I have ceased being shocked at the *cough* “deep thinkers” *cough* who share their “thoughts” in various print and eprint media whose “deep thoughts” are too deep to allow mundane things like spell checkers, and whose “literacy” extends only to what they have heard (and dependably misunderstood) others say.
It’s as though being stuck on a wad of gum at the far lefthand side of the Dunning-Kruger Curve is a matter of idiotic pride for them. Yeh, it’s a principle. #gagamaggot
Examples of illiterate1, unweening2 (ignorant, “unknowing” if you will *heh*) Lefthanded Dunning-Krugerite misuses of English abound, but here are a few representative examples just from the “I consider myself above the need for a spell checker” arrogance category:
distain for disdain
dispare for despair
sences for senses
And on and on and on in just one example out of legions of rambling, run-on sentence filled, comma spliced “deep thinking” from a 30-something GRUP with no desire to actually grow up.
And things like this get published, in one form or another, to spread among the subliterate population like a virus in this age of all-too-easy dissemination of this sort of crap. And yes, I recognize the irony of my own all-too-easy publication of thoughts on the Internet. 😉 In days of yore, my rants on such topics were pretty much limited to face to face conversations. But at least I use a spell checker. *heh*
1I use the term “illiterate” here in the now-archaic (thanks to “edumacationists” and other illiterate monsters) meaning of “poorly-read” which encompasses those who may have read quite a bit, but whose reading has been of text that is crap, as well as simply those who have read very sparsely.
2In my use of the word here, I see the “unweening” one shunning knowledge in a willful rejection of actual literacy. Yes, I “ween” that such an imagined act (though quite likely, given the ease of knowing better) exceeds the denotated definition of “unweened” in any of its forms, but the image is compelling. . . to me.
Looking at the graphic, the labels on the bottom axis are interesting. At the right we find “Expert”. At the left we find “No nothing”. And that was published. Shouldn’t that have been “Know nothing”?
I think your graphic illustration may even have been produced by an “edumacationist”. Perhaps it’s another example of the Dunning-Kruger effect in action, even among thos5who should know better.
We may have already passed the point of “know” return.
Yeh, I specifically used that graphic hoping someone would comment. I should have known you would, Perri. 🙂 Makes me smile for all sorts of reasons.
Thos5who => those who.
Throw me in with the left side of the curve.
Yeh, typos such as “Thos5who” were once the bane of my “type by the biblical method” typing. I have come to embrace them. I now blame them all on my keyboard, virtual keyboard, or Early Olde Pharte’s Disease. Or whatever. *heh*