*sigh*
Apart from all the books I read (back up to a little less than half the number per week of my peak of a 23/week average of some years ago), I read, well, just about everything I can get my hands on, physical or virtual. While I don’t read as many blog posts every day as I once did, I read a lot of those too. More and more it seem the trend in all sorts of blogs is toward less and less literate expression. Two small examples from a blog at a site for health professionals:
” …the humor of the ______ was too much to bare.”
“By this point all of the racket had also waken up ______________.”
No, Mr. 20-Something IT Pro for a health institution: “too much to bear”. And “waken up” isn’t correct here either. “Had… awakened” or “had… woken” or even the poorer “had… wakened up”.
It’s as though more and more people have never read anything written by a literate person, and more and more people have never heard a literate person speak English. Well, of course. Most are products of public schools. Perhaps as many as 1/3 (perhaps) of students ENTERING high school are proficient readers of English, according to Scholastic.com (pdf here). Perhaps. Of those who go on to graduate college (self-selected to–maybe–be more literate, whatever that means, than their peers), almost 31% are literate enough to read their way out of a paper bag, actually a decline in reading proficiency from their entry into high school.
Is it any wonder that our (once, formerly) representative republic with all too many democratic elements is in trouble? Do the right thing: read more. Read material that’s written well and researched well and presented as honestly as possible. As much as possible, encourage others to do the same.
Your grandchildren will thank you.
*sigh* The first blog post I read today (on a political “analysis” site) offered more evidence of the trend noted above (I swear it I read this kind of crap a.] so you don’t have to *heh* and b.] ALL the time–unfortunately–while trying to gain info that fleshes out background the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind obscures or otherwise lies about… not that the Hivemind is any better at literate expression).
“phenomena’s”
No, a.) the plural of “phenomenon” is “phenomena” and b.) trying to form a plural by using an apostrophe is nothing short of stupid.
“over looked”
It’s one word, not two.
ly’s (“The problem ly’s…”)
*ack-thbbt!-spew* LIES, dumbass! Dual stupidities here. “Ly’s” isn’t even a word and the use of the apostrophe is so monumentally stupid as to be almost a landmark stupidity. This guy’s parents and teachers should be shot, and he should be dragged over hot coals on the way to being tarred, feathered and burned at the stake. Hopefully before he reproduces.
“the support is cult like”
The preferred formation is “cult-like”.
“ITS not an anti gay amendment…. its pro morality amendment”
Of course, NOW when apostrophes are REQUIRED the dumbass subliterate moron doesn’t use them! Of course.
But this sort of thing is rampant, and not just in “citizen journalism” so-called.
“Something Barack Hussein Obama seems to know nothing about.”
Want more? Surely not! Well, one simply cannot go to ANY Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind outlet and not receive an assault on literacy. Consider a current (May 11, 2012) headline:
“First Male Masseuse Who Sued Travolta Admits He Has WRONG DATE…”
WTF?!? A masseuse is a woman who gives massage. A male who does so is a masseur. How these people who write such things can live with themselves I don’t know.
Trust me… some things are just too much to bare. Haven’t you seen those photos of people at Wal-Mart?
🙂
Besides… I’m not sure reading more will help any more with the plethora of illiterate authors out there.
Reading more “that’s written well and researched well and presented as honestly as possible” will. 🙂
One of the really “great” things about my high school purchase of The Great Books of the Western World was just that: a wealth of GOOD reading material. One thing reading those books taught me was the ability to discern between well-written reading material and crap. Within a short amount of time, I was able to make (mentally) three stacks of books of those I had read to that point: well-written books of substance, well-written books of fluff (still worth reading for other reasons than the substantial works) and poorly-written crap. I pretty much began avoiding the last class from that time on.
If that bothers you, go read a writing sample that is available on a link included on my latest post (gun control is where the link is found). The list of errors you come up with might be longer than the lies Obama has told the American public or is that pubic…
http://www.themoralliberal.com/2012/05/10/progressives-dont-believe-in-america-t-f-stern/
ACK! The thing at the post you linked that really got my goat was in the comment quoting Louis Brandeis as using “beneficient” when “beneficent” is the word that applies (it just kinda jumped out at me). “Beneficient” isn’t even a word. I have my doubts that Brandeis used the non-word. ACK! And I’m sure you simply cut-and-pasted the comment from elsewhere, so the transcription error has probably been through several iterations of multiple web generations, now, although Wikiquote and Brainyquote both have it as the correct word, “beneficent”.
As to your own text, I’d only quibble about “back water” (a nautical term, IIRC, meaning to go backwards in the water by means of oars, paddles, etc., adapted to general use as a phrase meaning to take back a statement or retreat from a stated position) when “backwater” is the proper term to convey what you mean. Yeh, it’s a quibble, but it makes a difference, since “back water” is a compound verb (there’s a technical term that eludes me right now) and “backwater” is a noun, constructed as a verb-noun compound word.
I actually prefer your use of “hodge-podge” over the alternate “hodgepodge”. Any other cavils are simply stylistic preferences. Your linked piece is certainly more literate than the run-of-the-mill (quotidian, everyday, ordinary, routine *heh*) Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind drivel.
Forget it, friend. You’re the guy with the mop-bucket on the deck of the Titanic.
Most people wouldn’t know proper spelling and grammar if it bit ’em in the a*s, and half of those who DO, think you’re being an arrogant, elitist a**hole for pointing it out.
MC
“an arrogant, elitist a**hole for pointing it out”
And maybe they’d be right, but so? 🙂
(Actually, I think Jose Ortega y Gasset made a pretty good argument for genuine elitism’s place in a healthy society. Of course, the self-appointed elites running the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind and D.C, etc., have given elitism such a bad name that just saying someone is “an arrogant, elitist a**hole” is nearly equivalent to calling the person a racist… and from subliterate morons, probably just as accurate.)