Why can't people write?

[Dan Friedrichs]

I realize not everyone is gifted in the art of writing effectively, but in the last week alone, I've seen the following:

I test drove a car at a dealership whose slogan was, "If you buy somewhere else, you paid too much!". How can not a single person who works at this huge dealership see the mismatched verb tense in that?

In a fairly-upscale restaurant, I saw a sign for the " RESTROOM'S ". I'm curious what it is that the restrooms own.

In a letter from a car dealer I found this gem of a sentence: "If you loose these documents they will need to be replaced this is expensive and you will have to pay for them." Hopefully my new car will "run on" for as long as that sentence did...

In the catalog for a smaller woodworking tool supplier, I barely made it 3 pages in before setting the catalog aside in disgust with how poorly written it was. The little bit that I read was rife with usage errors, punctuation mistakes, and misspellings.


Is it just me, or are these sort of things appearing more often? I fear that a generation of functionally illiterate citizens will leave us with no one to correct the mistakes.

[Prashun Patel]

your absilutly write;

[John Coloccia]

your absilutly write;

Stop making fun oh him pRashun hes a nice guy thats pretty funny about the restrooms maybe they own the coat hook ha ha

!

[Tom Winship]

The goal of our education system is to bring everyone to the same level, so we can communicate.

[bob svoboda]

Never could figure out how to loose a document.

[Chris Padilla]

Not a spelling/grammatical issue but the slogan:

"We'll beat anyone's price or it's free!"

The only way they'd give away something for free is if the price to beat is 1 cent. :confused:

[Dan Hintz]

The goal of our education system is to bring everyone to the same level, so we can communicate.
Unfortunately, that level is riiiiight above my kneecap...

[Dave Anderson NH]

Tom has hit the nail on the head. In arithmetic it's called the lowest common denominator.

[Joe Leigh]

The dumbing (I know it's not a real word) down of our once great nation reaches far beyond grammatical errors. When's the last time anyone under the age of 25 wrote in script? Is it still taught? We are raising generations of kids who cannot tell time on a wristwatch, much less construct a legible sentence.

[Chuck Wintle]

I realize not everyone is gifted in the art of writing effectively, but in the last week alone, I've seen the following:

I test drove a car at a dealership whose slogan was, "If you buy somewhere else, you paid too much!". How can not a single person who works at this huge dealership see the mismatched verb tense in that?

In a fairly-upscale restaurant, I saw a sign for the " RESTROOM'S ". I'm curious what it is that the restrooms own.

In a letter from a car dealer I found this gem of a sentence: "If you loose these documents they will need to be replaced this is expensive and you will have to pay for them." Hopefully my new car will "run on" for as long as that sentence did...

In the catalog for a smaller woodworking tool supplier, I barely made it 3 pages in before setting the catalog aside in disgust with how poorly written it was. The little bit that I read was rife with usage errors, punctuation mistakes, and misspellings.


Is it just me, or are these sort of things appearing more often? I fear that a generation of functionally illiterate citizens will leave us with no one to correct the mistakes.

the english language is easy to learn but difficult to master and the ability to write effectively is not a given.

[Mike Cruz]

I've said it before, I'll say it again...

Think about how stupid the average person is...half the population is dumber (like that? ;) ) than that... Makes you sad, doesn't it?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Technology will add to the problems too!

JMHO.........DAMHIKt........CUL8R

[Don Alexander]

we embarked on a very treacherous journey when English class "evolved" into Language Arts; at first it was just a name, but the farther we travel down that slippery slope the less it resembles English and the more it resembles Art

communication may be the single most important skill for people to master , however that requires a few simple concepts that have been scorned ; such as sentence structure, grammar and vocabulary. To use a building analogy vocabulary is the footing upon which the foundation (grammar) and the building itself (sentence structure) depend.

Communication is a 2 way street; the person speaking or writing needs to know what the words mean in order to say what is meant and just as importantly the person/people hearing/reading it also need to know what the words mean in order to understand what is being communicated.
When neither side the equation have a good grasp of the basic meaning of words then what you end up with is chaos instead of communication.
This is a very disturbing trend if you stop to think about it for a minute. As the father of a college freshman and a high school senior i find that getting my kids to understand what i am saying to them often is an exercise in making sure they understand what the words mean. I shudder to think just how poor their communication skills would be had we not insisted from the start that they learn the meaning of the words they use.
Communicating with their teachers and school counselors over the years has been enlightening as far as just how badly communication skills have eroded over the years

ok enough of ranting :) i'll step off my soapbox now :D

[Chuck Wintle]

don't forget that English is the dominant language of the planet...yet it is one of the most flexible languages so it is adapted locally to make it work. Pratt and Whitney use English exclusively in all company communications. They issue a small dictionary of about 800 words so those whose first language is not english can make themselves understood when communicating. That said, where i live the English language is almost outlawed...i hope to live to the day when this is no longer the case.

Long live the Queens English and all those who use it!

[Roger Newby]

i spik 3 language....inglish best

[Chuck Tringo]

I was reading today that US high school students ranked 13th in the world last year in science based on what is taught at the schools as well as how well the students achieved. China and South Korea were in the top 5...The world's only super power is in more trouble than you know...

[Marty Paulus]

Couple of points: Just saw in the news that somewhere in the neighborhood of 39% of college grads are no smarter then the first day they hit the campus. That in itself is scary since most jobs these days require some form of college degree.

Second, Many of the catalogs may be written in another country and run though a rough translator. Try typing a sentence in a translator program like Google translate. Translate from english to some asian language then translate that sentence back to english and see what you get. If I am not mistaken most other languages have different sentence structures then we do. Need more proof? When is the last time you tried to read an owners manual or assembly instructions?

I agree that the english language is the hardest to learn. We have so many words that, while spelled the same, mean two totally different things. One form may be a verb while the other a noun (lead comes to mind). How difficlut is that to teach? What about a word that changes tense depending on its usage? Read comes to mind.

One more is I agree with the technology thing. The kids today are growing up with the texting way of communication. We use in here but no nearly to the extent the kids do. I have heard it is showing up in the school work. Can any of you business owners comment on the abilty of one of these texting wizards to land a job in your company?

[Leigh Betsch]

Just try to read some of the news stories on Yahoo. I know I am not as articulate as I would like, but it totally amazes me how poorly many of these paid professionals write.

[Michael James]

Second, Many of the catalogs may be written in another country and run though a rough translator. ...When is the last time you tried to read an owners manual or assembly instructions?

Yeah, man, we be there! My absolute all time favorite was on a little import cassette recorder....."push button and pray".:)

[Dan Friedrichs]

Couple of points: Just saw in the news that somewhere in the neighborhood of 39% of college grads are no smarter then the first day they hit the campus. That in itself is scary since most jobs these days require some form of college degree.

Here's the article on that: http://chronicle.com/article/Are-Undergraduates-Actually/125979/
That is a really scary read.




One more is I agree with the technology thing. The kids today are growing up with the texting way of communication. We use in here but no nearly to the extent the kids do. I have heard it is showing up in the school work. Can any of you business owners comment on the abilty of one of these texting wizards to land a job in your company?

I'm not a business owner, but having recently taught undergrads at a public ivy, I would concur that "texting-style communication" (and the lack of formality and professionalism associated with it), as well as many other factors, have resulted in many young people who are unable to produce written work that is anywhere close to the expected standards.

[Jim Koepke]

We are raising generations of kids who cannot tell time on a wristwatch, much less construct a legible sentence.

I had a problem with young people, to me that is people under 30 at the time, while trying to explain that a screw with 40 threads per inch could be used to change adjustments on a machine. I tried to explain that turning it 15 minutes or 90° would change the adjustment .00625". They could not figure out what I meant by 15 minutes being the same as 90°. They kind of when nuts when told that turning it 5 minutes would be about .002". One guy suggested that he could unscrew the whole assembly in less than a minute.


Think about how stupid the average person is...half the population is dumber

Not to be a picker of nits here, but I think half of the population is less intelligent than the mean, (the term or one of the terms midway between the first and last terms of a progression).

Depending on if we have more highly intelligent or a few that are quite the opposite, more than half of the average could be on either side of the divide. Kind of like sitting in a bar and Bill Gates walks in. The average income shoots way up, but only one is above the average.


Just try to read some of the news stories on Yahoo. I know I am not as articulate as I would like, but it totally amazes me how poorly many of these paid professionals write.

I do not think Yahoo News is written in North America. A quick search on > who writes yahoo news < did not give a definitive answer. Read not long ago that a lot of news agencies are using overseas writers to save money.

In high school, my English class grades were atrocious. My spelling is not all that good, thank God and many others for spell checkers. My grammar can also be off or even the wrong word in the wrong place. But I was able to teach myself to use a keyboard.

Public education has become unwieldy and parents expect the schools to do their job in many cases.

I feel sorry for the teacher that has no control over a classroom and no support to take back the control.

It isn't going to get better if we don't do something to make it better.

jtk

[Glenn Vaughn]

I had a problem with young people, to me that is people under 30 at the time, while trying to explain that a screw with 40 threads per inch could be used to change adjustments on a machine. I tried to explain that turning it 15 minutes or 90° would change the adjustment .00625". They could not figure out what I meant by 15 minutes being the same as 90°. They kind of when nuts when told that turning it 5 minutes would be about .002". One guy suggested that he could unscrew the whole assembly in less than a minute.jtk

The "15 minutes or 90°" either is incorrect or does not reference the same type of measurements. In a full circle there are 360 degrees. Each degree is split up into 60 parts, each part being 1/60 of a degree. These parts are called minutes. Each minute is split up into 60 parts, each part being 1/60 of a minute. These parts are called seconds. Therfore 16 minutes would be 1/4 of a degree not 90°. It is apparent the reference to "15 minutes" is to the movement of the minute hand on a clock face not as an an angle measurement.

[Tom Winship]

I was in 4th grade with a boy named Buster. He was tough but not a bully. That was Buster's 3rd or 4th year in the 4th grade. He didn't get promoted with us either. I've often thought that Buster was born 40 years too soon. Today, the answer would be, "we can't have a child stay in the 4th grade 5 years!" So I'm afraid he would have been promoted right on through graduation and would be the guy about who we are talking tonight.
Oh and by the way, the teacher would have been reprimanded.

[Tom Winship]

PS: I once got 30 points knocked off a term paper in high school because the teacher said I wrote in the margin. Under magnification, it showed that I didn't. When I brought this to the attention of the English teacher she said, "well you were too close anyway".
My grade didn't change and I learned a lifelong lesson; don't tempt fate.
By the way, I graduated in the top 10% of my class. As a matter of fact, my best friend and I were the top 10% of the class.

[Belinda Barfield]

It ain't jes the writin', it's the speakin' too. I was going to post one of my favorite overheard statements, but decided to just post the link.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?151599-This-explains-the-decline-of-the-U.S.&highlight=This+explains+the+decline

[Dan Hintz]

Glenn got ya on that one, Jim ;-)

I don't consider the lack of ability to tell time on an analog clock to be a dumbing down, I simply consider it a skill not taught... I see no shame in no longer teaching skills that are becoming less and less important. How many students today learn how to use a sliderule in engineering classes? None, but I don't feel that hampers them in any way. What hampers them is their reliance on the calculator without understanding the problem at hand... but the same could be said for the sliderule.

[John Coloccia]

Just try to read some of the news stories on Yahoo. I know I am not as articulate as I would like, but it totally amazes me how poorly many of these paid professionals write.

It's not just Yahoo news...it's all of them. I constantly find myself having to take a deep breath and to simply reread the same sentence, over and over again, until it makes sense. Sometimes I win, sometimes I give up. I've also noticed this trend where writers try to be clever by never referring someone by the same name twice. One guy in one article will be referred to as, "The defendent", "David", "Dave", "Ortiz", "Jane's brother", "Taxi cab driver", etc.

I routinely see peoples names mentioned with NO reference as to who they are and how they're related to the story. "Jim Basalli told reporters today that his car was not involved in the robbery." Who the heck is Jim? Why would anyone think his car was involved? Are we just listing all the cars that weren't involved? My car wasn't involved. Should I schedule an AP interview? It's become absolutely torturous to read a lot of this garbage.

At first I thought it was me. I seriously started wondering if I was starting to suffer from some early onset cognitive slippage of some sort. Then I read other stories, obviously written by old timers, that are perfectly clear and to the point, and it's like a breath of fresh air. I can simply read the story and get the information without having to take notes.

[Bob Turkovich]

Glenn got ya on that one, Jim ;-)

I don't consider the lack of ability to tell time on an analog clock to be a dumbing down, I simply consider it a skill not taught... I see no shame in no longer teaching skills that are becoming less and less important. How many students today learn how to use a sliderule in engineering classes? None, but I don't feel that hampers them in any way. What hampers them is their reliance on the calculator without understanding the problem at hand... but the same could be said for the sliderule.


I still have my Post Versalog self-lubricating bamboo slide rule from over 40 years ago..........forgot how to use it, but I still have it! :o

[Connie Gill]

179953 Here is another good example - This is an actual street sign in our little town. There has been quite a bit of poking and pointing but guess what...it is still up there...

[Scott Shepherd]

I have an easy answer! I speak for millions of people just like me. My English teachers were the worst at connecting with students. I mean the worst. It was everything I could do to stay awake in that class. There's a lot of people out there that have no interest at all in literature when growing up. Forcing me to try and learn something that I have no interest in is a challenge. However, other teachers were able to do it. English teachers......not so much. I hated English class with a passion. From the time I entered high school until the time I left.

I've seen a lot worse example by a lot smarter people. Lay off us "Englishly Challenged" :) We don't mean no body no harm :p

[Prashun Patel]

Hahahahaha! That sign is SO FUNNY! I can't believe they actually put 2 spaces between the 21th and the St!

[Belinda Barfield]

I routinely see peoples names mentioned with NO reference as to who they are and how they're related to the story. "Jim Basalli told reporters today that his car was not involved in the robbery." Who the heck is Jim? Why would anyone think his car was involved? Are we just listing all the cars that weren't involved? My car wasn't involved. Should I schedule an AP interview? It's become absolutely torturous to read a lot of this garbage.


Have I mentioned lately how pleasant it is to have coffee shoot out of my nose? :D



179953 Here is another good example - This is an actual street sign in our little town. There has been quite a bit of poking and pointing but guess what...it is still up there...

Connnie, does your town have a Twenty Twoth Street as well. I live in the 900 building of my condo complex and some residents live in the next building . . . the "ten hundred" building.



I have an easy answer! I speak for millions of people just like me. My English teachers were the worst at connecting with students. I mean the worst. It was everything I could do to stay awake in that class. There's a lot of people out there that have no interest at all in literature when growing up. Forcing me to try and learn something that I have no interest in is a challenge. However, other teachers were able to do it. English teachers......not so much. I hated English class with a passion. From the time I entered high school until the time I left.

I've seen a lot worse example by a lot smarter people. Lay off us "Englishly Challenged" :) We don't mean no body no harm :p

Ditto Steve! I could have graduated high school at the end of my junior year except for the fact that I lacked one English credit. I attended the first quarter of my senior year to fulfill the English requirement by taking Business English.

[Joe Leigh]

I don't consider the lack of ability to tell time on an analog clock to be a dumbing down, I simply consider it a skill not taught...

How then, will you explain to your analog impaired pupils the meaning of "clockwise/counterclockwise"? Does directional rotation matter in their world? Wait, I got it, "righty tighty lefty loosey" Come to think of it, that was one of the questions on my Trigonometry Regents....never mind....

[Dan Hintz]

How then, will you explain to your analog impaired pupils the meaning of "clockwise/counterclockwise"? Does directional rotation matter in their world? Wait, I got it, "righty tighty lefty loosey" Come to think of it, that was one of the questions on my Trigonometry Regents....never mind....
I simply explain that clockwise means rotating in this direction (with hand motions) and counter-clockwise means rotating in that direction. It's no different than if I said rotate a screw alpha or beta, it's simply a convention easy to remember for those who can already read an analog clock... but knowing how to read an analog clock is not a pre-requisite to understanding the concept of counter-rotating directions labeled arbitrarily, as long as the convention is kept the same from person to person.

[Stephen Tashiro]

There has been evidence that the country has been going downhill since the days of Sputnik - math skills deteriorating, English skills deteriorating, going off the gold standard. I thinks it says less about the trajectory of the nation than the constant level of agitation in old people and TV commentators.

The strength of the US educational and political systems isn't that they maintain some static standards of "excellence", as defined by a particular generation. Their strength is that they keep changing. (For example, in the days of Sputnik, I attended segregated schools.) Feeling exasperated by the education that younger people are getting? - good! It's best they don't get the one that you got.

There was never a time when the general population wrote, computed and reasoned well. The statistics about how one country is 5 th or 35 th in the world might have some useful information, but it can't be deciphered until we know what part population was being tested and how much the tests measured something that can be taught vs some innate skill. Plus, it might not matter how the average person scores on these things. When a particular skill is a critical part of a job, you don't pick a person with an average skill level to do it.

[Rick Moyer]

Stephen, you make some good points, but I believe that the issue is to what level "average skill" really is anymore.

[Glenn Vaughn]

Look on the bright side. An IQ of 100 is supposed to denote "average" intelligence. As the population dumbs down our IQ will increase; eventually we will all be geniuses:rolleyes:

[Jim Koepke]

What hampers them is their reliance on the calculator without understanding the problem at hand... but the same could be said for the sliderule.

In my experience using a slide rule involved getting inside the problem. It also presented a whole scale of answers next to the line.

A calculator only has buttons and a screen with jut one possible answer.


The "15 minutes or 90°" either is incorrect or does not reference the same type of measurements... It is apparent the reference to "15 minutes" is to the movement of the minute hand on a clock face not as an an angle measurement.

Yes, though it was not in my post, the original instructions did include the reference to a clock's face. Some just were not familiar with analog clocks. Some had actually seen them but never learned how to read them. My son was coming up in that generation and we forced him to learn to tell analog time. One of my wife's hobbies is to work on wooden burls and make clocks. They just don't look right if the are digital.

Trying to teach a person how a feeler gauge is supposed to be used is another challenge. Especially when someone has an incorrect assumption. It is almost impossible to teach them that the gauge isn't supposed to be trapped to the point of deformation when making a setting.

It must be one of those catch-22 things. The very reason those who know the least think they know the most is precisely because the know the least.

jtk

[Don Williams Michigan]

All of you have made good points. Think about the last time a young person who was working as a cashier tried to give you change. If they are not looking at the results of the cash register, they have no clue! Also, several years ago I asked several recent college graduates who worked for me to answer some very basic American history questions. They did not know the answers to the following questions: Who was John Wilkes Booth? Which country attacked Pearl Harbor? What were the forty ninth and fiftieth states admitted to the union?

The lack of math and history knowledge is also very scary.

[Kent A Bathurst]

If you want some sobering information on the state of our education system, read George F. Will's column in today's Washington Post. We got big problems, folks.

I generally do not agree with Mr. Will's positions, but the man is supremely intelligent, and he is a master of his craft - so I read every column. In this one, he is praising Arne Duncan - the Democratic Secretary of Education.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Working a bit off of Dan's comment, there is something even more insidious than lack of a particular specific skill. I would decry the tendency of many schools and teachers to teach what I consider the most useful series of skills and values.

1) Critical thinking and reasoning
2) The use of reference facilities other than Wiki, google, etc.
3) General Ethics- not any particular value system, but a value system
4) Good reading skills- I shouldn't have to mention this, but there are still to many people who are either illiterate or who do not read with comprehension.

It is from these basics along simple arithmatic and decent English that a life is built. Yes, I'm over simplifying, but there has to be some kind of foundation. The old fashioned 3 Rs.

[Jim Koepke]

I simply explain that clockwise means rotating in this direction (with hand motions) and counter-clockwise means rotating in that direction.

I had to think about this for a while. Then while standing it was easy to check.

When you rotate your hand and arm in a clock wise direction, to a person facing you it is going counter-clockwise. No wonder the world is getting all messed up!:eek:

jtk

[Stephen Tashiro]

How then, will you explain to your analog impaired pupils the meaning of "clockwise/counterclockwise"? .

Tell them that clockwise is the direction that you turn the dial on a telephone. No...wait, that might not help.

[Dan Hintz]

Tell them that clockwise is the direction that you turn the dial on a telephone. No...wait, that might not help.
Tell them to take their right hand and point to the very top of their head. Now stretch their arm towards the sky, then away from their body towards the side, then towards the ground... that is a clockwise motion. Doing the same with their left hand will be counter-clockwise.

[John Coloccia]

One day, many years from now, I wonder what archeologists will think of our civilization. I wonder if someone will find an old clock, the purpose of which now long forgotten, and make up a mythology around it, much as we wonder about the ancient Egyptian and Mayan artifacts.

I think it's important to know how to do things the "old fashioned" way, if for no other reason that old solutions often lend themselves to new problems. For example, how many people know what a nomograph is? Ok, NOW how many people know what a Smith Chart is? How about graphical W&B for an aircraft...Piper style...the one where you draw lines on the graph (for you pilots). They're both nomographs. Though this is more "easily" calculated by simply entering numbers into a computer, I find it FAR quicker to simply glance at the nomograph for my answer. How will we apply these handy tools to new problems if we don't understand the tool in the first place?

Here's another one for you pilots. How many know how to use a slide rule? Now how many know how to use an E6B? An E6B is nothing but a circular variation of a slide rule. Again, I find it FAR quicker to use an E6B for some basic flight calculations than punching numbers into my flight computer.

I can come up with many more examples of old technology being repurposed for new applications. This will stop happening if we only teach what is contemporary knowledge. Think of the hundreds of years of knowledge that we will throw away. I understand the argument that these techniques are antiquated and are not strictly necessary for daily life in the 21st century, but since when do we only teach was is strictly necessary for survival? :)

To get back to the "clockwise" discussion, how will a child who knows nothing of clocks appreciate any writings from before 1980 (around the time digital watches became cheap enough for the masses to buy)? How will they appreciate the phrase "A broken clock is right twice a day". To them a broken clock is nothing but a blank screen! Incidentally, there's a very good reason why clocks go clockwise. Think about it for a second. Here's a hint: if the mechanical clock had been invented in South America, it would probably turn the other way :) Anyhow, when you make this connection, you see how much information is really contained in that stupid wall clock, and how it all gets tossed away.

Anyhow, that's just some random thoughts before I go back out and shovel yet more snow.

[Dan Hintz]

John,

Get a sundial... it never needs winding and always goes in the right direction ;-) And a child will still understand the clock is right twice a day thing... a digital clock blinks 12:00, so it's still correct twice a day. :D What if one were to consider the slide rule as nothing more than a generalized E6B?

Oh, and I know what a Smith Chart is... had to use one from time to time when working on antenna stuff. :)

[Joe Leigh]

Tell them to take their right hand and point to the very top of their head. Now stretch their arm towards the sky, then away from their body towards the side, then towards the ground... that is a clockwise motion. Doing the same with their left hand will be counter-clockwise.

Sounds easy enough..... :eek:.......assuming of course that they know their right hand from their left. Or is that unnecessary also?

[Bill Cunningham]

I simply explain that clockwise means rotating in this direction (with hand motions) and counter-clockwise means rotating in that direction. It's no different than if I said rotate a screw alpha or beta, it's simply a convention easy to remember for those who can already read an analog clock... but knowing how to read an analog clock is not a pre-requisite to understanding the concept of counter-rotating directions labeled arbitrarily, as long as the convention is kept the same from person to person.

Would the hand motion be seen from your perspective, or the student's? Ahh Confusion reigns..

Bafflegab can be fun too ! The most interesting one is the descriptive explanation first used at 3 mile Island back in the 70's: "It was simply a energetic disassembly, followed by rapid oxidation"
Translation: It Exploded and Burned!

[John Coloccia]

Or, clockwise is the direction you turn a steering wheel to turn right.

What's interesting about this, though, is that until fairly recently it was truly impossible to describe right and left in any absolute terms. Another way of saying this is that the laws of physics were perfectly symmetrical with respect to right vs left, so there was no way in principle that one could explain the concept of right and left without demonstrating the convention. It was only around 1960 that a violation of this symmetry was found. Now, you can describe an experimental procedure whereby the concept of right and left can be established via fundamental physical laws.

The situation is different for up and down, surprisingly enough. You can very simply define the concept of "down" by reference to gravity at the surface of a spherical body, and "up" is simply the opposite vector, but left and right is attainable only by exotic means (i.e. accelerators, supercooled nuclei, etc....definitely not kitchen table science!).

[Larry Frank]

There have been many valid and funny points in this thread. While I would agree that there are many children who end up with a poor education, there are also many that get an excellent education. There are students leaving high school today with almost a the equivalent of the first year of engineering college. At many high schools the education is there for the taking and it is up to the parents to "encourage" them to take advantage of it.

[Jim Koepke]

(i.e. accelerators, supercooled nuclei, etc....definitely not kitchen table science!).

No, but you could do it in your back yard…

180069

jtk

[Ernie Miller]

There have been many valid and funny points in this thread. While I would agree that there are many children who end up with a poor education, there are also many that get an excellent education. There are students leaving high school today with almost a the equivalent of the first year of engineering college. At many high schools the education is there for the taking and it is up to the parents to "encourage" them to take advantage of it.

Good point. We must be careful when looking at rankings of high school students from different countries and cultures. In another lifetime when I taught high school choral music, a girl of Asian descent came into my office - crying. When I asked what the problem was, she said she was afraid to go home because she got a 97 on an English exam. She was not allowed to make any mistakes.... period. She eventually became class Salutatorian which was similarly problematic because she didn't become Valedictorian. I learned that this severity is quite common in certain cultures and there is a price to be paid for being on top of the list. Perhaps we need a little more of this "encouragement" - and some other cultures might do with a little less. Sometimes we have to look deeper into the statistics to determine the true cause and effect.

[Van Huskey]

I had a problem with young people, to me that is people under 30 at the time, while trying to explain that a screw with 40 threads per inch could be used to change adjustments on a machine. I tried to explain that turning it 15 minutes or 90° would change the adjustment .00625". They could not figure out what I meant by 15 minutes being the same as 90°. They kind of when nuts when told that turning it 5 minutes would be about .002". One guy suggested that he could unscrew the whole assembly in less than a minute.



Not to be a picker of nits here,

jtk

I suppose this is a nit but I can't help but pick it, or the occasional scab. If someone had used this explanation to explain what you tried to explain in the text above to a group I was in, I would have been the smartbutt who would have raised his hand and pointed out that minutes are 1/60th of a degree and that 15 minutes would not be 90 degrees but .25 degrees and thus 15 minutes of rotation applied to this threaded adjustment would amount to about .0001736" of change.... :) :)


Oops I didn't even read past this to the very next post! :o

[Montgomery Scott]

Is it just me, or are these sort of things appearing more often? I fear that a generation of functionally illiterate citizens will leave us with no one to correct the mistakes.

Laziness is my opinion. Many people are fine with not being able to spell or be grammatically correct. Look at how many people on this forum can't spell simple words such as "hobbyist" or, "separate" or use the words "loose" and "lose" of "affect" and "effect" incorrectly?

[Scott Shepherd]

While it's funny (and easy) to call kids today lazy and not so smart, I'd like to pose a different side of the equation. Who raised all those kids to be like that? Other kids? Nope. Parents who are in their 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's now. So want to call them out, stand in front of the mirror and take responsibility for what your generations created!

[Curt Harms]

While it's funny (and easy) to call kids today lazy and not so smart, I'd like to pose a different side of the equation. Who raised all those kids to be like that? Other kids? Nope. Parents who are in their 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's now. So want to call them out, stand in front of the mirror and take responsibility for what your generations created!

You're absolutely right Scott. I doubt you'll have to find time to appear on any TV "news/information" shows to give voice to that position anytime soon, however.

[Matt Meiser]

I was thinking the same thing reading this thread Scott (and Curt.)

[Charlie Reals]

While it's funny (and easy) to call kids today lazy and not so smart, I'd like to pose a different side of the equation. Who raised all those kids to be like that? Other kids? Nope. Parents who are in their 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's now. So want to call them out, stand in front of the mirror and take responsibility for what your generations created!

I will be the first here to stand in the mirror. There were more than a few of us in each of those generations who tried to instill an understanding of the English language in our children. In the 70's I constantly questioned things being done and the evolution of our education system. English is still spoken and taught in our schools. Unfortunately we have allowed internet speak to invade every realm of our society. Read any news item and count the mistakes. In this day and age there is no excuse for it other than laziness. Too lazy to use spell check is real lazy and not funny at all.;)
As stated above though, one of my pet peeves is the misuse of loose and lose.
Another way of looking at it, we were not speaking the same English in 1960 as our ancestors spoke in 1800, our English has evolved to become a vast mixture of many languages and regional dialects.

[Joyce Baldauf]

In the last week, I have found at least three glaring errors in articles in the New York Times. This is the newspaper that advertises that they have the best reporters in the world, but I guess editors don't matter.

[Joyce Baldauf]

[QUOTE=Belinda Williamson;1621067]Have I mentioned lately how pleasant it is to have coffee shoot out of my nose? :D

This brought tears to my eyes, I laughed so hard. Thank God I wasn't drinking my coffee!

[John Coloccia]

John,

Get a sundial... it never needs winding and always goes in the right direction ;-)

Very cute :)

[Kent A Bathurst]

While it's funny (and easy) to call kids today lazy and not so smart, I'd like to pose a different side of the equation. Who raised all those kids to be like that? Other kids? Nope. Parents who are in their 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's now. So want to call them out, stand in front of the mirror and take responsibility for what your generations created!

No kidding - that took me back. A "B" required [a] explanation, and [b] discussion on how that was going to improve next period. A "C" got extended grounding to free up time for monitored "study hall" - very, very few of those - 1? 2 maybe?. Screwing around with grades was absolutely not tolerated.

[Stephen Tashiro]

Unfortunately we have allowed internet speak to invade every realm of our society. .

I'm glad the internet has taken over from television as the primary cause of the decadence in youth. I've stopped watching television and would feel left out if TV was the only place to get the good stuff.

As far as written English goes, I think that texting will have more of an effect than the internet. It will be hard to get used to seeing words like "u" and "plz". However, we have been able to accept "Ok" and "thru" (as in "drive-thru pickup window"). Plus we accept countless acronyms like "SOP".

Speaking of spell checkers, the one I'm using with the Opera web browser at this moment doesn't like the spelling of "internet" or "texting" or "online".

Members of the Spelling Police can enjoy submitting "product information" corrections to the Amazon website. I periodically try to correct the misspellings "Gaugin" (for the artist) , 'definately", and "extention" in product titles.



Too lazy to use spell check is real lazy and not funny at all.


As complaints by old timers go, that's a relatively modern one . You're not going to complain that kids don't learn to spell for themselves these days? The true state of spell-for-yourself skills are revealed in the titles of posts. On my browser, the spell checker doesn't automatically catch misspellings in the titles. I'm too lazy to highlight them and run it manually -yes, too lazy to use a spell checker.

[Jim Koepke]

Oops I didn't even read past this to the very next post!

A very human experience.

So often done by so many.

My thoughts didn't take the minute/degree relationship into account until after posting. By the time I got back, others had.

jtk

[Pat Germain]

I work with some very intelligent people. Most of them have a Masters or PhD in engineering. But many of them can't write a complete sentence, let alone a coherent paragraph. Apparently, if you can do math well, schools don't care if you can write.

As a parent, I put forth a lot of effort making sure my son and daughter could read well, spell well and write well with proper punctuation. (Even after my daughter's school started a "Whole Language" program where all rules of English are completely ignored.) This made my kids very unique among their peers. I attended a Freshman orientation with my son as he was starting college. There were a few hundred new students in a large classroom. A guidance counselor asked, "Do we have anyone taking Remedial English?". All but my son and a few other students raised their hands. As I understand it, the vast majority of college Freshmen today must take Remedial English. My son often takes some ribbing for being an English major. But I dare say most engineering students couldn't have done it!

[Larry Frank]

I am an engineer with a Masters and can do the math and write sentences. I do not know where the idea comes from that they are mutually exclusive. As an engineer, it is important to be able to write updates and reports. The schools that I know about stress the importance of writing and reporting.

[Gordon Eyre]

Irregardless, they are doing there best. :)

[Dan Hintz]

Irregardless, their doing there bestest. :)
Fixed that for ya...

[Jim King]

Having lived in several countries and using several languages non of which I mastered to the point that they could be considered first language level I see this a bit different. Our fore fathers came to the States with a variety of languages and dialects and they put it all together to make a great country. Most were not educated.

Today it is different and with a special program in the schools for any type of problem there is little or no excuse for improper language skills. The exception to the rule is the many students whom have another first language of which many are backwords in form to English. Just one example, in Spanish you don´t have a "black cat" you have a "cat black". These things are hard for many to over come and more so with age and accent.

What is amazing is that foreign students that are not speaking a native language are showing up at the top of the rank in the University systems thru out the US. Having been trained as a designer I changed from writing to printing at about 19 and now cannot write at all. My signature has even turned to a hybrid printing form but legible. Complicated subject.

[John Coloccia]

I work with some very intelligent people. Most of them have a Masters or PhD in engineering. But many of them can't write a complete sentence, let alone a coherent paragraph. Apparently, if you can do math well, schools don't care if you can write.

As a parent, I put forth a lot of effort making sure my son and daughter could read well, spell well and write well with proper punctuation. (Even after my daughter's school started a "Whole Language" program where all rules of English are completely ignored.) This made my kids very unique among their peers. I attended a Freshman orientation with my son as he was starting college. There were a few hundred new students in a large classroom. A guidance counselor asked, "Do we have anyone taking Remedial English?". All but my son and a few other students raised their hands. As I understand it, the vast majority of college Freshmen today must take Remedial English. My son often takes some ribbing for being an English major. But I dare say most engineering students couldn't have done it!

I know a lot more engineers that can write well than English majors that can engineer well :rolleyes:

[Jim King]

Probably another subject would be why many people that can write well cannot write anything intelligent.

[Dan Friedrichs]

I know a lot more engineers that can write well than English majors that can engineer well :rolleyes:

Ha! :) Very, very true!!

BTW, John, I know what a Smith chart is, although I've never used one ;)

[Montgomery Scott]

I know a lot more engineers that can write well than English majors that can engineer well :rolleyes:

Plus an engineer has much more opportunities in the job market. What is an English major good for except teaching English?

[John Coloccia]

Plus an engineer has much more opportunities in the job market. What is an English major good for except teaching English?

I tell you, there are many many times I've wished we had hired an English major who had some technical savvy as well. Documentation is very difficult to write clearly and correctly. Pat is sort of right, and my comment was kind of tongue in cheek. I've read through some pretty horrid documentation and have spent many hours praying the author would walk into my office so I could strangle him. :)

[Darius Ferlas]

There have been many valid and funny points in this thread. While I would agree that there are many children who end up with a poor education, there are also many that get an excellent education. There are students leaving high school today with almost a the equivalent of the first year of engineering college.
An excellent point. Where I come from you could not pass a final high school test with 3 (or more) spelling errors on a written essay. Three punctuation errors were equivalent to one spelling error. At least 10 pages were expected. But that was only one type of high school, as the educational system was quite different, so there was still a decent number of people with questionable spelling skills.

What I found fascinating in the US is that I met a fair number of people who were completely illiterate. Actually, I found that shocking. At the same time the nation boasts most of the top universities around the world.

[Mike Cruz]

I have to say that while the occasional misspelled word and omitted punctuation mark don't bother me that much, what gets my goat is when it occurs in advertising. I mean, someone wrote it down. Someone else proofed it. The printer didn't catch it. Then it gets circulated. THAT I find offensive.

Forum misspellings don't bother me too much, as long as it doesn't interrupt the flow of the read. Except the misuse of to, too, and two. That one always strikes a nerve for some reason...

[Chuck Wintle]

I have to say that while the occasional misspelled word and omitted punctuation mark don't bother me that much, what gets my goat is when it occurs in advertising. I mean, someone wrote it down. Someone else proofed it. The printer didn't catch it. Then it gets circulated. THAT I find offensive.

Forum misspellings don't bother me too much, as long as it doesn't interrupt the flow of the read. Except the misuse of to, too, and two. That one always strikes a nerve for some reason...

some other often misused words are...

lose and loose
their and there
brake and break
irregardless and regardless

[Curt Harms]

some other often misused words are...

lose and loose
their and there
brake and break
irregardless and regardless

This being a woodworking oriented forum (mostly) don't forget that this
180472

is to some posters a planner:p though I haven't seen that here much.

[Chuck Wintle]

This being a woodworking oriented forum (mostly) don't forget that this
180472

is to some posters a planner:p though I haven't seen that here much.

so planer=planner=planar?

[Peter Kuhlman]

While I struggled in all my English classes, some of it did sink in. :)
When I moved from Michigan to Zachary Louisiana 16 years ago, it was an intellectual insult. Zachary has been the number 1 rated public school system in the entire state for the last 8 years. Finally, after 13 years of driving by the signs, the city changed out all the road signs pointing the way to our esteemed "Hi School". :rolleyes::eek:

On another note, I spend all my time writing on a computer or other electronic device and have for many years. I was asked to write a note in cursive the other day and found I had to think about how to stroke each letter!

[Gene Howe]

How many people do we all all know that can read but cannot comprehend? Or, hear and speak well but do not understand what has been said?
In my profession as a Speech and Language Pathologist, I was often asked to provide accent reduction instruction to newly arrived English learners. It became quite obvious to me that those who were most proficient in their native language, became proficient in English much quicker than those not as well spoken in their native language. By the same token, those native English speakers who are able to creatively manipulate the language so as to successfully communicate their ideas, are the first to fully grasp oral or written instructions. There is a major difference between those who possess only basic interpersonal communication skills and those who display a well developed cognitive academic language proficiency. The differences become quite apparent in reading the two groups' writing attempts. Were I in a position to make hiring decisions, I would certainly consider into which group an applicant fell and place him/her in the most appropriate position.....irregardless of their resume.

[Dan Hintz]

...irregardless of their resume.
Ugh... this thread is bringing this non-word back into vogue.

[Glenn Vaughn]

Ugh... this thread is bringing this non-word back into vogue.

That irregardless is not a word wast drummed into me by my father. Actually irregardless IS a word; however it is a non-standard word and is considered a dialectical word. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irregardless

[Scott Shepherd]

Okay, I'm here to flip the script on you once again. I've never heard a kid, or anyone in their 20's use the word "flusterated", but I've heard many old people use it.

So there :p

Old people aren't immune from creating their own language and making up their own words either, so let's be fair about this!

[Ron Citerone]

1) Years ago, before forums, you weren't exposed to so many examples of other peoples writing.

2) When I post on forums, I don't really concerm myself with typos, I just go with it. If I was writing something formally, I would be a lot more particuliar. An old school English Teacher I work with told me anything of great importance should be proof read by someone else, even if the writer is a professional writer.

3) Many times people today work under time constraints that emphasize speed over accuracy.

4) Everyone today is looking to find fault with the younger generation. I think they are being sold short.

My 2 pennies.

[Steve Schoene]

[QUOTE=Jim Koepke

Not to be a picker of nits here, but I think half of the population is less intelligent than the mean, (the term or one of the terms midway between the first and last terms of a progression).

Unfortunately, you got the term wrong. The mean is the same as what we usually call the average, or arithmetic average. What you meant isapparently the median, which is the value which has half of the population above and half below, which isn't really quite the same as being midway between the two extreme values. The other measure of central tendancy is the mode which is just the most frequent value in the population. The median is very useful as a descriptive statistic, being less affected by the extremes. But the mean is what is most often used in statistical analysis, because it is much more tractable mathematically than the other measures. The Bill Gates example is one that illustrates the problem of using the mean as a guide, but his addition to the sample would have only a minor impact to the median.

Usually for the full population, we think of the population having IQs that are normally distributed, which means the mean will equal the median. There is some evidence that this isn't exactly true, but there are so many problems with IQ testing, not least of which is cultural bias in the tests, that it is not a consept easily defended.

[Dan Andrews]

:pnow yall got me skert to rite any knew foram posts

[Kent A Bathurst]

some other often misused words are...

lose and loose
their and there
brake and break
irregardless and regardless

Made me think of one of my favorite "clean" lines by George Carlin:

"Flammable, inflammable & nonflammable... Why are there three? Don't you think that two ought to serve the purpose? I mean either the thing flams or it doesn't! "

[Pat Germain]

I know a lot more engineers that can write well than English majors that can engineer well :rolleyes:

Sorry, John. I didn't intend for my post to be critical of engineers as a whole. I have great respect for them. My job depends on engineers. And many of them certainly can write well. I just don't understand how some of them earned a PhD and couldn't write their way out of a paper bag.

And, of course, there's no point in arguing the marketability of an engineer vs. an English major. But I do think the Liberal Arts are much underappreciated of late. And I think our modern culture filled with misspellings, bad grammar and incomprehensbile manuals is a direct reflection of this.

[Stephen Tashiro]

Hmm... "underappreciated" or "under appreciated"? My browser likes the former. And, of course, we need the correction to "incomprehensible".

If we want to maintain the idea that it's the younger generation that's at fault, someone needs to lock this thread! - or we all need to start using our high school yearbook photos for avatars.


1) Years ago, before forums, you weren't exposed to so many examples of other peoples writing.

2) When I post on forums, I don't really concerm myself with typos, I just go with it. If I was writing something formally, I would be a lot more particuliar. An old school English Teacher I work with told me anything of great importance should be proof read by someone else, even if the writer is a professional writer.

3) Many times people today work under time constraints that emphasize speed over accuracy.

4) Everyone today is looking to find fault with the younger generation. I think they are being sold short.

My 2 pennies.

"Particular" instead of "particuliar", but that proves your point! I agree with everything you said.

We can also ask whether the modern workplace tends to mismatch people's jobs with their skills - more so than the old fashioned workplace. For example, why could the engineers of yesteryear write well? They couldn't. They had secretaries that could write. Many had very talented secretaries who could criticize the clarity of documents from a layman's perspective? Who has secretaries like that now? Most engineers have only their computer and they are expected to do secretarial work themselves.

[Bill Edwards(2)]

some other often misused words are...

lose and loose
their and there
brake and break
irregardless and regardless

Because spell chucker does not ketch them.:)

[Ralph Sprang]

the english language ....

I wonder if it's that people don't know how to write, or are simply not taking the time to proofread? I would put myself in the latter category - even when talking about the English language ;-)

The inconsistent rules of the English language also make it difficult, particularly for non-native speakers. Seriously, why should "English" be capitalized and "latin" not capitalized?

[Ralph Sprang]

don't forget that English is the dominant language of the planet

Dominant in what sense? It's not the language that is most used. It is the "official" language for many fields, but I'm not sure that makes it dominant.

If by dominant we mean "spoken by the most people", Spanish wins that honor, last I hear.

[Ralph Sprang]

The mean is the same as what we usually call the average, or arithmetic average.

The arithmetic mean is similar to the average, but not all means are average.

[Rod Sheridan]

Stephen, you presented some excellent ideas regarding our lack of writing skills.

In my opinion, one of the most significant causes of poor writing skills, is our lack of interest in doing a job well.

It takes effort, education and constant self correction to maintain any type of standard, ranging from brick laying to composition.

We are simply too lazy, and accustomed to mediocrity, to make the effort to write properly...........Regards, Rod.

[Orion Henderson]

Is communication really a problem? Or is it improper grammar? The two are not the same thing. People communicate in more ways and more frequently than ever before and that isn't a bad thing. So what if grammar is imperfect. If I am writing a letter for business I check it in detail and have it proofed. Sometimes I have multiple people proofread it. If I am sending a text, posting on a forum, or basically communicating informally, I attempt to write as I speak. Never before in human history have so many people had cause to communicate in writing. This is new territory. Think about it, how often did a 19th century layman write anything? How about a mid twentieth century production worker? The internet and modern communications have opened the door to new "classes" of people using writing as a means to communicate on a daily basis-and I think that is wonderful. What this leads me to wonder is: Are languages evolving faster now than they ever were before? Languages always evolve but I would hypothesize that language is evolving at a faster rate than ever before. Soon enough many acronyms and shortcuts will become standard.

Script writing, while beautiful, isn't needed anymore. It is an art at this point-wedding invitations and other formal social invitations are about the only use. Computers, printers, and e-mail replaced script. Anything formal needs to be typed now and once upon a time that wasn't the case.

[Pat Germain]

Dominant in what sense? It's not the language that is most used. It is the "official" language for many fields, but I'm not sure that makes it dominant.

If by dominant we mean "spoken by the most people", Spanish wins that honor, last I hear.

Dominant means you can find people who speak English in more places on the planet than any other language. The language spoken by the most individuals would probably be Chinese. But once you leave China, you won't find many people speaking Chinese.

As for all the spelling corrections, I think we all understand most anyone can flub spelling; especially on an online forum. I agree with the OP that many Americans today can cannot communicate effectively when writing. I do think it's a bigger problem now than say twenty years ago. And I don't think many young people are doing their best. In fact, I don't think they're even trying.

I do understand many young people are the victims of very poor schools and never really had a chance to learn to write. They were more interested in surviving and not getting beat up, stabbed or shot. But it is also sad when many young people have the advantage of attending very good schools with very good teachers and still make no effort to learn to read or write well. This makes it difficult for them to communicate outside their own peer group.

[Jerome Hanby]

The goal of our education system is to bring everyone to the same level, so we can communicate.

The goal of our education system is to create little drones that will believe whatever the government tells them.

[Ernie Miller]

The goal of our education system is to create little drones that will believe whatever the government tells them.

And you know this..... how? In one sentence you've managed to insult every teacher in the country. Thank you for summarizing my career so succinctly.:(

Ernie

[Pat Germain]

You know, I'm seeing many examples of this writing problem lately. There's an official US Navy Facebook page where young people interested in joining the Navy can ask questions. Active duty sailors and old-timers like me try to answer questions and help people. But all too often, we honestly cannot understand what people are writing. There is no punctuation, capitalization or sentence structure. Often, people will answer with, "What?" or "Huh?". Or, such posts are just ignored. These posts are from recent high school graduates or people about to graduate.

[John Sanford]

Stephen, you presented some excellent ideas regarding our lack of writing skills.

In my opinion, one of the most significant causes of poor writing skills, is our lack of interest in doing a job well.

It takes effort, education and constant self correction to maintain any type of standard, ranging from brick laying to composition.

We are simply too lazy, and accustomed to mediocrity, to make the effort to write properly...........Regards, Rod.

Winner!!!! Concise, accurate, and easy to grasp. Although I do take minor issue with the overly casual use of "our" and "we."

[Bill Edwards(2)]

And you know this..... how? In one sentence you've managed to insult every teacher in the country. Thank you for summarizing my career so succinctly.:(

Ernie

Sorry Ernie, compassion is not a real word.:eek:

[Rod Sheridan]

Winner!!!! Concise, accurate, and easy to grasp. Although I do take minor issue with the overly casual use of "our" and "we."

John, I laughed when I read your comments regarding my use of "our" and "we"..........regards, Rod.

[Chris Helie]

I agree! A local car dealership has a commercial that says "If we can't beat their price, we'll give you the car!" Well DUH!!!!!!!!

[Chuck Wintle]

Dominant in what sense? It's not the language that is most used. It is the "official" language for many fields, but I'm not sure that makes it dominant.

If by dominant we mean "spoken by the most people", Spanish wins that honor, last I hear.

Dominant in fields such as business, science, aviation etc. Its simply the most useful and adaptable language of the new age. Show me one area where the impact of english is not felt. maybe there are more chinese speakers but that does not translate into world dominance.

[Matt Walton]

This thread has been very interesting to me, as I am homeschooled, so I am pretty much completely oblivious to what goes on in the public school systems. Although, an interesting coincidence is that the last few days, I have been in a somewhat battle with somebody on Facebook about spelling. I could explain it, but I attached the picture of the conversation.
I don't know what it proves, if anything, I just thought somebody might like to see it. Something I notice, is that if they in fact did write the sentences themselves (which I have my doubts about), then I suppose that proves that when pressed, "kids these days" can in fact write coherent sentences.

On a side note, I am trying to come up with a sentence to show the difference between there, their, and they're; as well as your and you're. Am I missing another obvious one? I feel like I am.
Something like this:
Look over there! They're playing with your dog. But it is also theirs, so if you're worrying, you shouldn't be.

The only error that is slightly acceptable in my opinion, is when somebody uses it's when it should be its. Example: "The cat is an interesting animal. Its tail can be either long or short." (correct) I don't know why, but for some reason, the creators of the written English language decided not to use an apostrophe, even though "its" is possessive.

[Dan Hintz]

On a side note, I am trying to come up with a sentence to show the difference between there, their, and they're; as well as your and you're.
They're over there looking for their ball.

You're looking for your ball?

[Ralph Sprang]

But once you leave China, you won't find many people speaking Chinese.


I live in the US, where a significant minority of the population speak Chinese as their first language. It may be different in your part of the country, but in the Midwest and East, you are likely to hear spoken Chinese if you walk down the street of even a smaller city or town.

The dictionary definition of "dominant" is "commanding, controlling, or prevailing over all others". Therefore, the dominant language is the one spoken by the most people. If you trust the wiki, Chinese is the dominant language, with English speakers about 1/3 of Chinese speakers.
Chinese is the dominant language world wide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers)

[John Coloccia]

I live in the US, where a significant minority of the population speak Chinese as their first language. It may be different in your part of the country, but in the Midwest and East, you are likely to hear spoken Chinese if you walk down the street of even a smaller city or town.

The dictionary definition of "dominant" is "commanding, controlling, or prevailing over all others". Therefore, the dominant language is the one spoken by the most people. If you trust the wiki, Chinese is the dominant language, with English speakers about 1/3 of Chinese speakers.
Chinese is the dominant language world wide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers)

Not that any of this mattes, but you've linked to NATIVE speakers, not total speakers. If you look at any of the real estimates for total speakers, you'll find that they have an error bar of 100% or more, making the estimates rather useless.

The real test, IMHO, is if I know English and nothing else, I can do business and survive in most of the world. If I know Chinese and nothing else, I can't. Replace Chinese with any other language, except perhaps French, and you will get the same result.

[Patrick Johnson]

I'm sorry that your life is being ruined by other people's poor grammer. While it is unfortunate that people are not being taught correctly, an individual's worth should not be dictated by how well they can speak or write. I'm sure my grammer is not perfect, but hopefully I can communicate my thoughts and that's the main thing. I wouldn't obsess on it.

Patrick

[Prashun Patel]

I'm slightly bothered by misspellings and bad grammar. But ultimately, if the idea is perfectly conveyed - especially in a forum like this - it makes no nevermind to me whether you want to fill the pores of your bowl or you're bowel.

I'm VERY bothered by good writers who write just to hear themselves talk and show off how much they know about grammar... But that's nobody here, and I'm not pickin' no fights...

[Dan Friedrichs]

Just to clarify, my point in the OP was not to attack anyone for misspellings (etc) in casual writing (on a forum like this, for example). In fact, I really enjoy SMC because so many here seem very articulate and learned. My point in the OP was that egregious mistakes in "professional" written materials (from a business, etc) are unacceptable. If you're going to type a letter that gets mailed to thousands of customers, or print a catalog, or paint a large public sign, there is no excuse for it not being perfectly correct.

[Montgomery Scott]

"grammar" not "grammer"

[Michael Peet]

The only error that is slightly acceptable in my opinion, is when somebody uses it's when it should be its. Example: "The cat is an interesting animal. Its tail can be either long or short." (correct) I don't know why, but for some reason, the creators of the written English language decided not to use an apostrophe, even though "its" is possessive.

Its is the gender neutral version of his or hers. Hence, no apostrophe.

Mike

[John Coloccia]

I often post from my iPhone. It insist on auto-correcting its to it's. I've practically given up fighting it.

[Rick Moyer]

Stephen, you presented some excellent ideas regarding our lack of writing skills.

In my opinion, one of the most significant causes of poor writing skills, is our lack of interest in doing a job well.

It takes effort, education and constant self correction to maintain any type of standard, ranging from brick laying to composition.

We are simply too lazy, and accustomed to mediocrity, to make the effort to write properly...........Regards, Rod.
I could not agree more with what Rod said.

[Darius Ferlas]

We've been through 8 pages of opinions so I'll attempt one that has to do with the actual structure and phonology of the English language. This is just some food for thought, not necessarily hard science. We can certainly put some of the blame on the users of the language, but then, not all are poor spellers. I am not trying to justify poor spelling skills and I'm sure I'll throw in a few too.

First the language has changed immensely over the lat millennium and a half+
Who, without some background in the studies of the language, will readily understand this:

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum;
Si þin nama gehalgod
to becume þin rice
gewurþe ðin willa

How many would be able to read it aloud correctly, even if they don't understand the meaning? (Icelanders would as their language changed little to not at all). This, and Beowulf or course, is what are the first texts 18 year old student's of English literature outside the US start with within their first year curriculum. In the original, not in the modern English translation.

As English changed, both in speech and in writing, the written form was lagging (for the lack of a better word) behind. Hence, we now have words that are pronounced unlike they used to be centuries ago, but their spelling carries some burden (or a blessing) of the language's past. Americans made some attempts to simplify the historic baggage, but getting rid of colours and substituting them with colors doesn't seem to be enough.

Let's look at some examples:

How can we represent the sound iː ("ee" as it sounds in the word feet and with consideration to some variations in dialects).

ee
ea
ie
e

Hopefully, most read some very valid observations by Gene a few pages before. Gene is a Speech and Language Pathologist, so he deals with the way some people speak. Isn't it confusing how there are many ways to transcribe the same sound? These are called homophones (nothing to do with lewd acts on telephone sets) and some examples, depending on the dialect, are:

pee - pea
tee - tea
birth - berth
four candles - fork handles
example - egg sample
some others - some mothers
night rain - night train

The spelling of a lot of words has to be actually memorized, even if loose rule exist for some of the above (closed and open syllables influence the pronunciation etc). That's where the learners of English sometimes show better spelling skills than the native speakers, but to be fair, English has other pitfalls that too often diminish the foreign learner's enthusiasm (why can't we live without the definite and indefinite articles, huh?)

Or, how do we pronounce the letter "u"?

but
bruise
full
hurt

Need more? How about the letter "a"?
See the problem?

In my view, an important reason why so many native speakers of English have with spelling is the nature of the language. On the one hand it is probably the easiest language to learn, on the other, its orthography is pretty messy.

In many other languages (mine is Polish) the orthography and phonology are much closer to each other, so spelling is very easy as there is mostly one to one correspondence between the written and the spoken. There is only one way to pronounce any of the letters, and the options for written representations of sounds are much more limited. If that's not enough, English has more vowel sounds than its alphabet has graphical representations of those sounds. Add to that diphthongs and triphthongs and it all becomes pretty whacked pretty fast

Not that it is impossible to commit some serious spelling sins in other languages but many languages, such as German, Polish, Italian Spanish and such are more accommodating. Grammar and actual pronunciation may be a completely different story though, from a very systematic German to an insanely complex Polish.

That shortage of graphical representation of sounds in the alphabet is also true of many languages. English chose to work around by combining them. Many other languages opted for diacritical marks, so that's why you will see the sexy looking letters, such as ä, ü, ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ź, ż etc. These makes spelling is much easier.

"Two" late for native speakers of English to change "there" alphabet and "it's" letters, so sometime they "right" it as they "here" it.

My $0.02 (seems like more because CDN $ is above parity with the US$)

[Ernie Miller]

We've been through 8 pages of opinions so I'll attempt one that has to do with the actual structure and phonology of the English language. This is just some food for thought, not necessarily hard science. We can certainly put some of the blame on the users of the language, but then, not all are poor spellers. I am not trying to justify poor spelling skills and I'm sure I'll throw in a few too...........



Thank you. Your post was most interesting and educational. May I suggest another problem with writing in our modern hurried world - we don't read what we write. The Creeks "preview post" feature is one I always use before posting because I am as guilty as the next person when it comes to rushing to post without reading what I have written. Take, for example, this quote from your post.


In my view, an important reason why so many native speakers of English have with spelling is the nature of the language.It's obvious the the word "trouble" (or something like that) was omitted by mistake. If someone who writes as well as you can make this error, we all can.

Ernie

[Chuck Wintle]

I'm slightly bothered by misspellings and bad grammar. But ultimately, if the idea is perfectly conveyed - especially in a forum like this - it makes no nevermind to me whether you want to fill the pores of your bowl or you're bowel.

I'm VERY bothered by good writers who write just to hear themselves talk and show off how much they know about grammar... But that's nobody here, and I'm not pickin' no fights...

and that is the beauty of English...it works phonetically as well as in its correct form!

[Steve Schoene]

I can communicate my thoughts and that's the main thing.
Patrick

The real problem is that clear writing absolutely requires clear thoughts. I worked in a research department of a brokerage firm. We wrote reports explaining why institutional investors should or should not buy a particular security. We hired junior analysts fresh from respectable colleges and required a 3.5 GPA. We didn't care very much whether they knew much about accounting or other aspects of analyzing securities--they could learn that. But, if they couldn't take some information about a company or industry and write about it in clear sentences and paragraphs right from the beginning, there was little we could do to get them over the hurdle to becoming a senior analyst, and they had a very short career at our firm.

That skill at organizing ideas must begin early. By the time one enters college it is too late. My son switched to private schools after a public letter that was essentially illiterate was published over the signature of the head of the English department where he would have attended high school in a few years. There was poor organization, sentence fragments, subjects and verbs that didn't agree, as well as wrong word choices--in other words scrambled syntax. In his high school, he wrote essay exams in almost all classes, was expected to write clearly. He actually took elective English courses at Cornell. He is now an excellent writer and has gotten job offers because of it. If your children's teachers are giving multiple choice exams more than occasionally you should complain.

What does writing mean for woodworkers? For amateurs, very little unless it is important in their day jobs. But for professionals, who must be marketing managers, sales directors, and all around general managers, even in one man firms, the ability to write sentences that are easily understood by customers and potential customers can mean money in the pocket.

[Dale Coons]

A fun poem about spelling, written many years ago:

http://www.hep.wisc.edu/~jnb/charivarius.html

[Dan Hintz]

In reply to Darius (and somewhat on his point), take a look at these seemingly innocuous sentences:
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let’s face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea, nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing? Grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?

Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through annals of history but not a single annal?

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If retired teachers taught, did retired preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another?

Have you noticed that we describe certain things only when they are absent? A horseless carriage, a strapless gown. Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn’t a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why,
when I wind up my watch does it start, but when I wind up this essay, it ends?

[Mike Cruz]

Dan, is that Gallagher or Andy Runey (sorry, I probably trashed the spelling on both those names)?

Here's a Gallagher one... If pros are the opposites of cons, does that mean congress is against progress? :)

[Kevin W Johnson]

Couple of points: Just saw in the news that somewhere in the neighborhood of 39% of college grads are no smarter then the first day they hit the campus. That in itself is scary since most jobs these days require some form of college degree.



Personally, I would have guessed higher than that. Remove the work "like" from the English vocabulary, and most college kids wouldn't be able to form a complete sentence.

[Mike Cruz]

Kevin...what? Pssshh...as if...

Marty, I'm not really surprised. I mean, I heard it was something similar to that, too. Something like 32% of college students didn't really earn their degrees. The other 78% merely eeked by.

[Dan Hintz]

No idea, Mike... it doesn't sound like Rooney, and I don't think it would have the impact unless written (at least the beginning list of sentences), leaving Gallagher out, as well. Except for formatting, I cut and pasted it from a magazine I found online, so it may be an amalgam of several different authors. Still, I agree with the sentiment...

[Larry Edgerton]

I was under the mistaken perception that this was a woodworking forum.

There is something that each and every one of us is not good at, that is just part of the human condition. Let he who has no faults cast the first stone.

There are a couple of old guys around here that I hope to aspire to their level of proficiency with my own woodworking. Neither one could write a complete sentence in the context of the kings english, and yet they have taught me volumes. I have no problem understanding what they are saying, and that to me is communication.

My sister has a masters in english literature. She sent me a note correcting something that I wrote in a christmas card. I have never sent her a card since.

My pet peave is not those that can not write well, it is snobs of any kind............

[Mike Cruz]

Well, it had that Rooney "Do you ever wonder..." tone. Gallagher does bits on the English language like the pros and cons one I gave. He also weaves his way through words that have similar spellings but pronounced differently, like T-O-U-G-H is pronouced tuff, C-O-U-G-H...cuff, no, coff. T-H-O-U-G-H, toff, no thow... and he keeps going on and on. It is priceless. And yes, I agree with the sentiment, too.

[Mike Cruz]

Larry, this is a woodworking forum. This thread is, however, in the off topic section. So, it isn't really aimed at others in this forum. It was initially aimed at those in advertising, IIRC. Yes, while some have issue with anyone who doesn't articulate well, in a forum setting such as this, spelling and grammar rules are kind of allowed to slip. That said, there really is no reason for spelling errors in this forum. There is a spell check button that will help you out. Apart from words that are misspelled but are still words (there/their), misspelling in this forum could easily be conceived as lazy...for not hitting the spell check button. Personally, I am more concerned with the flow and understandability of a read. If I have to keep rereading a sentence because it doesn't make sense, that, for me, is an issue.

And before I get labeled as a stone thrower, I am guilty of not hitting the spell check button as often as I should... So, I equate how seriously someone wants to be taken with the effort put in. BTW, I just hit spell check and found 4 misspelled words... ;)

[Chuck Stone]

Dan's post did remind me of Gallagher, but also Richard Lederer's Anguished English.
I've bought several copies of that book, if only to have people try to read it aloud
in a group setting. Especially this part:

"The inhabitants of ancient Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cultivated by irritation. The Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube. They Pramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain.
The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinesses, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, once asked, "Am I my brother's son?" God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob, son of Isaac, stole his brother's birth mark. Jacob was a patriarch who brought up his twelve sons to be patriarchs. But they did not take to it. One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.
Pharaoh forces the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fought with the Philatelists, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David's sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines.
Without the Greeks we wouldn't have history. The Greeks invented three kinds of columns--Corinthian, Doric, and Ironic. They also had myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the river Stynx until he became intolerable. Achilles appears in the Illiad, by Homer. Homer also wrote the Oddity, in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name.
Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits and threw the java. The reward to the victor was a coral wreath. The government of Athens was democratic because people took the law into their own hands. There were no wars in Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn't climb over to see what their neighbors were doing. When they fought with the Persians, the Greeks were outnumbered because the Persians had more men.
Eventually, the Ramons conquered the Geeks. History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long. At Roman banquets, the guests wore garlics in their hair. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Nero was a cruel tyranny who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them.
Then came the middle Ages. King Alfred conquered the Dames, King Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery, King Harold mustarded his troops before the Battle of Hastings, Joan of Arc was canonized by Bernard Shaw. Finally the Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged twice for the same offense.
In midevil times most of the people were alliterate. the greatest writer of the time was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also wrote literature. Another tale tells of William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son's head.
The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals felt the value of their human being. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door at Wittenburg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible death, being excommunicated by a bull. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood.
The government of England was a limited mockery. Henry VIII found walking difficult because he had a abbess on his knee. Queen Elizabeth was a success because her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo.
The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespear. Shakespear never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He lived at Windsor with his merry wives, writing tragedies, comedies, and errors. Writing at the same time as Shakespear was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.
During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe. Later, the Pilgrims crossed the Ocean, and this was known as Pilgrims Progress. When they landed at Plymouth Rock, they were greeted by the Indians, who came down the hill rolling their war hoops before them. The Indian squabs carried porpoises on their backs. Many of the Indian heroes were killed, along with their cabooses which proved very fatal to them.
One of the causes of the Revolutionary Wars was that the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send parcels through the post without stamps. During the War, the Red Coats and Paul Revere was throwing balls over stone walls. The dogs were barking and the peacocks were crowing. Finally, the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis.
Delegates from the original thirteen states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the declaration of Independence. Franklin invented electricity by rubbing cats backwards and declared, "a horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead. George Washington married Martha Curtis and in due time because the Father of our Country. The Constitution was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the Constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.
Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. When Lincoln was President, he wore only a tall silk hat. He said, "In onion there is strength." Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope. the Fourteenth Amendment gave the ex-Negros citizenship. But the Clue Clux Clan would torcher and lynch the ex-Negroes and other innocent victims. It claimed it represented law and odor. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show by John Wilkes Booth, a supposingly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.
Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy. Gravity was invented by Isaac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn, when the apples are falling off the trees.
Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was very large. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.
France was in a serious state. The Marseillaise was the theme song of the French Revolution. During the Napoleonic Wars, the crowned heads of Europe were trembling in their shoes. Then the Spanish gorillas came down from the hills and nipped at Napoleon's flanks. Napoleon wanted an heir to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't bear children.
The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. Her reclining years and finally the end of her life were exemplary of a great personality. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.
The nineteenth century was a time of many great inventions and thoughts. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Samuel Morse invented a code of telepathy. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Species. Madman Curie discovered radium. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx brothers. World War I, caused by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by a surf, ushered in a new error in human history."

[Dan Hintz]

Check (er, Chuck),

That was a painful read... I stopped when I got to the part about Dave, the Hebrew king, fighting with the Philatelists :p Stamp collecting and Chanukkah will never be the same for me ;)

[Scott Shepherd]

Forget the can't "write" part, let's get to the can't "read" part. I was out on an installation at work yesterday and I knew packages were to be delivered. Instead of having them leave notices and miss the needed packages, I wrote a note and stuck it on the door. It said "UPS and U.S. Mail- Please leave packages at door. Thanks!".

The mailman comes in today, hands me a package and says "Did you get the package I left at the back door yesterday?".

I said "At the back door? No".

He said "There was a sign up that said to leave the package at the back door".

Little did he know he was standing 12" away from the sign I pulled of the outside of the door and stuck on the inside of the door. He insisted it said the back door, I didn't argue with him, I just told him thanks and I'd go check now, all while I was looking directly over his shoulder, reading the very sign he was quoting.

Glad he stopped by, I wouldn't have known it was there.

[James Taglienti]

The unnecessary apostrophe is my pet peeve.

[John Coloccia]

The unnecessary apostrophe is my pet peeve.

Its one of my pet peeve's too.

[Mike Cruz]

James, then you have my humble apology. I tend to use them when adding an "s" alone doesn't seem fitting. Like when I abbreviate table saw as TS and want to make it plural...TS's. True, not necessary, but I think it looks better...to me at least. I have a sneaking suspicion, that you don't reciprocate the feeling. ;)

[John Coloccia]

I haf 2 b honest. IM jst hpy if teh post no luk lk this. iM alSo tHRillED WhEn thEy doNT LoOk liKE thiS !!!!! ??!! ! ?

[Dan Hintz]

I tend to use them when adding an "s" alone doesn't seem fitting. Like when I abbreviate table saw as TS and want to make it plural...TS's. True, not necessary, but I think it looks better...to me at least.
I'll often, but not always, do the same... it will often makes the sentence easier to read.

And in case anyone hasn't noticed, I'm addicted to the ellipsis. It fits the way I think surprisingly well...

[Chuck Stone]

And in case anyone hasn't noticed, I'm addicted to the ellipsis. It fits the way I think surprisingly well...

I'm guilty of that, too. And I'm not even sure how it started...

[James Taglienti]

I haf 2 b honest. IM jst hpy if teh post no luk lk this. iM alSo tHRillED WhEn thEy doNT LoOk liKE thiS !!!!! ??!! ! ?

Your a reel wise-guy!

[Mike Cruz]

Oh, I am a ellipsis junkie. I didn't realize that is what it was called until Dan just fessed up to his addiction. I had to look it up...

[Belinda Barfield]

I'll often, but not always, do the same... it will often makes the sentence easier to read.

And in case anyone hasn't noticed, I'm addicted to the ellipsis. It fits the way I think surprisingly well...

Great minds think alike . . . what a scary thought!

[John Coloccia]

Oh, I am a ellipsis junkie. I didn't realize that is what it was called until Dan just fessed up to his addiction. I had to look it up...

But they're round. They should be roundsies, no? Is it any wonder no one can read, write or spell?

[Dan Hintz]

But they're round. They should be roundsies, no? Is it any wonder no one can read, write or spell?
Understanding is not required... only obedience ;)

[Jeremy Milam]

My husband is a member of this site and showed your post to me because I teach English at a community college.

It truly is frightening how many errors I see everywhere. Ads, signs, catalogs, billboards are full of them! Even though I try to stress the importance of good grammar, spelling, and punctuation to my students, it seems to be getting worse. Even more scary is how much text speak is starting to show up in their academic papers. They actually think it's acceptable to use "u" in a paper instead of spelling out a three-letter word. I don't want to admit to myself that I'm fighting a losing battle, but posts like yours do give me some hope. Thanks!

[Bryan Morgan]

My husband is a member of this site and showed your post to me because I teach English at a community college.

It truly is frightening how many errors I see everywhere. Ads, signs, catalogs, billboards are full of them! Even though I try to stress the importance of good grammar, spelling, and punctuation to my students, it seems to be getting worse. Even more scary is how much text speak is starting to show up in their academic papers. They actually think it's acceptable to use "u" in a paper instead of spelling out a three-letter word. I don't want to admit to myself that I'm fighting a losing battle, but posts like yours do give me some hope. Thanks!

I reject technical documentation if it isn't written correctly. I read an article recently on the debasing of the English language. It was spot on. To me, it seems like everyone is trying to speak like a 9 year old girl. I can't tolerate it. Their intonation and pronunciation when they speak drives me nuts. I've noticed a trend where many people pronounce E's as A's. For some reason, it drives me insane to hear this. "Better" is pronounced as "batter". "Fence" is pronounced as "fance". "Text" is pronounced as "taxt". Combine this with the end of every single sentence rising in pitch, as if every statement is a question, and I just want to back hand them. Also injecting the word "so" where it does not belong. "I soooo want to go to the store." "I soooo want those shoes." :rolleyes: I suppose they think they are "cool" by speaking this way. "Cool" is only three letters away from "fool." :)

I'm just venting. I'm by no means a master of the English language but at least I think I have a grasp on the basics.

So, you aren't the only one. If they don't want to learn what you are teaching send them to me and I'll smack them around for you. :) My family beat English into me. God help me if I ever called them "dude". :D

[Chuck Stone]

Dude, I so know what you mean?

[Mike Cruz]

I just saw an ad for an "Artificial Fake Christmas Tree"...hmmmm I guess that falls into the "Hot Water Heater" catagory. ;)

[Belinda Barfield]

I just saw an ad for an "Artificial Fake Christmas Tree"...hmmmm I guess that falls into the "Hot Water Heater" catagory. ;)

"Hot water heater" one of the phrases that drives me nuts!

[Dan Hintz]

What about "pre-heating" your oven? There's only two states an oven can be in, heated, and unheated... pre-heated is a meaningless term. -- George Carlin

[Stephen Tashiro]

I I suppose they think they are "cool" by speaking this way. "Cool" is only three letters away from "fool." :)


It's will be interesting to see if "cool" proves to be as durable as "Ok" or whether it becomes as unfashionable as "sore" (to mean angry). I can remember when "cool" was never used except to describe temperature. (That was back in the days when "sore" was in vogue.) The signal that a cultural revolution has occurred will be when "cool" (to meaning stylish or interesting) goes out of fashion.

When we think of idioms, we are inclined to think of picturesque expressions like "He's over the hill." However, it's interesting how much of English sounds completely "logical" to a native speaker's ears and is actually idiomatic. For example, if someone says "Being a carpenter, I am used to driving nails with a hammer", a logical analysis of these words would lead to the reply "Don't you mean 'I am used for driving nails with a hammer'? Or 'I am used to drive nails with a hammer' ? And what else are you used for?"

If you want a perspective on how English is used in India, browse the crazyengineers forum.

[Dennis Peacock]

But, but.....if you like know what I like mean, then you like understand like what I'm like talking about like in this thread. ;)

[Greg Peterson]

So we begin with the assumption that contemporary writing skills are deficient in numerous categories. Grammar, spelling, sentence structure and punctuation. What period in western civilization is the standard bearer for writing?

Language and the written word have always been in a state of evolution.

It may very well be that we write more today than we did fifteen years ago. As a society, we read other persons messages, thoughts and expressions with far greater regularity than at any other time in history. We email, blog and contribute to forums. These are prominent activities in our culture.

Rules are broken in the name of brevity, economy, ignorance or laziness. I give my best effort to ensure my communications, regardless the medium, are clear and convey the intended message. I fully acknowledge that I live in a glass house.

[Gabriel Montreuil]

...That said, where i live the English language is almost outlawed...i hope to live to the day when this is no longer the case...

This is so untrue! But this forum is not the place to discuss that statement ;-)

Cheers,

gabriel

[Chuck Wintle]

This is so untrue! But this forum is not the place to discuss that statement ;-)

Cheers,

gabriel
It must be a matter of perspective then...the way i see it....it is outlawed.

[Chuck Gallup]

The goal of our education system is to bring everyone to the same level, so we can communicate.
LOL I almost lost it reading your reply.
Is there an undertone of contempt for situations in America or is it just me?
;-)

[Chuck Gallup]

I realize not everyone is gifted in the art of writing effectively, ....
Is it just me, or are these sort of things appearing more often? I fear that a generation of functionally illiterate citizens will leave us with no one to correct the mistakes.

I had the same thought when listening to The State of the Union speech. After bankrupting the nation in an unprecedented spending spree, it is now suggested the proper mode of attack is to "invest" in America.

A functionally illiterate electorate has given the remainder of the citizenry an opportunity to correct mistakes.

[Ernie Miller]

I had the same thought when listening to The State of the Union speech. After bankrupting the nation in an unprecedented spending spree, it is now suggested the proper mode of attack is to "invest" in America.

A functionally illiterate electorate has given the remainder of the citizenry an opportunity to correct mistakes.

I doubt that this is the proper venue for a political rant. :(

[Richard Wagner]

Dan, is this sentence correct?

Is it just me, or are these sort of things appearing more often? I fear that a generation of functionally illiterate citizens will leave us with no one to correct the mistakes.

I would have written it: Is it just me, or are this sort of thing appearing more often? I fear that a generation of functionally illiterate citizens will leave us with no one to correct the mistakes.

[Mike Cruz]

Hmmm. Toughie, for me at least. You can go by what sounds right, or by rules...and I don't have my rule bood out right now. But I will say that "are this sort of thing" is not right. Are is plural and both sort and thing are singular. So, you could have said "is this sort of thing", but not "are this sort of thing". That might have just been a typo... As for how Dan wrote it, I'm not sure if it should have been "are these sorts of things" or if "are these sort of things" is correct. For me the confusion comes in wheather the "are" goes with "sort", "things" or "sort of things" (as a whole). I took English usage and diction at UMD, and did really well in it. But this one eludes me. I forget. ;)

[Richard Wagner]

Couple of points: Just saw in the news that somewhere in the neighborhood of 39% of college grads are no smarter then the first day they hit the campus. That in itself is scary since most jobs these days require some form of college degree.

Second, Many of the catalogs may be written in another country and run though a rough translator. Try typing a sentence in a translator program like Google translate. Translate from english to some asian language then translate that sentence back to english and see what you get. If I am not mistaken most other languages have different sentence structures then we do. Need more proof? When is the last time you tried to read an owners manual or assembly instructions?

I agree that the english language is the hardest to learn. We have so many words that, while spelled the same, mean two totally different things. One form may be a verb while the other a noun (lead comes to mind). How difficlut is that to teach? What about a word that changes tense depending on its usage? Read comes to mind.

One more is I agree with the technology thing. The kids today are growing up with the texting way of communication. We use in here but no nearly to the extent the kids do. I have heard it is showing up in the school work. Can any of you business owners comment on the abilty of one of these texting wizards to land a job in your company?

Please correct the highlighted words and resubmit.

[Richard Wagner]

We all need to check on ourselves before rendering criticism.

I had a problem with young people, to me that is people under 30 at the time, while trying to explain that a screw with 40 threads per inch could be used to change adjustments on a machine. I tried to explain that turning it 15 minutes or 90° would change the adjustment .00625". They could not figure out what I meant by 15 minutes being the same as 90°. They kind of when nuts when told that turning it 5 minutes would be about .002". One guy suggested that he could unscrew the whole assembly in less than a minute.

I think you meant went not when. Please correct me if I am wrong. Point

[Richard Wagner]

Scott..it is apparent that you hated the English class.

You slept through the part where you were to have been taught that 1) a sentence must have a subject and 2) do not begin a sentence with a preposition.

From the time I entered high school until the time I left.

[Charlie Reals]

Couple of points: Just saw in the news that somewhere in the neighborhood of 39% of college grads are no smarter then the first day they hit the campus. That in itself is scary since most jobs these days require some form of college degree.

Second, Many of the catalogs may be written in another country and run though a rough translator. Try typing a sentence in a translator program like Google translate. Translate from English to some Asian language then translate that sentence back to English and see what you get. If I am not mistaken most other languages have different sentence structures than we do. Need more proof? When is the last time you tried to read an owners manual or assembly instructions?

I agree that the English language is the hardest to learn. We have so many words that, while spelled the same, mean two totally different things. One form may be a verb while the other a noun (lead comes to mind). How difficult is that to teach? What about a word that changes tense depending on its usage? Read comes to mind.

One more is I agree with the technology thing. The kids today are growing up with the texting way of communication. We use it here but not nearly to the extent the kids do. I have heard it is showing up in the school work. Can any of you business owners comment on the ability of one of these texting wizards to land a job in your company?

Please correct the highlighted words and resubmit.

Richard,these were simple mistakes to correct. I don't care if a kid can text well as long as they can do it with a rake or pitchfork in the ready position.

[Richard Wagner]

I apologize to everyone whose comments a chose to criticize but this was a perfect opportunity to point out just how bad we have ALL become. We, as a nation, have lost our claim to superiority. This state of reality could be corrected but only if we each look to our own shortcomings first. Then and only then can we reclaim what we once took for granted.

This is a hard lesson to teach. I have several grand children who are at that critical point in their education and I am afraid their battle is being lost.

[Dan Hintz]

Hmmm. Toughie, for me at least. You can go by what sounds right, or by rules...and I don't have my rule bood out right now. But I will say that "are this sort of thing" is not right. Are is plural and both sort and thing are singular. So, you could have said "is this sort of thing", but not "are this sort of thing". That might have just been a typo... As for how Dan wrote it, I'm not sure if it should have been "are these sorts of things" or if "are these sort of things" is correct. For me the confusion comes in wheather the "are" goes with "sort", "things" or "sort of things" (as a whole). I took English usage and diction at UMD, and did really well in it. But this one eludes me. I forget. ;)
Mike,

I believe the "are" ties to the word "things", and therefore the plural version should be used. To test it out, remove the "sort of" from the sentence and reread... "or are these things appearing more often".

[Stephen Tashiro]

2) do not begin a sentence with a preposition.


I think the rule is "Do not end a sentence with preposition". If we couldn't begin a sentence with preposition, how could people write all those "To whom it may concern" letters?

[Dan Friedrichs]

You're right Richard, I should have said, "these sorts of things".

And, yes, the rule is not to END sentences with prepositions. Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put! :)

(apologies to Churchill)

[Steve Schoene]

Particularly one which dips into passive voice.

[Darius Ferlas]

Scott..it is apparent that you hated the English class.

You slept through the part where you were to have been taught that 1) a sentence must have a subject ...]
That was a class worthy of taking a nap because a sentence does not have to have a subject.


I think the rule is "Do not end a sentence with preposition".

Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with!
(Macbeth, 1606)

It turns out that the greatest writer in the English language was somewhat illiterate.

The rule is fake and contrary to the spirit and tradition of the English language. Sentences ending with prepositions were not considered incorrect until one fella by the name of John Dryden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dryden) tried to prove that the English used by the writers of Dryden's time was superior to those of the past. Specifically, he had a grudge against one William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and one whose name I forgot.

[Stephen Tashiro]

That was a class worthy of taking a nap because a sentence does not have to have a subject.

Do you mean that a sentence need not have an explicit subject? Must it at least have one that is implicit. Tell us more! ( - meaning: you tell us more).




Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with!
(Macbeth, 1606)

It turns out that the greatest writer in the English language was somewhat illiterate.

The rule is fake and contrary to the spirit and tradition of the English language. Sentences ending with prepositions were not considered incorrect until one fella by the name of John Dryden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dryden) tried to prove that the English used by the writers of Dryden's time was superior to those of the past. Specifically, he had a grudge against one William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and one whose name I forgot.

But wouldn't the governing tradition of the English language be the most recent authoritative one? Have Strunk and White been superseded? (I haven't look up what they say.)

[Scott Shepherd]

Scott..it is apparent that you hated the English class.

You slept through the part where you were to have been taught that 1) a sentence must have a subject and 2) do not begin a sentence with a preposition.

From the time I entered high school until the time I left.


No worries here Richard. What many don't grasp is that a forum on the internet is not a book waiting to be proofread and published. It's a forum that allows people from all walks of life to communicate (or attempt to communicate). When I left high school, despite my best efforts, I was fairly educated, from the high school sense of it. I was very good at math, decent at English. Being all I ever wanted to do was machine metals, I entered that world. I found that working around people that were poorly educated slowly wiped out my vocabulary. Essentially, over a fairly short number of years, I had lost much of what I had learned because I couldn't use it throughout the day. Most of the people I worked with were not highly educated. They were showing up to make a living for their family. However, some of those people would give you the shirt off of their back.

I have had the pleasure to be friends with so many people from my past, all from different walks of life. Some good, some bad, but I'm happy I've known them all. A forum is just like that. Can I write a technically correct paragraph for you to read? Probably not. Can I help you with something I am good at? Most certainly. Which would you rather have? Someone that can write like an English teacher, or someone that can educate you on something you aren't familiar with? I'll take someone with poor spelling skills any day of the week. We can't all be English majors, and I'd venture to guess that most people in a trade make more money than an English teacher. Which one's more valuable to you when your toilet is stopped up, a plumber or an English teacher?

I'm not belittling English teachers, but rather suggesting that a forum isn't high school or college, it's a public forum, just like walking down the street, and it's full of people from all walks of life. Some educated, some not. It doesn't change the value of what that person can contribute. We all have something to offer, spelled correctly or not. By suggesting that everyone should write everything correctly, it discourages people without a passion for the language to stop contributing, which I think is sad.

Can you understand the meaning of what I have typed? That should be the only question that needs to be answered. If you understood me, then that's all that mattered. Again, this isn't a college class, this is a public forum.

[Belinda Barfield]

I have to second Steve on this one. The last time we had a discussion of this type, almost the exact same one as a matter of fact, I posted something similar.

I would hate for those who write with less than perfect spelling and grammar - like myself - to feel intimidated and inadequate and not share their knowledge for fear of ridicule. Even though they may not be ridiculed in their particular thread, the ridicule is still present in threads like this one. There is a great deal of knowledge to be gained from this forum, and while I have learned a lot from this thread I have learned much, much more from posts that were written in the spirit of giving as opposed to written in the spirit of superiority.

[Kevin W Johnson]

No worries here Richard. What many don't grasp is that a forum on the internet is not a book waiting to be proofread and published. It's a forum that allows people from all walks of life to communicate (or attempt to communicate). When I left high school, despite my best efforts, I was fairly educated, from the high school sense of it. I was very good at math, decent at English. Being all I ever wanted to do was machine metals, I entered that world. I found that working around people that were poorly educated slowly wiped out my vocabulary. Essentially, over a fairly short number of years, I had lost much of what I had learned because I couldn't use it throughout the day. Most of the people I worked with were not highly educated. They were showing up to make a living for their family. However, some of those people would give you the shirt off of their back.

I have had the pleasure to be friends with so many people from my past, all from different walks of life. Some good, some bad, but I'm happy I've known them all. A forum is just like that. Can I write a technically correct paragraph for you to read? Probably not. Can I help you with something I am good at? Most certainly. Which would you rather have? Someone that can write like an English teacher, or someone that can educate you on something you aren't familiar with? I'll take someone with poor spelling skills any day of the week. We can't all be English majors, and I'd venture to guess that most people in a trade make more money than an English teacher. Which one's more valuable to you when your toilet is stopped up, a plumber or an English teacher?

I'm not belittling English teachers, but rather suggesting that a forum isn't high school or college, it's a public forum, just like walking down the street, and it's full of people from all walks of life. Some educated, some not. It doesn't change the value of what that person can contribute. We all have something to offer, spelled correctly or not. By suggesting that everyone should write everything correctly, it discourages people without a passion for the language to stop contributing, which I think is sad.

Can you understand the meaning of what I have typed? That should be the only question that needs to be answered. If you understood me, then that's all that mattered. Again, this isn't a college class, this is a public forum.

Scott said it so well, i thought it should be repeated.

[Ron Natalie]

What about "pre-heating" your oven? There's only two states an oven can be in, heated, and unheated... pre-heated is a meaningless term. -- George Carlin

We always ragged on Norm watching TNYW when he "predrills" his holes. We wondered if after he was done pre-drilling them, he would go ahead and drill them.

[Chuck Stone]

[QUOTE=Dan Friedrichs;1630073]

And, yes, the rule is not to END sentences with prepositions. [QUOTE]

If I'm ever unsure, I just tack on a ", butthead " at the end.
I know 'butthead' isn't a preposition.

[Darius Ferlas]

Do you mean that a sentence need not have an explicit subject? Must it at least have one that is implicit. Tell us more! ( - meaning: you tell us more).


Yes and no. (<--- this is a sentence)
However, if you see an implied subject in this sentence (the suff in bold font)then we're abandoning the English grammar and switching to philosophy.



But wouldn't the governing tradition of the English language be the most recent authoritative one? Have Strunk and White been superseded? (I haven't look up what they say.)
Governing tradition?
I'd say this question alone provides the answer. The long standing tradition is that prepositions are allowed at the end of a sentence. The prescriptive grammarians have tried to change that but they failed. The tradition just refuses to die.

There is nothing in Strunk and White to be superseded when it comes to the topic in question. They tried to supersede the long standing English tradition by forcing Latin structures on one of the already well established Germanic languages. There are more differences between Latin and English than meets the eye.

It's not even just the grammar, inflections and all the "visible" features. The way of thinking and the way of approaching the sentence is different. I see that also when I compare my native Polish to Latin and to English. Not that Poles can understand Latin without learning it, but the "feel" of the two languages is very similar. Not so when it comes to English, so if one tries to go beyond basic communication it takes a lot of study and observation. I'm not sure if I can provide a systematic explanation of what I mean by that without plunging into some hardcore study of linguistics which, however fascinating, was kinda sorta secondary to my interest in American literature.

Back to the topic... if you are asking about others who denied the prepositional musings by Dryden, Strunk, White and other hijackers then yes - they have been definitely superseded.

Some examples:

Those who lay down the universal principle that final prepositions are "inelegant" are unconsciously trying to deprive the English language of a valuable idiomatic resource, which has been used freely by all our greatest writers except those whose instinct for English idiom has been overpowered by notions of correctness derived from Latin standards.
(A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, Henry W. Fowler, 1926)

It was John Dryden, the 17th-century poet and dramatist, who first promulgated the doctrine that a preposition may not be used at the end of a sentence. Grammarians in the 18th century refined the doctrine, and the rule has since become one of the most venerated maxims of schoolroom grammar. But sentences ending with prepositions can be found in the works of most of the great writers since the Renaissance. In fact, English syntax not only allows but sometimes even requires final placement of the preposition.
(The American Heritage Book of English Usage, 1996)

The preposition at the end has always been an idiomatic feature of English. It would be pointless to worry about the few who believe it is a mistake.
(Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage, 2002)

I hope this is what you were looking for.

The whole argument will inevitably lead to the de facto division of grammarians into two camps - prescriptive and descriptive. Are we supposed to create the language, or should we rather observe it and describe it? Language itself precedes the linguistic theory and as such it is of secondary importance. That would mean that describing rather than prescribing makes more sense. Otherwise we end up with various linguistic monstrosities such as the tongue in cheek quote from Churchill posted a couple pages before.

[Mike Cruz]

OMG, Dan. Are there any other threads you'd like to unleash? This thread has spawned sub-threads within sub-threads. Are you still keeping up with it all?

[Larry Edgerton]

No worries here Richard. What many don't grasp is that a forum on the internet is not a book waiting to be proofread and published. It's a forum that allows people from all walks of life to communicate (or attempt to communicate). When I left high school, despite my best efforts, I was fairly educated, from the high school sense of it. I was very good at math, decent at English. Being all I ever wanted to do was machine metals, I entered that world. I found that working around people that were poorly educated slowly wiped out my vocabulary. Essentially, over a fairly short number of years, I had lost much of what I had learned because I couldn't use it throughout the day. Most of the people I worked with were not highly educated. They were showing up to make a living for their family. However, some of those people would give you the shirt off of their back.

I have had the pleasure to be friends with so many people from my past, all from different walks of life. Some good, some bad, but I'm happy I've known them all. A forum is just like that. Can I write a technically correct paragraph for you to read? Probably not. Can I help you with something I am good at? Most certainly. Which would you rather have? Someone that can write like an English teacher, or someone that can educate you on something you aren't familiar with? I'll take someone with poor spelling skills any day of the week. We can't all be English majors, and I'd venture to guess that most people in a trade make more money than an English teacher. Which one's more valuable to you when your toilet is stopped up, a plumber or an English teacher?

I'm not belittling English teachers, but rather suggesting that a forum isn't high school or college, it's a public forum, just like walking down the street, and it's full of people from all walks of life. Some educated, some not. It doesn't change the value of what that person can contribute. We all have something to offer, spelled correctly or not. By suggesting that everyone should write everything correctly, it discourages people without a passion for the language to stop contributing, which I think is sad.

Can you understand the meaning of what I have typed? That should be the only question that needs to be answered. If you understood me, then that's all that mattered. Again, this isn't a college class, this is a public forum.

I agree as well. I have been making a living at woodworking most of my life and since I have read a few posts such as this I don't post as much. I have as they say, "Got an attitude". I must have started typing a post a hundred times, and then said the heck with it and not posted.

[Dan Hintz]

I'll add a little fuel to the fire, if only to raise what I think is a valid point (to some degree)...

As our society moves more and more to an online presence, shouldn't we feel at least a modicum of responsibility to make sure the written word is proper? Typing mistakes aside, young minds are learning not just from their teachers, but also from what they see/read day in and day out. Since the majority of that material is now online, shouldn't we do our best to make sure what is available for learning is correct?

I don't begrudge someone their spelling mistakes, despite its ability to slow down my reading comprehension as my mind automatically tries to correct it, but if a young mind sees the same word spelled incorrectly over and over again, that's how they will learn it... incorrectly. I don't believe it's hard to see how a number of these reading sessions will slowly reduce the proper spelling capacity of generations to come.

We need to be diligent in what we write, even if it is on a "lowly" forum. I don't think we should consider the forums as a backroom poker table discussion where slang and drunken slurring is perfectly acceptable.

Just my $0.02...

[Scott Shepherd]

Dan, my response would be "it's not my responsibility to teach your kid(s) how to spell or read". I'm not qualified and I have no intention of going back to school to learn how to write better to allow me to post online.

That's an impossible suggestion. It would essentially shut down people like me and millions of others. So in order to make the place more "tidy", you'd loose the people that contribute. It would essentially shift from many real world users posting to a classroom for english.

My point would be that if you go to a woodworking event and the guy talking about his 30 years of making the best planes on the planet and he says "I make these from the best material I could buy", you don't raise your hand, interrupt him, and explain to him that he misused a word. You don't say "Excuse me, you should not have used 'make' and 'could' like that".

You'd be labeled a jerk by the guy speaking and anyone else in the room. However, do it on the internet and you have a line of people wanting to stand behind you and tell you how wrong you are for using those two words like that. So what's so magical about the internet and forums that allows people to be rude to others when they wouldn't do it to their face?

I write like I speak for the most part. I would imagine many people with blue collar backgrounds do the same. So if I can't write better, I should not post at all? Man, I hope that never happens because there's more talent out there than I could learn in a lifetime, and I'd hate to see them not be able to share that information because someone believes they can't spell better.

If spelling is so important on forums, why have none of the major forums included spell check for the last 15 years of forums?

[Dan Hintz]

Dan, my response would be "it's not my responsibility to teach your kid(s) how to spell or read". I'm not qualified and I have no intention of going back to school to learn how to write better to allow me to post online.
Nor am I saying it is... yet if the only people who chose to try and speak/write properly were teachers, what incentive would the children have to do the same outside of the classroom? "No one does it outside of school, so why should I bother doing it here?" And then the domino effect takes over. You say you have no intention of going back to school to learn how to write better, so you've set the bar for your writing level... somewhere above village idiot and somewhere below a PhD in English lit, same as me. But as that bar is set lower and lower on average with all of the posters, the next generation's average bar will be somewhat lower.

I'm not suggesting we all try to be PhDs, only strive to set the best example we can (within reason, of course).

[Matt Walton]

So what's so magical about the internet and forums that allows people to be rude to others when they wouldn't do it to their face?
I agree that there is absolutely nothing to justify being rude. When you are talking, the words are just kind of coming out, with no time to correct yourself. When you are typing on a forum however, you do have a chance to look over what you just said to see if there is anything that needs fixing.
Just my opinion.

[Scott Shepherd]

I hardly think that me saying your instead of you're is corrupting some kid's ability to interact with society. If that's true, skip the forums and go to the heart of the beast, text messaging.

With the trash that's on tv and the absolutely insane grammar they use on tv, I'd be darn happy my kid was at least reading a forum, rather than watching that junk.

I take issue with so much of it. Typically it's older people saying that "kids today"...blah blah blah. But as I mentioned many pages ago, people complain about their own grandkids not doing this or that. Well who raised their parents? You did! So if you did such a bang up job as parent on your kid, then why did you kid not teach his own kids? This problem didn't start yesterday. It started 40 years ago (or more) when people weren't parenting correctly then. They taught their kids wrong, and to have no values or standards, then those kids had kids, and now it's a grumpy old man in the corner complaining about his own grand kids not doing this or that. Like I said before, don't blame the kid, blame the parents, and then the parents of them, which would be the kids grandparents.

If you can understand what I type, then my job is done. If you can't, tell me what you can't understand and I'll try to explain it the best I can, but it's the parents responsibility to make sure their kids are ready for the world on their own, not mine. Too many parents think their job is to be friends with their kids. Your job as a parent it to prepare your kids for the real world and life when they turn into an adult. If someone doesn't believe they should hold their kids accountable for their education, then that's not my slack to take up.

I think 99% of the people that post ARE doing the best they can. I don't see much "I H8 tht" on here. I see people honestly trying to communicate.

[Chuck Stone]

I hardly think that me saying your instead of you're is corrupting some kid's ability to interact with society.

That depends .. put it in a different context, and it can make a huge difference.

Imagine yourself trying to hire someone, and you need to look through hundreds of resumes.
You only have a short time to weed out the chaff. This resume is the first impression. If you
need to find someone who can be concise and accurate, would you look at a resume that is
full of these errors and put it aside for a callback?
Perhaps you would.. most people doing the hiring would not.
I think that would represent a significant change to someone's future prospects.

Everyone makes typos. And I think most people don't have a problem with them.
But everyone has their own threshold for tolerance, too. Mine is this:

You write so that someone will understand what you are telling them.
If you write in such a way that it becomes difficult for me to decipher,
I'm less likely to take the time to understand what you are saying.
If I sense that it is deliberate or out of laziness, I'm less likely to read
anything else you write. You should not transfer the cost of being
understood onto the reader. It is your job to make yourself understandable.
That doesn't mean I'll be a spelling nazi or harp on typos.
But come on .. meet me halfway.

[Dan Hintz]

Like I said before, don't blame the kid, blame the parents...
How about if I just blame the parental generation as a whole (to avoid not including those who do not have kids)? That means I get to point to people our age (including the both of us)... if we don't set a proper example...

I'm of the "blame the parent for the child's major failings" mindset, but it's a bit narcissistic to blame the "other" parents if I can't set a good example myself. If I spoke in text speak on the forums, I couldn't very well chastise the younger generation for doing the same.

And I luvs me sum chastizin'!

[Darius Ferlas]

On a liter note, don't we all make mistakes sometimes? I sure do. Heck, even Dan does.



I don't begrudge someone their spelling mistakes, despite its ability to slow down my reading comprehension as my mind automatically tries to correct it...

So to those who apparently feel somewhat turned off by this debate, keep on posting. Please. There's lots I still need to learn about woodworking.

[Dan Hintz]

On a liter note, don't we all make mistakes sometimes? I sure do. Heck, even Dan does.
I don't know the proper literary term for what just happened there... similar to a tense change mid-sentence (dual plurality and subject change?). I started off talking about plural mistakes by someone, but my use of "its" was referring to a singular mistake's ability to throw my mind off. Mistakes like that will tend to muddy the waters, making it unclear as to what the writer is referring to. But the question is, is it a common mistake by the author or a once-in-a-blue-moon slip of the tongue?

[Darius Ferlas]

I don't know the proper literary term for what just happened there... similar to a tense change mid-sentence (dual plurality and subject change?).

In this particular case we would be talking about pronoun-antecedent agreement.

Dan, I didn't point this out out of malice. I just though to myself this would be a great, tongue and cheek, way to head towards the end of this thread.

[Dan Hintz]

Dan, I didn't point this out out of malice. I just though to myself this would be a great, tongue and cheek, way to head towards the end of this thread.
I didn't read it any other way than it's intended amusement factor. While my teachers did their best to make it sink in, I was never able to remember much more Enlgish class material than nouns (and pronouns), verbs, adjectives, and similar easy stuff... antecedents is well into the realm of terms I would have to remind myself of the definition before pointing one out in a sentence. I may not know the proper terms, but it doesn't appear to matter as I typically write by what "feels" correct (a few of the lessons I had to learn the hard way through personal research, and I still need to stop and think about them before applying... like using 'I' versus 'me' in a sentence). I'm no Chaucer, but when I'm writing for effect, I'd say I'm well above the 50th percentile

[Dan Friedrichs]

Even for a forum as polite as SMC, I'm quite impressed that we've gotten to nearly 200 posts without this devolving too badly! :)

This was an interesting discussion - I hope no one got the impression that we expect perfect spelling and grammar from every person in every situation. At least for me, the take-home message is that everyone should attempt to do as best as they can, and should strive to improve whenever possible. And if you are getting paid to write, the standards are much higher, so you should be even more careful.

[Caspar Hauser]

On a liter note

Ought that not be litre?

[Dennis Peacock]

Thank you all for keeping this a civil and somewhat organized discussion. I have been watching this thread in case it needed to be locked or removed.

I find it interesting to see so many view points people have. It's someone's fault? IMHO, this is where we as a nation have gone very wrong...looking to blame somebody for anything at any time. It's our fault. It's my responsibility to teach my kids to be responsible, truthful, live in integrity, and to think of others long before thinking of themselves. It is also my responsibility to teach my kids how to communicate clearly and correctly. It is a daily challenge for me to do well enough to be an example to my kids and then expect them to follow my example. My biggest challenge has been to build a good work ethic into my youngest son....talk about a challenge..!!!! :)

[Darius Ferlas]

Ought that not be litre?
The forebearers of this country didn't spill all that tea in Boston so that American woodworking forums continued using this sissy kind of spelling. I will definitely continue using the version sanctioned by the language poli... I mean authorities (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lite).

[Hilel Salomon]

I find far more egregious examples of poor grammar, poor spelling and confused syntax on the internet than outside of it. I was a professor at the University of South Carolina and found that half of my colleagues couldn't spell and could neither talk nor write correctly. Term papers are essential and multiple choice questions are (outside of the sciences) a horrible way to prepare people to think clearly and write clearly, yet many of my colleagues did not require written exams or written reports. Part of the problem is that we have about 3500 so called "colleges" which are spewing out graduates who have not been forced to write. We do not pay our public school teachers adequately and a consequence of this is that we rarely prepare them well. People may (including many on this forum) laugh about this, but expressing yourself clearly both in writing and speaking is an essential part of thinking clearly.

[Stephen Tashiro]

People may (including many on this forum) laugh about this, but expressing yourself clearly both in writing and speaking is an essential part of thinking clearly.

I don't laugh about that, but I don't agree with it. It is possible to think clearly about some types of problems without thinking about them verbally. Have you ever read statements by the late Robert J. Fisher, former world chess champion?

The converse of what you say (i.e. that teaching people to write and speak clearly will teach them to think clearly) has been the motivation of many efforts to reform language itself, or create universal languages such as Esperanto, or use language precisely, as advocated in Stuart Chase's book THE TYRANNY OF WORDS. It may indeed be true that improving the use of language will improve deductive thinking. However, most thinking in life is not deductive thinking. There usually aren't enough facts available to make rigorous deductions.

People must make decisions based on intuition, emotion and personal bias. Perhaps teaching the precise use of language and deductive logic would make it clear to people that they are doing this instead of being "perfectly reasonable". That might promote tolerance.

[John Coloccia]

I think language provides a framework to organize your thoughts. For example, without using or thinking of the term deja vu, try and think to yourself what deja vu is. It's a tricky concept, but the words are the organizational backdrop that allows us to think about it concisely. Also, think of all the times you hear, "Well, that word in Japanese sort of means THIS, but not really....there's really no way to describe that feeling in English". That's another way of saying that English speaking people lack certain thoughts and emotions that other cultures have, and vice versa. All you Italian speakers: try explaining the concept of "allora". I can't think of a way of expressing that in English that really captures the subtlety, and without that I'm sure I wouldn't have an emotional concept of what that subtlety was.

I don't know how fundamental language is to thought, but it sure seems to help :)

[Belinda Barfield]

My chuckle for the day? Actual title "More Docs Doesn't Add Up To Happier Patients".

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Newsletters/Washington-Health-Policy-in-Review/2011/Feb/February-7-2011/More-Docs-Doesnt-Add-Up.aspx

[Aaron Black]

To be honest I've never been able to grasp writing well be it spelling,sentence structor, punctuation. I failed my way thru high school english classes do I blame the teachers no myself not really however by the time i graduated high school I had already taken all the available math and chem classes available thru the UofM. I think my lack of writing skills not reading mind you has kept me from posting alot on sites like this as well as pulling me into the construction field where I feel safe as to not have to communcate alot thru writing. Im a crane operator where I use my math skills everyday almost, but i just want some of you not all of you to know as you read and judge people on there writing skills it doesn't mean they cant build a better set of cabinets or redo a house better than you.

[Karl Wicklund]

...it doesn't mean they cant build a better set of cabinets or redo a house better than you.
Absolutely true. But then not everyone is required to redo a house or built cabinets - we leave it to those who are talented, or at least interested in the work. Unfortunately, there are very few of us who are not required to communicate formally to fulfill our jobs or pursue our passions.

Here are a few points I try to help my writing students understand, presented in no particular order.

--Write for your audience. A forum post does not require the same level of articulate, well-formed language as does a technical manual. A conversational tone seems welcome here.

--Standards change. For example, according to some editors, it's no longer 'wrong' to leave out the second comma in the phrase "dogs, cats, and rabbits." Not what I learned in the 80's. Changing standards always cause consternation.

--On some level, no, it doesn't matter how well you can follow grammar guidelines, so long as you're understood. However, were I to speak or write in a markedly non-standard way, it would send a (not necessarily accurate) message about my intelligence. Speech is clothing for our thoughts. If I wear grimy overalls and a stained shirt to a restaurant, it doesn't mean I have no respect for public standards of attire, but it sure might come off that way. Similarly, if I go around ingoring spelling and grammar and stuff and I cant make my sentences like whatever they should, than I give some poeple an excuse to misunderestimate my smarts.

[Jay Jolliffe]

Your beating a dead horse.....Give it up.....I can't believe this has gone on for so long.....

[Stephen Tashiro]

Your beating a dead horse.....Give it up.....I can't believe this has gone on for so long.....

I'm not sure who that was addressed to. It's better than beating a live horse, isn't it?

[Dan Hintz]

It's better than beating a live horse, isn't it?
You never know, maybe the horse would like it... and who am I to judge what a horse does in the privacy of his own stall.

[Mike Cruz]

Good thing my wife doesn't read this, Dan. She might see you in a different light...

[Matt Radtke]

The dumbing (I know it's not a real word) down of our once great nation reaches far beyond grammatical errors. When's the last time anyone under the age of 25 wrote in script? Is it still taught? We are raising generations of kids who cannot tell time on a wristwatch, much less construct a legible sentence.

Are you kidding? I'm 29 and I don't use script or cursive writing anymore, save for my signature. There is a very simple reason why; the computer.

By the time I was in middle school, which would have been the '94-'95 and '95-'96 school years, EVERYTHING more complicated that a simple worksheet was required to be typed. And don't forget standardized forms that are read via an OCR computer. It can't read script, so everything had to be in capital block letters.

My script writing is awful, but this shouldn't be surprising. It has been either discouraged or flat out prohibited the moment I left elementary school The tradeoff, of course is my typing skills are excellent. I can type 60 wpm for a paper and can burst-type up to 100 wpm for computer usage.

[Darius Ferlas]

By the time I was in middle school, which would have been the '94-'95 and '95-'96 school years, EVERYTHING more complicated that a simple worksheet was required to be typed. And don't forget standardized forms that are read via an OCR computer. It can't read script, so everything had to be in capital block letters.

My script writing is awful, but this shouldn't be surprising. It has been either discouraged or flat out prohibited the moment I left elementary school The tradeoff, of course is my typing skills are excellent. I can type 60 wpm for a paper and can burst-type up to 100 wpm for computer usage.

And what about those caught in the middle, like myself?
Developments in technology came too soon for me to bring to completion the good old script writing, and too early to give me enough time to excel at keyboarding. As a result I can do neither.

[Mike Desch]

How sad!

Unfortunately, the current crop of "adults" can't seem to write very well.

It used to be that newspapers were sticklers for getting everything correct, but now you see article after article with lousy grammar and even misspelled words (to say nothing of pictures with the wrong captions). Our local rag screws up almost daily (to my horror) and has even messed up their mast head!

Yep, seems like the educational system is being "dumbed down," and fewer and fewer people can write a simple essay in correct English.

I can imagine my old English teacher rolling over in his grave, groaning!

Cheers,
s/Mike

[Richard Wagner]

Hmmm, in the early 50s I was taught that the second comma was superfluous. The word 'and' is the only conjunctive required here.

[Matt Radtke]

Hmmm, in the early 50s I was taught that the second comma was superfluous. The word 'and' is the only conjunctive required here.

And the whole "English is a living language" thing always trips people up. Grammer rules, spellings, and meaning can and do change over time. I started kindergarten in The fall of '87. I was taugh the whole way through that you need a coma after every item in the list until you reach the 'and.'

If you want a nice, static language, only speak in Latin or some other dead language.

[Cindy Navarro]

Language does change with the times, but punctuation and grammar remain pretty much the same. The book "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" is an interesting discussion of the loss of punctuation and grammar. You might fight it interesting, as well as, entertaining.

[Darius Ferlas]

If you want a nice, static language, only speak in Latin or some other dead language.
Latin dead?
When was the funeral?

This is a Wikipedia article about the US of A (http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civitates_Foederatae_Americae) and its current president (http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baracus_Obama).
This one is about Hosni Mubarak (http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifestationes_Aegyptiae_anni_2011), and it includes information about his resignation, some 16 hours ago:

11 Februarii - Mubarak, quamquam pridie iterum dixerat se non prius quam mense Septembris a magistratu se recessurum, officium praesidis reliquit, qui nuntius plurimo Aegyptios magno gaudio affecit.

And here is a No Smoking sign in English and in Latin:

182360

Not bad for a dead language, huh?

[Belinda Barfield]

I think I'll just learn ancient Sumerian.

[Ernie Miller]

Language does change with the times, but punctuation and grammar remain pretty much the same. The book "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" is an interesting discussion of the loss of punctuation and grammar. You might fight it interesting, as well as, entertaining.

Not having a comma after the word Shoots still looks funny to me. It's as if the title is about two things - Eats, and Shoots and Leaves. Putting the comma after Shoots separates the words Shoots and Leaves into two separate entities - No?

[Darius Ferlas]

Eats, and Shoots and Leaves. Putting the comma after Shoots separates the words Shoots and Leaves into two separate entities - No?
No necessarily. The use of comma in a few languages is pretty much a fiasco.

Consider this sentence:

I met Rory, a butler, and a cook.

How many people did I meet?

[Chuck Stone]

Consider this sentence:
I met Rory, a butler, and a cook.
How many people did I meet?

These things confuse me.. hope i'm not alone. Here's my guess.

I think in that sentence you met three.
But if you wrote "I met Rory; a butler, and a cook" it might be two.
Or "I met Rory; a butler and a cook" might be one.

[Matt Radtke]

Latin dead?
When was the funeral?

Dead as in not the language used in daily conversation. If I recall correctly, it was specifically chosen for scientific/medical terms because it is not a "daily driver." If a language is not used by common man, it is less likely to change over time.

Assuming you can read Latin, you should have no problem reading Latin from 500 years ago. Good luck with 500 year old English.

[Ernie Miller]

No necessarily. The use of comma in a few languages is pretty much a fiasco.

Consider this sentence:

I met Rory, a butler, and a cook.

How many people did I meet?

I would say I met three people, but I don't think this is an example of poor punctuation - it's just badly worded. If I was talking about two people I would say, "I met Rory the butler, and a cook". If I was talking about three people, I would leave it as stated in your example.

[Dan Friedrichs]

If I was talking about two people I would say, "I met Rory the butler, and a cook".
But this is technically incorrect. "the butler" is an appositive phrase - it renames the noun preceding it, and as such, should be set off with commas.

You wouldn't say, "I met Barack Obama the President of the United States when I was on vacation", right? Clearly that is missing 2 commas. The same rule applies to the butler example.

[Ernie Miller]

But this is technically incorrect. "the butler" is an appositive phrase - it renames the noun preceding it, and as such, should be set off with commas.

You wouldn't say, "I met Barack Obama the President of the United States when I was on vacation", right? Clearly that is missing 2 commas. The same rule applies to the butler example.

Tell it to Attila the Hun... or is that Attila, the Hun?

[Dan Friedrichs]

Tell it to Attila the Hun... or is that Attila, the Hun?

:) I suppose you have a point - in this case, "Attila the Hun" is the noun.

But how about this:

I met Bob Jones, the president of the Rotary Club, and Steve Smith.

It's not clear whether or not Bob Jones is the president of the Rotary Club (or if I am referring to a third person I met), and this couldn't be clarified by omitting the first comma.

[Ernie Miller]

:) I suppose you have a point - in this case, "Attila the Hun" is the noun.

But how about this:

I met Bob Jones, the president of the Rotary Club, and Steve Smith.

It's not clear whether or not Bob Jones is the president of the Rotary Club (or if I am referring to a third person I met), and this couldn't be clarified by omitting the first comma.

How about : "I met Steve Smith and Bob Jones, who is the president of the Rotary Club."
If it were three people, I might say: "I met the president of the Rotary Club along with Bob Jones and Steve Smith."

Your point is well taken - there seem to be some things that cannot be said (at least in English) in an unambiguous yet eloquent manner. Sometimes it appears that following the rules strictly make matters worse, not better.

[Chuck Stone]

How about : "I met Steve Smith and Bob Jones, who is the president of the Rotary Club."


Or maybe "I met Bob Jones (president of the Rotary Club) and Steve Smith" The parentheses de-emphasize the phrase,
as you would by dropping your voice.

[Darius Ferlas]

Dead as in not the language used in daily conversation. If I recall correctly, it was specifically chosen for scientific/medical terms because it is not a "daily driver."
But Latin is used in daily conversations. It is an official language of the Vatican. They even have news broadcast in Latin.

Not exactly lately, but some 60 years ago there were people who spoke Latin among themselves because it was the only language they had in common. These were some of the prisoners in German concentration camps during WW2.


If a language is not used by common man, it is less likely to change over time.
That may be tricky. Let's look at some examples:

Icelandic - hardly changed over the last 1000 years.
Lithuanian - while not exactly unchanged, the language is so archaic that Lithuanians can grasp a lot of Sanskrit without learning it. This is impossible for most other people within Indo-European family, like you or me, unless you took Sanskrit in school. I did not.

Both of the above are spoken by common man.

Now let's look at English. It sure changed but the change was rather from the top. The Elites spoke French rather than English so and the language permeated through to the common man. Today, only about 20% of basic vocabulary in English can be traced to Anglo-Saxon roots.

Generalizing about human languages is pretty risky, as there are very few rules common to all of them. The number of the so called linguistic universals is very scarce. The necessity and/or certainty of change are not among them. Wherever change does occur there is no universal reason for it. Time alone (as shown by the example of the Icelandic) is insufficient to exert linguistic shifts within a language.


Assuming you can read Latin, you should have no problem reading Latin from 500 years ago. Good luck with 500 year old English.
The issue is not necessarily the Latin of today and the Latin of 500 years ago, but rather the latter and the Latin of 1700 years ago. It did change somewhat, but not a whole lot, even though it was in daily use for 12 centuries. I can't give you examples since the Latin I took in high school was mostly the Classical "variety".

As for the 500 years old English, it's not that hard. The first few pages might be slow but then you'll pick up speed. You may try it yourself. Since you asked for a 500 year old English, there are lots of perfectly readable examples by people who wrote of the new Landes, and of the People founde bythe Messengers of the Kynge of Portyngale, named Emanuel. It is likely a translation from Dutch and the date of the English print is 1511. That is only 39 years before the generally accepted beginning of Modern English, i.e. 1650 when the Great Vowel Shif (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift)t was complete.

In short, understanding English of 500 years ago is much easier than understanding East Enders in London, UK in 2011.



These things confuse me.. hope i'm not alone. Here's my guess.

I think in that sentence you met three.
But if you wrote "I met Rory; a butler, and a cook" it might be two.
Or "I met Rory; a butler and a cook" might be one.

Bingo!
The use of comma in English is one confusing business. The fact that both rules are accepted (depending on who you ask) only adds to the problem.

[John E Wallace]

And you know this..... how? In one sentence you've managed to insult every teacher in the country. Thank you for summarizing my career so succinctly.:(

Ernie

It's much more important to be politically correct than to educate our young people. Example, 14 yr old daughter suspended for a week. Why? A teacher saw her take a Midol tablet. She violated the zero tolerance drug policy. Never mind that the week she was suspended was exam week. Oh, and let's not forget that passing the standardized tests are much more important than students actually learning something useful.

[John Coloccia]

Just FYI:

I've read a LOT of sources claiming that Latin was used because it was a dead language. Someone made this up out of thin air. Carl Linne concocted this system of naming in the mid 1700s. At that time, Latin was anything but dead, and in fact scientific writings were typically written in Latin. Latin, therefore, was the natural choice for a scientific naming scheme, and was chosen precisely because it was not a dead language but rather a well known and studied language.

Much of the naming is actually derived from Greek or simply made up and then latinized . It's not really pure Latin. To this day, most people would recognize Carl by his self-latinized name, "Carolus Linnaeus". :)

[Ernie Miller]

It's much more important to be politically correct than to educate our young people. Example, 14 yr old daughter suspended for a week. Why? A teacher saw her take a Midol tablet. She violated the zero tolerance drug policy. Never mind that the week she was suspended was exam week. Oh, and let's not forget that passing the standardized tests are much more important than students actually learning something useful.

So you have a gripe with a particular teacher in a particular school, therefore, all teachers and all schools are useless. How provincial of you. This has nothing whatever to do with 'political correctness' and it's time to stop using this over-used phrase to cover up your particular bias. A politician doesn't agree with your view so all politicians are worthless - a plumber messes up your sink so all plumbers are worthless - a lawyer loses your case so all lawyers are worthless. Not a good way to go through life.

[Stephen Tashiro]

I think I'll just learn ancient Sumerian.

I wonder if there is a modern Sumerian.

[Charlie Reals]

I wonder if there is a modern Sumerian.

Arabic with a little Kurdish thrown in

[Jeff Nicol]

I believe that I have found another topic that will always have issues of what should be or not to be. The thing that bothers me the most is the childish way that some have to degrade others for no apparent reason, but to antagonize. So all of that is wasted time and proves that some need to belittle others to make themselves feel better. Very sad.

What I have noticed is that many of the young people, college students or graduates and others with just a high school education, do not read any more! Reading is a very good way to keep your mind sharp and maybe learn something at the same time. Reading also can be humorous, sad, entriguing, enlightening and many other things to anyone and everyone! I read a little in some novel, biography, newspaper, or magazine each day. The older the book the better it will be and filled with things that have been lost over time, our history is being lost and replaced with "Politically Correct" garbage and that is a big part of why the youth of today are not knowledgeable of why things are as they used to be.

My Dad worked at the local university for 21 years after 30 years being a mechanic on trains, planes and automobiles (A movie title I believe?). He does not have a college degree or one minute of higher education, but could run circles around every engineer or plant manager that the university hired. He designed and implemented a system to control the fans, vents and heat for the green houses, that saved them 10's of thousands of $'s. So it does not truly matter what degrees you may have and how much book learning you have, I will take someone who has practical knowledge and skills learned over time in the trenches than a wet behind the ears greenhorn fresh from college, because we all know that what looks good on paper may not work in real life!

So with that all being said, and mind you I could ramble on for a much greater length, but it is time to end this bickering and childs play. Here is my answer to it all:

USE COMMON SENSE AND REASON TO MAKE DECISIONS, AND LOOK IN THE MIRROR WHEN YOU BELIEVE YOU ARE PERFECT. YOU WILL SEE THAT YOU ARE NOT AND SO IT GOES FOR EVERYONE ELSE. THEN REMEMBER THE GOLDEN RULE AND...........DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU.

From the mind of an uneducated fool, but lover of life,

Jeff

[Ernie Miller]

I believe that I have found another topic that will always have issues of what should be or not to be. The thing that bothers me the most is the childish way that some have to degrade others for no apparent reason, but to antagonize. So all of that is wasted time and proves that some need to belittle others to make themselves feel better. Very sad.

What I have noticed is that many of the young people, college students or graduates and others with just a high school education, do not read any more! Reading is a very good way to keep your mind sharp and maybe learn something at the same time. Reading also can be humorous, sad, entriguing, enlightening and many other things to anyone and everyone! I read a little in some novel, biography, newspaper, or magazine each day. The older the book the better it will be and filled with things that have been lost over time, our history is being lost and replaced with "Politically Correct" garbage and that is a big part of why the youth of today are not knowledgeable of why things are as they used to be.

My Dad worked at the local university for 21 years after 30 years being a mechanic on trains, planes and automobiles (A movie title I believe?). He does not have a college degree or one minute of higher education, but could run circles around every engineer or plant manager that the university hired. He designed and implemented a system to control the fans, vents and heat for the green houses, that saved them 10's of thousands of $'s. So it does not truly matter what degrees you may have and how much book learning you have, I will take someone who has practical knowledge and skills learned over time in the trenches than a wet behind the ears greenhorn fresh from college, because we all know that what looks good on paper may not work in real life!

So with that all being said, and mind you I could ramble on for a much greater length, but it is time to end this bickering and childs play. Here is my answer to it all:

USE COMMON SENSE AND REASON TO MAKE DECISIONS, AND LOOK IN THE MIRROR WHEN YOU BELIEVE YOU ARE PERFECT. YOU WILL SEE THAT YOU ARE NOT AND SO IT GOES FOR EVERYONE ELSE. THEN REMEMBER THE GOLDEN RULE AND...........DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU.

From the mind of an uneducated fool, but lover of life,

Jeff

Wow! For a person who is ranting about not degrading and antagonizing others for no apparent reason, you sure are showing a lot of hostility.


What I have noticed is that many of the young people, college students or graduates and others with just a high school education, do not read any more!While this may be true, it's also true that many of today's young people do read. It's always been that way and probably always will.


The older the book the better it will be and filled with things that have been lost over time, our history is being lost and replaced with "Politically Correct" garbage and that is a big part of why the youth of today are not knowledgeable of why things are as they used to be."Politically Correct" is just another way of saying "stuff I don't agree with". How simple it would be if we could determine the true value of a book by simply knowing how old it is. Things are not the same as they used to be because they're not supposed to be. Things change... sometimes for the better, and sometimes not. I'd love to go back to the time when a man's word was his bond, and you could leave your doors unlocked. At the same time, I'd hate to re-live a time when women couldn't vote and some of our population couldn't sit where they wished on a bus. Better or worse - things change.


So it does not truly matter what degrees you may have and how much book learning you have, I will take someone who has practical knowledge and skills learned over time in the trenches than a wet behind the ears greenhorn fresh from college, because we all know that what looks good on paper may not work in real life!There seems to be a growing contempt for anyone with "book learning". Of course it matters what degrees and how much book learning you have. That's not to say that people who don't have an education can't be knowledgeable and highly skilled. I'd rather take someone who has both the book learning and the practical experience. To say otherwise is like saying woodworkers to go to the North Bennett Street School are wasting their time.

My apologies to all for this response which has little to do with the original topic of this thread.

[Stephen Tashiro]

Here are some examples related to the original topic of the thread.

From Google's description of a local business:



"Office Concepts, Inc. - Home - Office Supplies, Las Cruces, New Mexico
No other store in Las Cruces offers you the kind of quality and outrageous service you receive from Office Concepts Inc."


Outrageous service is not the kind of service that I prefer.

From the Wikipedia article on Claude Monet:



After her husband (Ernest Hoschedé) became bankrupt, and left in 1878 for Belgium, and after the death of Camille Monet in September 1879, and while Monet continued to live in the house in Vétheuil; Alice Hoschedé helped Monet to raise his two sons, Jean and Michel, by taking them to Paris to live alongside her own six children.


We have "after" and "after" and "while", why not throw in a few "before"'s ?

[Matt Walton]

We have "after" and "after" and "while", why not throw in a few "before"'s ?
I see you point, but on the same token... Change it! It is Wikipedia after all. ;)
And on the point of Political Correctness (not to get too political though), it drives me nuts to see businesses be PC for not apparent reason. Case in point, the whole Happy Holidays vs Merry Christmas deal. Personally, it drives me crazy when they say "holiday" when they are obviously talking about Christmas: IHOP's "Holiday Hotcakes" anyone? Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that red and green aren't major colors of Hanukkah. If however, there is an actual reason to say "holiday" then go right ahead. A great example in my mind is Marc Spagnuolo's Holiday project contest. At first I was ranting in my mind, until this project (http://thewoodwhisperer.com/yaakovs-chai-boy/) came out. Finally, a "holiday" project that gives it a reason to call it Holiday.
Now, I really hope I didn't offend anyone, all I'm saying is that if it's Christmas, call it Christmas. If it's Hanukkah, call it Hanukkah. If it's Festivus, call it Festivus. If it's something else, call it whatever it's called.

Can anybody say tanget?:rolleyes:

[Stephen Tashiro]

I see you point, but on the same token... Change it! It is Wikipedia after all. ;)


Unless you are a principal author of the article, It's more diplomatic to suggest the change on the Discussion page for the article. I did.

Isn't the traditional phrase "by the same token" rather than "on the same token"? I wonder what the origin of that phrase is.

[Matt Walton]

Isn't the traditional phrase "by the same token" rather than "on the same token"? I wonder what the origin of that phrase is.
Maybe it is, I don't know.
I just like to fuse that with "on the other hand" so I come up with "on the other side of that same token" :D

[Seth Dolcourt]

Case in point, the whole Happy Holidays vs Merry Christmas deal. Personally, it drives me crazy when they say "holiday" when they are obviously talking about Christmas:

Probably true at the church's Christmas buffet. But at the major chain restaurants where companies take their JewLimChristoSihk employees for year end holiday lunches...ambiguity is the borax in the melting pot.


IHOP's "Holiday Hotcakes" anyone? Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that red and green aren't major colors of Hanukkah.

Corrected. There are no high councils that ratify holiday colors. Similarly, I'd like to see CNN use mauve and Day-Glo orange for the next election coverage, because red and blue are only two of many colors available for use in constructing political maps.


If however, there is an actual reason to say "holiday" then go right ahead.

If you believe Wikipedia, holiday evolved from the term holy day. Maybe sprinkle in some happiness....it's kind of mean spirited, wishing someone a sad holy day.


Now, I really hope I didn't offend anyone, all I'm saying is that if it's Christmas, call it Christmas. If it's Hanukkah, call it Hanukkah. If it's Festivus, call it Festivus. If it's something else, call it whatever it's called.

That's a lot of specificity to cover after the cash register drawer closes and I'm being handed change. If we call it Happy Holidays, the line moves faster.

:)

[keith ouellette]

I have a very big problem with spelling. Its huge and if it wasn't for spell check I probably wouldn't write anything. I'm not even sure if I spelled write wright (seriously, which one is right for that sentence and witch which for that matter).

In my brief stint in collage in a communications class I wrote a paper on the uselessness of over correct spelling. I won't get into its content but I purposely miss spelled as many words as I could while still making it readable. When I received my 72 (a D if I remember the scale) , which required me to "conference" (the professors rule) with the professor. He asked me if I heard him say that incorrect spelling counted against the grade. After a ten minute discussion he finally admitted that he understood what i was driving at but didn't agree with my point.

He did raise my grade to 80 though. And by the way. I see that I didn't use quotations for the title of my paper. bummer

[Ryan Hovis]

In a fairly-upscale restaurant, I saw a sign for the " RESTROOM'S ". I'm curious what it is that the restrooms own.


I have found only about 10% of the US population knows proper apostrophe use. I saw a preschool in NJ once that had a big, multicolored sign out front that read "Adventure's In Learning"

[Jake Helmboldt]

Wow! For a person who is ranting about not degrading and antagonizing others for no apparent reason, you sure are showing a lot of hostility.

While this may be true, it's also true that many of today's young people do read. It's always been that way and probably always will.

"Politically Correct" is just another way of saying "stuff I don't agree with". How simple it would be if we could determine the true value of a book by simply knowing how old it is. Things are not the same as they used to be because they're not supposed to be. Things change... sometimes for the better, and sometimes not. I'd love to go back to the time when a man's word was his bond, and you could leave your doors unlocked. At the same time, I'd hate to re-live a time when women couldn't vote and some of our population couldn't sit where they wished on a bus. Better or worse - things change.

There seems to be a growing contempt for anyone with "book learning". Of course it matters what degrees and how much book learning you have. That's not to say that people who don't have an education can't be knowledgeable and highly skilled. I'd rather take someone who has both the book learning and the practical experience. To say otherwise is like saying woodworkers to go to the North Bennett Street School are wasting their time.

My apologies to all for this response which has little to do with the original topic of this thread.

I can see where Jeff's post could be seen as a bit hypocritical, but I saw it less as that, and more as just a direct and strong take on things. And I have to say I largely agree. I work for an engineering firm and I've known engineers that can't calculate the % change in volume of a gas/oil mixture. Jeff's signature kind of gets at the heart of his point I think; knowing is pointless without understanding, and it seems our schools are moving farther away from imparting true knowledge. Standardized testing has been a miserable failure in most cases and we now have a 5-point grading scale, but they have simply dumbed everything down a level.

That is why my older daughter goes to a Waldorf school. The central tenet is to educate the whole child. I just read an article today on the Waldorf approach to reading (they don't push reading in kindergarten like public schools. The emphasis is on nurturing the ability to develop concepts, understand the meaning and relationships of words and allow words to be interpreted for their context, as opposed to simply decoding a combination of characters that form a word without really comprehending what one is reading.

I find it perplexing that we now have in our schools all of these AP classes and yet more and more professors are saying incoming freshmen are not ready to learn at the college level. They have been spoonfed, not taught to learn, think critically, problem solve, etc. Life isn't a formula.

[Mike Cruz]

Jake, I agree with just about everything you just said. But life is a formula. It is, however, an ever changing formula. One must adjust and adapt. Figuring out this formula is like trying to figure out a woman. For most of us men, it is impossible...

Sorry for that statement to all the women that may have taken offense to that. I didn't mean that to be sexist or to be rude. Very simply, most men don't "get" most women. We think differntly. Neither way is "right", just different. There is, likewise, no one formula to life. We all find our own formula that works. Well, most of us do... Ok, some of us do... I suppose what would be a more accurate statement is that most of us find a formula that is adequate to sustain through life. Some of us find a formula that works for a good life. And a few, just a few, find a formula that actually lets us enjoy life. Here's to all of us finding that last formula... Now, let's all sing Kumbaya...

[Kevin W Johnson]

There seems to be a growing contempt for anyone with "book learning".


Actually, I'd say the growing contempt is for those with "book learning" that act like they know it all, when in fact they don't. I've seen my share of "engineers" that couldn't engineer their way out of a cardboard box with a box cutter and instructions.

[Ralph Sprang]

Very simply, most men don't "get" most women. We think differntly. Neither way is "right", just different. There is, likewise, no one formula to life.

So now you have offended most men - those who really DO "get it" ;)

It seems the issue is that we, as humans, tend to assume that everyone else is like us. I assume you don't think you "get" women, and maybe a few of your friends feel that way, but the reality is that we have no way of knowing whether "most" men "get women".

I could just as easily say that, since I have never met such a man, that "all men understand women" - but that might well be as inaccurate as the original statement.

For me, the solution is to be considerate of and respectful of others views. If I disagree, I talk about the topic, not the person, and try not to project my views onto others.

[Belinda Barfield]

Jake, I agree with just about everything you just said. But life is a formula. It is, however, an ever changing formula. One must adjust and adapt. Figuring out this formula is like trying to figure out a woman. For most of us men, it is impossible...


All we ask is that you try every once in a while.

. . . Kumbaya . . . Kumbaya.

[Mike Cruz]

Ralph, I certainly understand my wife. And feel that I understand women. Many times I just don't "get" them, but I understand.

My use of "most", I would think, is quite supported by, if nothing else, the book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. Whether or not the book was right, wrong, or indifferent, the fact that it got so "big" more than suggests that there is a fundimental difference between the sexes that isn't bridged by understanding. If you take issue with me saying "most", sorry. Maybe "most" do understand women. If it makes you feel better, I don't think most women undertand men, either. Just my experience.

I have a million other things to say about this, but will quit while I can...

[Mike Cruz]

Belinda, by all means, not too much to ask for. Heck TRYING to understand MOST of the time isn't too much to ask for...

[Dennis Peacock]

This has been a good discuss and it has been civil for the better part.

We are wavering off the topic and I feel that the discussion has met its given purpose.

This thread is now Closed - Thank you all for participating in the thread.