Say what??

I have a friend who often says "the world is ruled by high school drop outs."  I totally understand what she means, everywhere you go you have to deal with people who drop particles and always want to ax you something.  Store clerks, some waiters, anywhere where you don't need a diploma you'll find people working there that don't have one.  It's a sad reality but don't let it get to you.  When people speak phonetically it just means they are somewhat illiterate - and yet it's not really their fault.  Best to write to your congressman.

 

I's dun c da problim, ur 2 sensyteeve englis as a furst langwage ees harrd.



I know what you mean. I have a better vocabulary then a lot people due to the amount of books I have read over the years. while I graduated high school and went to a vocational college for for computers. More people ask me about the grammatical structure of a sentence (or simple spelling) then my wife with her fancy pants degree. Although she does know anything I do about it and can construct a better resume then me.

 

Email actually hastened the decline of language, as folks developed more and more shortcuts and abbreviations. Then came texting, and all bets were off.

But all this just intensified a trend that has been going on since school became a place for social development rather than a place where you learn to read, write, and add.

About 25 years ago I was in Boston on business and went to visit my school. This is BU's School of Public Communication. One of my old professors told me, with disgust, that the single largest enrollment in any class was remedial reading.

Can you imagine? These kids wanted to be journalists, but couldn't put together a simple declarative sentence.

The matter of invented verbs is particular irksome to me. "Chef" is a noun, for instance, not a verb, and there's no more meaningless word than "cheffing."

 

lol, what about "sexting" or any one our ex-presidents made up words? Thinkify on that.

 

It is really sad that that joke is so very accurate. I dated a girl in High School whose mother talked like that all the time who was also proud of being pregnant at 16 and dropping out of High School. Coincidentally her daughter was really intelligent. Stupidity must skip generations.

 

Yes the written word is not written in stone anymore. Wow I must be getting old ....I sound like my parents! When my son was a teen ..I would over hear him chatting with his buddies and not really understand most of what they were saying ....It's their world now ,they are our future presidents! Scary ? You bet!   My daughter on the other hand is a Journalism student so she is always politically correct as well as just always correct!
I have a good command of the English Language .... .... but it does not help when keys  stick while emailing !

I wonder if we put Einstein in front of a computer today, if he could figure it out?

(You know, he could not spell)

food for thought   

Gypsy

 

The language was never written in stone, Gypsy. It evolves. New words enter, and old words change meanings. But when it reaches the point where we no longer communicate, then it isn't language anymore.

We shouldn't confuse language with cant and jargon, though. Those are subsets of English, used by specific groups to set themselves apart.

F'rinstance, you were a teen, once. And shared a "secret" language with your peers. How much of that language do you still use? Same goes for trade groups. Even those of us involved in the culinary arts have our own language. But it isn't regular English, and we don't expect that regular folks necessarily know what we're talking about. The ultimate in that has to be diner speak.

 

Well not to be anul but the first written word was in stone ( a tablet as they called it then) and  well we all know what happened to those who would not conform!
Conform to the norm is not for this Gypsy ....Being in the kitchen for so many years it's a given. Some of the best people in the world I have worked with could hardly speak English. They were so good at what they did I didn't care....Accountability and can you work together as a team and groove in that kitchen ....I don't judge anyone....only if you cannot walk the walk ...talk is cheap 

Back to the grind

Gypsy

 

A quote comes to mind here:

  [font=Garamond, Times, Serif]"If we would please in society, we must be prepared to be taught many things we already know by people who do not know them."[/font]
                                                 

     [font=Garamond, Times, Serif]Chamfort[/font]
 

 

Whats the betting, Presentate will become a "word" along with all the other oditties that are finding their way into the oxford dictionary... If it's said often enough, It becomes real. Strange, but true.
How many examples can you think of?

 

Needless to say, being illiterate doesn't mean you're stupid.  There are illiterate people who are very very smart - they have to be to get by without reading and writing! 

I know lots of very literate stupid people.  Several former presidents in fact.

I had a teacher once who told me "If you can't do, teach.  If you can't teach, teach teachers."

 

Nor, for that matter, does literacy necessarily have anything to do with schooling.

If you're old enough to remember Eric Hoffer, you know what I mean. Hoffer was one of the intellectual darlings of the New Left, back in the '60s and '70s. A longshoreman by trade, he'd never been to school, but was widely read in numerous disciplines.

Somebody once said about him, "being self-educated, he never had to read a bad book." One of the truest indictments of the American education system I've ever heard.

I had a teacher once who told me "If you can't do, teach.  If you can't teach, teach teachers."

Lot's of variations on that one, KK. The original quote, from GB Shaw, was: "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." Somebody later on added, "Those who can't teach teach teachers how to teach."

A former neighbor of mine was Al Cullum, who literally invented the concept of creative play (his term for the idea that there's no reason learning can't be fun). It's probably long out of print, but his book detailing the concept was called Push Back The Desks.

One quick example. He discovered, in his classroom, a trapdoor leading to an unused storage space. He cleaned it out, and tacked math problems to the walls. The kids then had to earn the right to go down into "King Tut's Tomb," with a flashlight, choose a problem, and solve it. Imagine that! Elementary students competing for the right to solve math problems. Amazing what you can do when you make a game out of it.

At any rate, he'd finally decided it would be nice to get his PhD, and enrolled in an Ed School of some repute for that purpose. He stopped attending after about three months, because he was appaled over what was being taught under the guise of teaching skills.

 

Well, waddayaknow. Still used copies of Push Back The Desks available from Amazon. If anyone's interested in reading it, you can find it here: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...&field-keywords=Push+Back+The+Desks&x=11&y=19

 

 Hofstra University in Long Island also gives a Refresher Course ?? in remedial reading..  Ask today who is vice pres. or for that matter whats 42 x 12  God Knows. I am glad I went to school when I did.

 

Remedial reading classes became quite common at the college level when then went to open enrollment, Ed. So it wasn't that, per se, that surprised me. 

What's shocking is that we're talking about kids who can't read or write coming to a school so they could become reporters. Just what do they think the job entails?

 

 Yes! it became common, because we lowered the standards of admission. The school I taught in( High School) we were not permitted to fail or hold a student back. We needed the room for new students.

 

Yeah, Ed. That's why the education business is so special.

They spend 8 years not teaching them basic skills, then go to conventions where they ponder the issue of "Why Johnny Can't Read." 

Strange how those of us who are not teachers had no problem understanding the answer. "Because you didn't teach him how, is why!"

 

I just had a meeting with the administrators at one of the schools where I teach.  We're putting together an end of the year performance and met to discuss the logistics.  They began the meeting telling us that the school ranked as the 8th best elementary school in nyc.  /img/vbsmilies/smilies/eek.gif   Horriffying!  My 3-6th graders at that school can hardly read!  Why on earth are they patting themselves on the back?

 

Pertaining to teaching- watch what's going on in New Jersey.