No, not just the inability to mumble through painfully puzzling out what printed words say, much more (or less *heh*) than that. What is even worse than the inability to painfully decrypt the squiggles written onto a page into sounds is the fact that more and more people have no idea what those painfully decrypted sounds actually mean. We see this every day in illiterate folks’ pejoration of words’ meanings and misuse of words (like those who think “everyday” means the same thing as “every day”).
Example (taken from multitudes proffered daily by Mass MEdia Podpeople, politicians *spit*, Academia Nut Fruitcakes and others): decimate. Mass Media Podpeople have so long used the word to mean something more akin to “annihilate” that we’ve lost the very useful meaning, “to execute one-tenth” of a population–whatever that may be–given us from the Roman practice of decimating a military unit which had members who refused to fight or who fled (NOT retreated under orders) battle. No, that perfectly useful distinction is now lost to almost the entire population of English speakers because some illiterate boobs misused it so often to mean “annihilate” (or something barely short of that), when they had other perfectly useful words… words that they apparently didn’t have access to because of the woeful paucity of their vocabularies.
*feh*
“Free speech” in the mouth of a leftard has become an oxymoron, because of the inability of our population of illiterates to distinguish word usage.
And the list could go on almost endlessly.
Words are tools of thought, and the fact that most people in our society have a very small bag of very dull tools means that thinking is half murdered in our public discourse.
What am I saying?!? “Half murdered” by dull tools wielded by dull tools?” Nah. Completely murdered by dull tools wielded by dull tools…
A written IQ and general knowledge test requirement for voting wouldn’t be enough to salvage the republic, but it could be a decent start… And don’t even start in with me about it being anti-democratic or violating people’s rights. *feh* Voting is a privilege with enormous responsibilities, and the ability to think, know what the words on a ballot mean and vote accordingly are base level skills the electorate should have… and does not.
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“Free Speech” …call me Billy Crystal and please, “Don’t get me started”
Oh, get started, TF.
Addendum to post: Last night I read an “Advance Reader’s Copy” of a book due out in May. Of course it was full of issues the proofreaders haven’t caught in the first couple of reads through, but you’d think, since I know it was submitted in electronic format, that at least someone would turn spellcheck on, right? Nope. The author is pretty well-read, from internal evidence, but sometimes uses words he’s obviously only heard (still correctly inferring their meaning from context in almost all cases) and thus misspells them. “Sinosure” for “cynosure*”–as one example–is a dead giveaway that his literacy could use some advanced buffing up. *heh*
(Stiil, I haven’t written any novels recently, so he’s got me beat there. 😉 Another author in the same genre with a much longer track record of top selling novels would not have made such a glaring spelling error, since he’s also a Latin scholar and probably even knows that the Latin source of “cynosure” is an almost direct transliteration from Greek. The sharper the tool… )
IMO, more people need to spend time just reading dictionaries, if they won’t read good books. (*heh* My spellchecker just flagged “dictionaries” *ROFL* Spellcheckers: can’t trust ’em.)
The only problem with requiring an IQ test (where one should have an IQ above that of idiot) is that this would immediately turn our Republic into a one-party system. What would happen if Democrats were no longer elected to public office?
“What would happen if Democrats were no longer elected to public office?”
The dawning of the age of Aquarius?
“The dawning of the age of Aquarius?”
It would certainly be a “new age” in American Politics.
I still have “Hair” running through my head. (Pardon the weak puns… or not… )
There you go again! Okay. I’m stupid. What is the difference between everyday and every day? Could it be this?
She walks her dog every day.
The weather in California is very nice everyday.
Otherwise, I am lacking. 😉
Great post. I agree that there should be some sort of test or requirement for people who would like to vote. Even if it is only questions pertaining to the propositions on the ballot, what party believes what, etc. *sigh*
everyday=quotidian; “everyday” is an adjective describing an ordinary, usual, common occurrence.
every day=each day, regularly.
Thus,
“She walks her dog every day.” Check.
“The weather in California is very nice everyday.” Almost. As the word is positioned in the sentence, English syntax would almost require it to modify the verb, but “everyday” isn’t suited to be an adverb. “Everydayily”?!? “Everydaily”?!?!? Nah. In its sense as “ordinary, usual, commonplace, quotidian” it is suited to unambiguously modify “weather” and ought to be placed, “The everyday (ordinary, usual) weather in California is very nice.”
🙂
(Blame my mom the English teacher, and while you’re at it, blame my Greek prof, who had to give half the class remedial grammar lessons before the rest of us could get well and truly started on the class. If it’d been me, I’d simply have said, “You should have learned basic grammar functions in grade school. Catch up or fail the course.” *sigh* Come to think of it, you could heap blame on my Spanish, French and German teachers/profs as well, not to mention a Russian tutor for an understudy stint in a student production of Boris Godunov (no, I never got on stage for the part–and a good thing, since I was a
littleLOT weak on one of the arias *heh*). I never have understood folks who limit themselves to just one language, but if it must be, English is the best for both creative and rigorous thinking, IMO. And no, I no longer consider myself fluent in any language but English, though I still do some reading in a couple others from time to time. Now, I have to go search YouTube for some Boris Godunov… )I’m not even sure I consider myself fluent in English. But I am working on learning more than just English. After I learn Gaelic I’m thinking of trying my tongue at German.
But grammar? Sadly, I was indifferent in school, and now it’s a struggle as I try and understand the terminology as it applies to English and the odd constructs as they apply to Gaelic.
But I did understand the difference between everyday and every day. Still, you’ve made me go look up a term or two from time to time… starting with “subjunctive mood.”
The mind wobbles, or is that boggles.
Perri, I’ve found that fluency in a language i–no surprise–something one gains or loses with practice. My ear no longer hears well in other languages than English, since I have so little chance to use them any more, though my eye still retains much of its usefulness. Since I plan no excursions abroad, as once I did, that’s not all bad. I still enjoy German lieder, but other uses are now usually confined to when I run into news sources in French or German on the web–although even there English is usually an option.
And then there’s babelfish. *sigh* Sometimes I think the only use for learning another language has become personal enrichment.
I’ve thought of approaching Gaelic quite often, but I know of no native speakers anywhere near me, and my one attempt to learn a language absent a good source for my ear (Portuguese, back in H.S.–can read it, but hearing/speaking was never really there w/o someone to practice with) resulted in some really weird-sounding stuff and little success, IMO. I suppose I could get a CD nowadays. With my own family’s mongrelized background, the Scottish-Welsh-Irish elements occasionally agitate for some knowledge of Gaelic (have some, but it’s extremely sparse–extremely).
Oh, well, I think time and energy to make myself over into some sort of linguistic polymath have run out. Still, with the syncretization that is English (a truly bastard tongue if there ever was one :-)), a grounding in some other European languages at least does provide a person with at least the hope of literacy. You’ll have a leg up on me with the Gaelic, since it’s a (set of) branch(es) off other roots of and contributors to English. And yeh, I think you’d enjoy German. It sounds a tad harsh to many folks ears when spoken, but I do love to hear Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau sing it.
Oh, and I’d never have had a clue–despite my English teacher mom’s best efforts–about purposeful use of the subjunctive mood were it not for a few years of Spanish instruction.