to the effect that I made these up. That kind of thing hurts. Seriously. Ouch.
Re:No.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Communication is nothing if not contextual in essence and expression, and to declare that it is robbed of meaning by our contemporary canvas, wide at the margins, is to mistake grammar for literary intent.
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:5, Insightful)
of course, this man just seems to be complaining about the new method of communication. It used to be if you wanted to write someone a letter, it would take days or weeks to arrive and therefore, you took appropriate caution in how you presented your ideas. Those days are over.
Email and blogs do not in anyway replace great and creative writing, but are an addition to the communication tools we have. Just because more people can now express themselves to a large audience through writing doesn't mean standards have dropped, it just means that anyone can particpate without having judgement first passed by an editor.
Most blogs I read are filled with mindless drivel. But I do not judge them on the same scale as a book or newspaper so I have no reason to believe those blogs are a fundamental attack on good writing skills. These people never had them and their euivalents 30 years ago just went unpublished.
Please forgive any errors in this post as I have hurt my left hand and find typing relatively difficult.
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they realize it just fine.
What *you* don't realize is that they're not talking about the language changing, but that it's changing too quickly, and for the worse.
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:5, Interesting)
It is quite interesting how I did a whole lot better in the English classes at an American university than most Americans, even though English is my third language. At first I thought they were smart but they just didn't care, but it turned out that they really didn't know to write and they didn't care.
I guess I expected everyone to do worse in science only, not in Enlish -- their own language! Oh, well, more jobs for immigrants like me, "Thanks! US primary educational system!"
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:3, Insightful)
One of my personal favorites was his speech about gynaecologists, and how they should be free to "spread their love for women across this great land of ours." I mean, this man goes way beyond simple foot-in-mouth disorder.
I think I'd like to sneak into the MiB control room for a few minutes, to see if GWB is up on their big board of resident space aliens. I would think he probably is.
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:4, Informative)
In fact, I am one of the "young generation" -- I'm a 21 year old college student. Despite that, I can see quite clearly that the people who are sloppy with their writing are also quite often sloppy with their reasoning also. For me, seeing slang and "l337-5p34k" tends to indicate that the writer both hasn't thought through, nor cares about, what he intends to say. By choosing to use it, the writer is only lowering the reader's opinion of him, and therefore is hurting himself. Presumably, if people understood this they wouldn't do so, but since they do I can only conclude that they're weak-minded, and that whatever what they were trying to say probably wasn't worth reading in the first place.
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:3, Interesting)
yes, things were so much better in the days of the telegraph, when people were charged by the letter or word and so made every effort to ABBREVIATE their message to the recipient.
Oh, wait... the telegraph is still around! And still in wide use on the amateur radio bands! People having been using the ancestor of SMS for decades now, so how is this problem (a
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:4, Funny)
What they don't realise is that language changes, and every generation understands this. When language changes in a radical way, someone will whine and cry out in defence of the older understanding of what constitutes literacy and proper grammar. In 1940, George Orwell said people were writing English poorly, and soon they wouldn't be able to communicate at all. He was wrong, as we clearly have a functioning world with millions of English speakers some 70 years later. I'm not certain, but I believe the ancient Romans or Greeks also complained of the same debasement of their language. They bemoaned and bleated that the young people of their time were a generation that looked down on the world, showing no moral principles and a feeble understanding of grammar and spelling.
I think the people who complain about the language skills of the young have old minds stuck in a new world where communication practices have changed radically and rapidly. The elderly often have difficulty communicating with youth, but the young are the future, and as long as they can communicate effectively, that is sufficient.
Now that was just a quick edit of the stinking tourde you squeezed out for us here on Slashdot. If you are going to write about how narrow-minded prigs are holding back the Voice of Yoot', then kindly do so in a way that demonstrates a fundamental and careful grasp of the language. Otherwise, all you are doing is proving the point of the article - that young people are borderline illiterate dopes incapable of formulating complex thoughts or elucidating anything of insight or value.
Now, kindly go back to school and learn how to write.
Fucktard.
RS
Required homework for this topic (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Try to grade a set of English papers.
2) Read Less Than Words Can Say by Richard Mitchell.
3) Stop and contemplate whether it is really in the best interest of the younger generation to speak and write in a way that makes them uncomprehesible to the older generation.
Then ask yourself: is the language changing in order to become more flexible (a la Shakespeare), or is the language changing in order to accommodate more sloppy thinking? Both could be true in different cases, of course, but on average -- which is the case?
Language is a tool, no more and no less. If you want to mod the tool, then fine. But if in the process you wreck that tool, then your mods need some more thought.
Re:They don't realise language changes. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's laziness, pure and simple, on the part of the writer.
Spelling and grammar weren't standardized just for fun, or as part of some greater conspiracy by the Man to stifle your creativity, but because it makes text a lot easier to read than if everyone makes up their own rules. A reader shouldn't have to go over your writing more than once, trying to figure out what the hell you meant, and that's often what happens when you don't bother to even sort out which word to use.
The fact that a reader can understand you, doesn't mean that you're not being an arrogant and lazy writer, by making them work for what ought to be unambiguous and clear.
Re:Sometimes writing really does change for the wo (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sometimes writing really does change for the wo (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, I'm not a pedant - I'm talking about posts that don't use any capital letters- very rarely use punctuation, and string half-baked thoughts together like popcorn on a Christmas tree. I'm not talking about peo
Re:Sometimes writing really does change for the wo (Score:5, Insightful)
I learned to read when I was three. Over the last twenty years, my brain has gradually optimised the paths used to recognise words and parse phrases and sentences until the point where I can do it very quickly. If you write in a way that is ambiguous, then I have to pause and try both ways of interpreting your sentence. If you spell things incorrectly, then I will have to backtrack and re-parse. If you use 'you're' instead of 'your' (for example) then I will get to the end of your sentence, realise it doesn't make sense, and spend a second re-parsing it. Over the length of an article, then a number of mistakes like this may waste a minute or two of my time[1]. Now, imagine you have 100,000 readers. You have just wasted 100,000 person-minutes. That works out at just under seventy person-days. If you are willing to waste that much time out of laziness then you are no better than a spammer.
[1] Actually, it won't. I will simply decide that if your ideas are not important enough to express well, then they are not important enough for me to read, and move on.
Re:Sometimes writing really does change for the wo (Score:3, Insightful)
You hit upon a key point there. Vocabulary, grammar and spelling are not improved significantly through writing; they are improved by reading well written works that challenge your current knowledge.
The larger your vocabulary, the more accurately you can describe the world. The better your grammar, the more likely you will be to keep your readers interested in the subject matter. The more accurate your spelling the less confusion you will sow among your readers.
wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
And even if you could wrap your head around a concept for which there are no words to describe, how can you communicate it to others? That's the problem. Your ability to think is strongly linked to your language skills. It's not that we wouldn't be able to understand each other, just that nobody would have anything worth saying!
=Smidge=
Re:wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
That is the easy way out. Sure, there are a few rules that can be safely ignored, but grammar is essentally a way to structure your thoughts in written text to be understood by others. Both parties need to know the key to unencrypt the meaning.
Re:wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
Translation of the begining of the article. (Score:2, Funny)
I Blame Webster (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I Blame Webster (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I'm not convinced that the spelling and grammar is any worse these days so much as there are more people writing who wouldn't have in earlier times. Plus, English is a living language in a constant state of flux; there never really was a single correct set of rules.
I suppose I could RTFA, but that would be cheating
Not quite surprising! (Score:5, Interesting)
Why go far, look right here on Slashdot. These are geeks, supposedly the folks who're "smarter" than the average population.
And even here, instead of accepting grammatical and spelling mistakes, people would rather flame you for correcting them. Not to mention the piss-poor quality of writing that most Slashdotters (and the editors) have. If you can follow the rules in a programming language, why is it so hard to do so for a natural language?
Personally, if folks do not communicate in good English, I'd simply not respond - be it IM, SMS or e-mail. And guess what? Most folks talk a lot better English when they're communicating with me, simply because they know that they'd not get a response - or that they'd get their English corrected.
I do not care if you are using e-mail, IM or SMS, use that period and use that apostrophe. Use appropriate and proper punctuation, capitalization, spelling and grammar, else I'm simply not talking to you.
That needs to be the general attitude, if we want to see any semblance of Good English (TM) exist in the next few generations.
Seriously, encourage your kids to look up that dictionary. Encourage them to read good literature, aside from the pop crap that exists today. Encourage them to write, to put down their thoughts. The only way you are going to develop writing skills is by writing.
Don't throw stones... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Not quite surprising! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:English != Programming (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not the whole story (Score:3, Insightful)
To be honest, I read your post and my first thoughts were that you were young, immature and not very bright. maybe not a big deal in a
The abuse of language (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, Unreadability is different from change. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you can't say what you mean, how can you mean what you say?
(I'm doomed now. I've complained about grammar in public. There is certain to be a h
Re:The abuse of language (Score:3, Insightful)
I read books from the 1800's and 1900's regularly, and while the language may sometimes seem a bit stilted and quirky I have never found a case where they have done something as stupid and evil as use an incorrect homophone just because it was shorter to type.
What you're suggesting means that Google's principle "Do No Evil" could mean "Do Know Evil". Or maybe it means "Do Know e-Ville"?
Spelling matters. I'm tired of cryptic email that is so full of typos, misspellings and mangled grammar that
Re:The abuse of language (Score:5, Informative)
Women used to not wear pants.
The aristocracy didn't. It was not too uncommon among the peasantry, since practicality often won out there. Ladies didn't wear trousers, but women most certainly did.
Men had short hair.
For some periods in history, yes. In many cultures, long hair was considered a sign of virility (not surprisingly, since hair growth is linked to testosterone). In the 18th century it was fashionable for men to have long braided hair. The idea that men should have short hair is a fairly modern one.
We were ranked by a persons pedigree and not by their job title or money.
Only among the aristocracy, who didn't have jobs. Among the lower aristocracy wealth was very important. I presume you've read Jane Austin, and therefor recall that Mr Bingley (who only had £5,000 a year) was 'nothing next to Mr Darcy' whose income was £10,000 a year.
Moving further down the social hierarchy, the job was important. Members of the professions (soldiers or priests, for example) were more respected than members of the trades. A professional might hope to marry the younger daughter of a junior aristocrat, while a tradesman would not.
Plus Ça Change, Plus C'est La Même Chose
1984 (Score:5, Funny)
So instead of double speek in 1984, we get half speek in 2006.
Re:1984 (Score:3, Funny)
Apparently we're not even doing that well.
Its teh intarweb (Score:3, Insightful)
What Comic Book Generation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes parents need to understand that they give their children advice, AND an environment. The child may listen to advice, but will not be able to avoid paying attention to their environment. The environment in this case has nothing to do with comic books however.
Paragraphs (Score:3, Funny)
good thing too (Score:4, Insightful)
Some writing is becoming unintelligible (Score:4, Insightful)
i cnt c ur problem m8. :)
But seriously, kiddie slang is one thing, but when the degradation reaches the point at which the writer is no longer understandable, that's not language evolution as part of some natural process of change, that's just illiteracy, pure and simple.
Here's a small anecdote I sometimes relate when this subject comes up. When I'm not messing around on Slashdot, I often help out on some on-line programming forums, particularly those dedicated to helping less experienced people learn new skills. The quality of posts there vary from nicely written, polite, clear requests for help, to L337sp33k "can u do my homework 4 me kthx" drivel. Guess which posts the expert volunteers invest their time answering?
The really saddening thing, though, is when you see a post from someone who clearly is making a genuine effort, but simply isn't making sense because their language skills are so poor. Some of us try to help those people to clarify what they're asking and to form their questions more helpfully, but at the end of the day, their lack of literacy is directly disadvantaging them. If that's what they get on a board dedicated to helping them and run by volunteers who are willing to give up a certain amount of their time for that purpose, what are they going to get in the job market, for example?
Orwell said it better (Score:5, Insightful)
Orwell wrote this same essay with more style and more grace in 1946. He also wrote it with a point in mind. It's called 'Politics and the English Language'. Google it and read it instead of this lame Wired article.
This essay is just a rant and that the coming generation is doomed, doomed, doomed! People have been saying that about the coming generation since ancient times. Ironically for someone who criticizes the emptiness of writing in the modern age, the author also says very little. Some writing by some people sucks. There are a lot of some people. Duh.
The author also ignores the enormous quantity of written material produced on a daily basis. Just because his friends and acquaintences are semi-literate doesn't mean the rest of us travel in the same circles of bad grammar and poor diction. It's really a sort of pompous thing to say from a position of authority that 'the world' can't write, read MY article it will tell you so. Sigh. Noob.
Other pressures (Score:4, Insightful)
Stamp Out Bad Words! (Score:4, Insightful)
What total losage.
I blame comic books. They contribute to a short attention span. Fucking comic books, with their pretty pictures and busty, half-clad superwomen. Mmmmm.... Superwoman. If Superwoman and Wonder Woman had a fight in, say, a tub of Jell-o, who do you think would lose her top first?
More people communicate today than have ever communicated before. The poor grammar they exhibit is probably a result of these amatuers being, well, amatuers. People 100 years ago mostly didn't write; those that did were generally better-educated.
I would say that literacy is on the rise, not the inverse.
Comic Book Generation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course he might mean manga, having been confused by the mysterious ways of the distant orient. Given that a huge percentage of the population read manga over in Japan, and use e-mail and texting, this must account for their horrific litteracy rates. Horrifically high that is.
College Grading (Score:4, Interesting)
Stops that "Hey prof U are keepin me outta grad skool can i meet U @ yr office 2 talk?
Turning it off and on is the problem. (Score:5, Interesting)
historical myopia (Score:4, Funny)
bullshit
what is going on is that some people are almost autistic in their attachment to certain signifiers of what "good language" is or what "moral behavior" is
human beings need morality, and they need to communicate. these needs are nver going away, nor are our ability to satisfy those needs ever going away
it is just that, from one century to the next, what signifies these things changes
but so you have some people becoming hysterical ninnies because what signifies these things to them changes, and they can't deal with it
they're just brittle people
Re:historical myopia (Score:3, Insightful)
A classic example of the smug "I'm on the cutting edge of language, I just look dumb" crowd that spurn clear communication as old-fashioned. Capitals, and most typographic conventions, add information to your writing for a tiny, tiny amount of extra effort. Throwing away (which is not the same as developing) a system which has been honed by centuries of trial and error is a sign of foolishness and an inability to grasp complex ideas rather than any
the point is to communicate (Score:3, Funny)
of course, you won't ever admit that
you're to busy getting off on the vile evil i've committed of not capitalizing
whatever, yawn
the point is to communicate
everything else, EVERYTHING ELSE, is superfluous
if you can understand the idea i was trying to communicate, the language did it's job
everything else, ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING ELSE, is superfluous, wasteful, unnecessary semantic structure
you're demonstrating my point (Score:3, Funny)
if i write:
the dog ate the bone, the dog was happy
or i write:
The dog ate the bone. The dog was happy.
i've said the same thing, communicated the same idea, made the same point
again: communication is what is important. if i can recreate the idea in your head with the minimum of effort required, i've done my job. everything else, ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING ELSE, is superfluous and unnecessary
the first sentence is no different than the last, but
not to be flip, but isn't this natural? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, not everyone can be a rocket scientist. Some folks have to take less mentally-strenuous jobs, and the upside to that is that it takes less education and effort to get a job that focuses on rote process or repetitive simple problem-solving. Of course, there's the whole unfairness issue relating to people who work in jobs that are physically or emotionally draining for shit pay, but that's not the issue here. It used to be that motivated people could rise to hit the maximum vocation that their formal or self education allowed. Now it seems that educated people sink to the vocational level that their self motivation and application of that education allows. Same effect, no?
My brother, for example, is an overeducated undermotivated weenie who's dumbed himself down with IM-speak, and wonders why he's not an appealing job candidate. But that brings up an interesting issue: I don't think that the deterioration of language skills can be examined in a vacuum. What about the deterioration of social skills that seems to accompany the IM-speak txting crap? IM/TXT communciations involve effects from reduced level of effort, lack of persistence, reduced affect, and perceived levels of anonymity.
All I have is anecdotal evidence, but the idea of sending thank-you letters, participating in professional societies, and writing articles for review by your peers seems totally alien to that crowd. And I don't mean to be stuck-up about that. An article for your peers might be a well-written blog entry or a political rant in email, not necessarily an academic paper. >>>> My point is that if you notice that people are sharing soundbites instead of whole ideas, then it makes sense to take a look at the mode of sharing, not just the sound-bite vs whole-idea issue.
Jon
anachrolicious (Score:5, Insightful)
Undergraduate students' writing skills (Score:4, Informative)
I think that over the course of the module, most students did improve somewhat and they said that they enjoyed it. However, I have doubts about how much of what they learned will stick during the rest of their studies. I feel that it will be pretty hard for them to undo fifteen years of neglect of their English writing skills.
Technology Exposes Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF? (Score:5, Funny)
BRB
Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
Windows is Shutting Down by Clive James (Score:4, Interesting)
On their last leg. So what am we to do?
A letter of complaint go just so far,
Proving the only one in step are you.
Better, perhaps, to simply let it goes.
A sentence have to be screwed pretty bad
Before they gets to where you doesnt knows
The meaning what it must of meant to had.
The meteor have hit. Extinction spread,
But evolution do not stop for that.
A mutant languages rise from the dead
And all them rules is suddenly old hat.
Too bad for we, us what has had so long
The best seat from the only game in town.
But there it am, and whom can say its wrong?
Those are the break. Windows is shutting down.
Clive James in The Guardian -- Saturday April 30, 2005
Language and the Speed of Change (Score:4, Insightful)
Change, as noted by "Future Shock" and several more reputable sources, has accelerated in the past fifty years at breakneck speed. Discussions of our inability as people to absorb all of this change have led to the by now familiar "Singularity" discussions. If even a fraction of this is true, it would stand to reason that language and its use would be one of the first place this all manifests.
I am less interested in protecting the "King's English" than I am with the ability of one generation to communicate with the next in a complex and meaningful way. There is plenty of well written discourse on the Internet. I do not see that declining. The ghettoization of language as a marketing tool worries me a bit more, since it is sold as a generational identity.
My conversations with people in their early twenties shows me they are just as bright and articulate as anyone. Their opinions on language are much different. One of my favorites is the compression of language and meaning in rap music. Rap is a great place to look at the elasticity of language. Aside from the "bitches and ho's " rhetoric, which is the low end of that artform, there is clear and skillful use of language, rhythm and tone at work.
The other movement in language is the migration to visual rather than verbal communication. Language is no longer just about words. Image has changed the way we speak, the way we communicate, the way we articualte. The "comic-book" culture may not be a bad thing. The issue is not about comics- this is a medium that has a powerful and complex ability to communicate. The issue is that it is used mostly to communicate sex and power fantasies. However, I find it interesting that Dan Clowes now has a weekly comic that runs in the New York Times Magazine.
There is some virtue to being a "keeper of the flame" as far a literature is concerned. But television, movies and the internet are changing the concepts of literature. In the 21st century, is a good library just books, or does it include DVDs and CDs as well?
Part of the issue might have to do with the definition of language. If we insist on sticking to the definition where language is exclusively the written word, then language indeed might be in trouble, but not for the reasons mentioned.
A simple test (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically :
If you cannot read an End User License Agreement and understand what it is saying, you need to improve your English skills. NOW.
Legalese is the last bastion of specifically correct, carefully worded, properly formed English. Even words such as "shall" or "should" - the meaning of which can usually be inferred in everyday English - are often explicitly defined to avoid confusion. And you can be damned sure that Legalese is not going anywhere soon. If you can't comprehend Legalese (or any form of complex English), you're going to end up in a whole lot of trouble one day down the track. If you can comprehend it, you essentially have a grasp of the correct structure and form of Modern English.
The leet-speak, IM'ing crowd can poo-pooh it as much as they want, but learning correct English will serve you well in the future.
Old fart (Score:4, Insightful)
This is when I stopped reading TFA. So, pray tell, master of what is wrong with education, when exactly should our intrepid students learn to use a calculator, one of the most useful inventions since we got rid of the slide rule?
This a falicious argument that when taken to its logical conclusion implies that all students should understand particle physics in order to use the web. While it may be true that learning how to do long division gives a student some greater insight into how math works, that doesn't mean that it is useful to them. I know how to do long division, and I think I understand division a little better because I do, but was the three years it took to learn in elementary school worth it? I've used this "greater understanding" maybe 4 or 5 times in my life. I don't think it was worth 3 years of my young life, when I could've been learning something more relevant to modern life.
There are lots of things that are useful to know, but we're not going to learn all of them. And teaching kids things we learned just because we had to, has more to do with bitterness about things like long division and less to do with their success in life.
Communication is not grammar (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because you don't care how people older than you speak doesn't mean you'll never interact with them. You don't have to have to be an English Professor but at least know how to spell!
It's about communication not grammar.