You start imagining warning stickers at certain dark corners of the Internets and the YouTubes that read like this:
warning: the national Communo-Fascist Government wishes to inform You that reading this Web Site may have Unintended side affects upon your Ability to capitolize, punctuate and other righting skills.
The gubmint will utilize youth in asia to pull the plug on grandma.
YLB, Back in my college days I was to give a speech and my prof kept suggesting that I give one on “youth in Asia”. For a week or two I wondered, WTF are the youth in Asia up to that would make a great subject for a speech? Did it have something to do with the war that was still raging in SE Asia? I eventually had a “Duh!!” moment. He was right, it was a great subject.
Where’s Puddy these days? There’s something going on that I want to tell him about.
Rightwing blatherers aren’t the only ones who can’t spell or use simple grammar. Illiteracy has gone viral in the journalistic world, too. There was a time when journalists were expected to set a literacy standard for the masses, and copy editors knew that if they didn’t correct every misspelling and ungrammatical usage in every day’s edition of the newspaper, their readers would do it for them. All of that is gone. We’re now a nation whose colleges teach remedial reading and writing at the 7th grade level.
Look, I frequently have my own problems with spelling. It’s been a lifelong struggle for me to spell properly. Perhaps it’s my southern upbringing, but to me many vowels sound alike, and if I try to spell it the way it sounds (to me) I get into trouble every time. And spelling any words with French origins are completely beyond my understanding. So I try not to be too judgemental.
But when my wife and I volunteered to put out the school newspaper for our children’s elementary school, we were shocked. Not because of the submissions by the children – there weren’t that many. We were shocked by the poor quality of the submissions by the teachers. We had to do some rather massive editing to make it readable.
@5 “judgemental” = judgmental
“We had to do some rather massive editing to make it readable.”
But isn’t that the ultimate purpose of doing it correctly?
Typos notwithstanding, I’m a good speller, and always have been. How does become adept at spelling words correctly? There are two principal ways. First, people who read a lot, and therefore see the same words over and over, can spot spellings that “don’t look right.” Second, use a dictionary, which has never been easier. In the old days, English students were taught to keep a hefty tome at hand and to consult it frequently when reading (to look up the definitions of unfamiliar words) and even more frequently when writing (to make sure they’re using the right words and spelling them correctly). Nowadays, the tedium of manual dictionary look-ups has been superseded by marvelous electronic spell checkers and online dictionaries. Today, it takes a modicum of effort, that’s all — and an attitude of caring.
Of course, many people don’t care if their writing sucks. A person who doesn’t care about craftsmanship won’t be a craftsman. That’s fine if you believe sloppy work always suffices, in all circumstances. But if that were true, craft never would have been invented in the first place. It exists because people perceived a need for it. In the sphere of the wordsmith’s trade, the value of craftsmanship is to ensure accuracy of communication, i.e. what is read is what was written. As in any other craft, it takes some effort — and a belief in the value of investing the extra effort required to do it right.
From time to time the pudster retreats to the “Fortress of Pudditude”…especially after the brutal ass kickings he’s been getting here lately.
WRITE ON!!!!
These warning stickers a yet another unwarranted intrusion on the part of a bloated, ever expanding, rapacious, socialistic big gubmint into the private relationship between free citizens and ignorance.
Once we approve of big government efforts aimed at lessening ignorance and fear, we start down the slippery slope toward totalitarianism.
And cannibalism too!
Play Scrabble!
re 10: No one beets me at Scrapple!
Eye’m da bets fore shizzle
re 12: Who knew?? (Arms slightly bent and extended, palms up, and shrugging — like Atlas?? — Where is it written??)
@9 Yeah, every Republican knows that if you send your kids to public schools they’ll end up eating each other.
I am still at a loss to know that this post is about.
However, I have this persistent vision of the “health care reform” argument, and it goes something like this:
Yes, the wonders of modern democracy. And apparently, the shortcomings of modern mental health care.