Category: Literacy

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“A Day Late…

Forty-six years ago, I purchased a set of books, the Great Books of the Western World as compiled by Mortimer J. Adler, et al. The 54-volume set was a tad expensive for a high school kid (twice what I paid for my first car, in fact; nowadays, USED copies of the set run from ~$350 to ~$1,200 on Amazon), but has been a great resource for decades. Sadly, the bindings are in rough shape (largely the result of toddlers getting their hands on ’em a couple of decades and more back, as well as simple wear from use), and some volumes are in downright raggedy shape.

Fast forward to today. I picked up 40 of the 54 volumes in excellent condition at a library books sale of donated books. Most appear completely unread, untouched, although volume 1 of the complete works of Shakespeare is well worn (though still not as worn as my original copy). Glad to have ’em. Oh, why only 40 of the 54? Well, volume 2, the first of two volumes comprising the “Syntopicon” was missing from the donated collection, and 13 other volumes had been purchased by one person before I purchased the rest.

I’ll probably print up some book covers for the “raggedy” copies in my original set and place them in among the “new” set for use, as I still use them for reference, although I have re-read few of them entirely in the last couple of decades. I may also add volumes from the 1990 “second edition” of the collection, at least some works that I don’t already own in other editions as separate copies–who doesn’t already own at least one copy of Kierkegaard’s “Fear and Trembling” for example, or “Waiting for Godot” [Beckett], Animal Farm [Orwell], etc.? I think I may skip volumes 59 and 60 (heavy on 20th Century) from the new edition. I despise Joyce, detest Faulkner and Ftzgerald, and Virginia Woolf gives me a rash. The ones in the collection that are worth anything, IMO, I already have, usually in multiple copies (Brecht, Beckett, Chekhov, Eliot, Shaw and others), anyway.

The recent “classes” via Hillsdale College dealing with the Constitution (thanks for the tip, Diane) have already gotten me re-reading background the Founders drew on in the discussions that formed our national government, so this is a timely find for me.

So, I worked a little bit tonight on some bookshelves. *heh* I may actually get our books organized more sensibly this year. Hey! It could happen! At least I have plenty to read and plenty to re-read (and plenty that’s worth re-reading) handy.

BTW, from that great *cough* reference work, Wikipedia (which nevertheless does have a few good articles), this:

“The scientific and mathematical selections also came under criticism for being incomprehensible to the average reader… “

Well, boo-hoo. Literacy is more than just puzzling out weird hieroglyphs on a page. Other criticisms of the collection are on a par with that one. *yawn* Yes, it’s incomplete, but hey, “Great” used to mean something more than simply “good” or “trendy” or “makes feminazis and multi-cultis feel good”.

Addendum 2: It’s interesting, to me at least, that this work was compiled and the “Great Conversation of Ideas” (largely via the tool of the Syntopicon–a monumental work in and of itself, IMO) fostered as a project sponsored by the University of Chicago, and yet The Zero, that soi-disant “constitutional scholar” who (mis)taught as an adjunct prof at that institution, seems completely unaware of the works (and ideas) contained in this collection except in a sort of weird, twisted mythological manner, since he never seems to get references to Western Civ (history OR concepts) anywhere near right.

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Impending Doom

Every day, I see evidence that those in our society who make their living by the written word are increasingly influencing the remaining few who bother to read at all with illiterate pronouncements, accelerating the slide into nonsense. Case in point (just one of many over the last few days alone):

“Clearly, the tablet and mobile worlds have begun to impact the desktop OS in a major way. This begs the question: Can the desktop survive?”

Methinks the writer has no idea what a petitio principii fallacy is.

Beg the question=”take for granted without basis or justification”

I just hate it when “mass man” semi-literacy (or should I say “cultural illiteracy”?–w/a tip o’ the tam to E.D. Hirsch, Jr.) debases writing this way. But that’s what happens when supposedly literate people have been trained–certainly not educated–via less than literate organs such as pubschools, contemporary “higher ed” and the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind. Ah, well, I suppose it’s just one more evidence of society’s slide into a Dark Age, when more and more people don’t even know much about what they don’t know… or care. And it is, of course, this increasingly self-enstupiated, self-deluded, autolobotomized group that seems to be guiding the course of our society. But then of course,

“In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history are in the majority and dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance.”

Continue reading “Impending Doom”

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Yet Another Cavil, Gripe, Grumble, Complaint

Full Curmudgeon Mode, I suppose… *sigh*

Something I’ve noticed more and more recently–and even worse, found myself unconsciously influenced by!–is a growing occurrence of sentence fragments used in the place of complete sentences. It doesn’t seem to matter what the genre is, either. I’ve seen it (of course *arrgghh!*) in the simperings, whinings and blatherings of the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind, in academic writing and in fiction. The use of sentence fragments that are nothing more than prepositional phrases in place of complete sentences is especially pernicious.

I suppose some may be excusable in casual writing as some sort of contemporary method of adding emphasis to a preceding sentence. Maybe. But it’s seeming to become pervasive, invasive and influential as it corrupts clear, concise writing.

It’s irritating, especially when coming from the pens of otherwise capable, competent, effective writers. Are they simply trying to write for the ADD/ADHD crowd, those whose attention spans can’t grasp the use of commas, conjunctions, semi-colons and other means of joining independent clauses, and who even stumble over the simple addition of a prepositional phrase modifying or expanding upon an independent clause?

Thankfully, my writing style does drive off those whose grasp of English falls within the parameters of “Me, Tarzan. You, Jane” or “See Dick. See Jane. See Dick run. See Jane run.” I really don’t want or need anyone reading my screeds who’s too lazy, inattentive or stupid to understand sentences longer than three or four words…

Oh, well. It’s not as though I gave a rat’s patootie; it just chaps my gizzard a wee tad.

/rant off

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“Through a glass darkly… “

In case the source of the post title or the King James English is a puzzle to some, here’s a quote (and reference to the context) and brief commentary before I get to the substance–whatever there may be–of this post:

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. From 1Corinthians 13

Of course, the “glass” seen “through… darkly” referred to above is a mirror. The “through” instead of “in” (as we would have it today) reflects both changes in language and a particular view of the world–and mirrors ion particular–common for millennia up through at least the time of the court of King James, a view common enough even in the 19th Century to make Lewis Carroll’s use of it immediately accessible to his readers. The “darkly” is a common (in the day) reference to a cloudy mirror whose silvering has become delaminated or tarnished, reflecting *cough* the Greek passage’s reference to a tarnished mirror made of polished metal.

So, “Through a glass darkly” refers to an imperfect reflection of reality.

Simple, right? It ought to be obvious from context, but many people seem today to make the silly assumption that it refers to looking through a window in some manner.

Sidebar: I view anyone who cannot read and grasp the language of the KJV Bible or Shakespeare’s plays and poems in (close to*) Shakespeare’s language to be at best semi-literate. At best. These two bodies of work are simply the best literature in the English language and worthy of being grasped on their own terms.

Now, to whatever scraps of meat there may be in this post.

I was treated this AM to a brief glimpse–on two levels, which led to more that aren’t germane to this post–into the meaning of this excerpt from the famous Pauline passage. First, from this post at Ann Althouse’s blog (go ahead and read it for context if you will), two comments:

Oh, and by the way, as you sit at your COMPUTER to read this, remember what conditions it was produced under & think again about those evil, slave-holding, cotton producing, antebellum Southerners.

That’s you in the mirror.

And

Your computer comes with a mirror?

Strangely, the computer I was sitting at when I read the second comment was–dimmly–acting as a mirror. A 15.6″ glossy notebook screen in a room well-lit by direct sunlight? Mirror. *sigh*

And yes, I could see the semi-validity of the first comment, although the commenter’s analogy was seriously flawed. I’m more in the position of those (often British and Northern) consumers who wore cotton clothing made from slave-produced cotton exported for manufacture into other goods than the position of a slave-owning Antebellum Southerner (of whom the South had relatively few compared to its general population of free persons).

Yes, I benefit from the “Made by slave labor in China” effect, though the computer I was having my face reflected by was not produced with very many “made in China” parts and pretty much contained only a few materials derived from Chinese slave labor–mostly the rare earths materials exported by China and used in products used in America primarily because the “feddle gummint” makes mining and refining our own resources prohibitively expensive.

Still, what are my choices?

Well, at least I won’t be buying any Apple products. *heh*

*OK, so what’s the deal with “Shakespeare’s plays and poems in (close to*) Shakespeare’s language”? Simple. We have editions of Shakespeare’s plays which may or may not reflect accurately what was originally written, and though we have substantial evidence of Shakespeare’s work to go by, even less evidence of his actual work than we have textual evidence concerning differing versions of biblical works. “Close to” is good enough, though, to let us benefit from the richness of Shakespeare’s work, regardless of who the author was (another can of worms that doesn’t matter any more than it matters “which” Homer–if any–wrote Odysseus *heh*).

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No, That’s Not What Bothers Me

Fake iPad 2s made of clay have been sold at a couple of Canadian electronics stores.

Fake iPads made of clay were sold to as many as 10 people in Vancouver, Canada, CTV News reports. The fake iPads were sold at Best Buy and Future Shop, after scam artists bought a real iPad with cash, and replaced the device with modeling clay.

The scammers then brought the fake iPad back to the store and returned it for a full refund. Future Shop and Best Buy put the returned devices directly back onto the shelf, where other customers bought it. Mark Sandhu bought his wife, Sundeep, what he thought was an iPad 2 for Christmas. Instead, they both got a surprise when they opened the box.

Whoop-de-do. *yawn* So? They were tablets, weren’t they? *heh* No, what bothers me, really bothers me, is this sentence in the FoxBusiness report:

Future Shop and Best Buy put the returned devices directly back onto the shelf, where other customers bought it [sic].

Someone want to parse that for me? The dumbass who wrote the report really should be fired.

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Petty Puny Peccadillo

(Yeh, yeh, one more example of scesis onomaton, as if anyone really gave a rat’s patootie. ;-))

Sometimes I am more than a wee tad irritated by otherwise literate folk misusing the first (and third) person singular past tense of “be” when the speaker or writer obviously means to express the subjunctive mood.

Irritating? Yes. *sigh* Just one more erosion of useful language by acquiescence to the lowest common denominator of society, more evidence that the least fit are shaping our culture.

Ah, well. At least I might not live long enough to witness the complete, absolute and utter collapse of civilization… (But it’s looking more and more as though my grandchildren almost certainly will.)

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At Least It Wasn’t On “Black Friday”

Aside from the “reporter’s” lack of ability to write plain English*, this is, well, I’ll let y’all decide just what it is:

Woman Caught Making Meth Inside S. Tulsa Walmart

* “…lack of ability to write plain English”? Well, the whole thing is written on about a sixth grader’s prose level, but “Police say surveillance video shows Halfmoon had been in the store since noon. Six hours later security noticed she was acting suspicious [sic], so they called Tulsa Police.” *gag*

Laying aside the other content (SIX HOURS LATER “security” noticed something wonky?), “security noticed she was acting suspicious” indicates, as parsed in standard English, that SHE was suspicious of something. What the subliterate moron who penned the line means, though, is that “she was acting suspiciousLY” (“was acting” modified by the adverb “suspiciously” not the adjective, “suspicious”).

And then there’s that whole “time out of joint” thing with tenses in the lede. “Tulsa police arrest a woman for mixing chemicals to make meth inside a south Tulsa Walmart on Thursday.” No, dumbass, past tense: arrested.

So, we have a report of someone attempting to manufacture meth IN a WallyWorld written by an unethical subliterate who is apparently paid to write prose that negatively influences the literacy of others. A _professional_ taking money for doing substandard work like this is, IMO, a thief. Both persons should be jailed. Maybe they could share a cell. And some drugs.

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Tar Him, Feather Him and Give Him a Box of Matches to Play With

Read:

When an adult took standardized tests forced on kids

and

Revealed: School board member who took standardized test

And get back with me. I’ll be playing the Jeopardy Theme…

Back now?

I got hold of a pdf of the “test” this moron with 2 masters degrees (in education, of course) took. His carping (from a summation by his interviewer), “The math section, he said, tests information that most people don’t need when they get out of school,” is typical. Of COURSE most people will never NEED to have at their fingertips the information that there are 360 degrees in a circle and that the hours of a clock face (obviously–duh: 360/12) divide those degrees up into 30-degree chunks. (see pic below) That’s just ONE way to get the correct answer, without guessing, to one of the easy-peasy questions on the maths test. But, as Lovely Daughter pointed out to me in email, such problems as that particular question posed ARE easily answered with very simple reasoning, no math needed.

*sigh*

And so it proved for the entire math test. Indeed, most of those questions that weren’t simple addition, subtraction, multiplication or division (4th grade stuff, at best) HAD THE FORMULAS PROVIDED TO SOLVE THEM! The rest? Any formulas or processes were blatantly obvious to anyone competent in sixth to eighth grade math.

All the unthinking test taker needed to do with such fare would be to plug the data into their (provided) calculator.

Simple, basic reasoning ability and the ability to read simple text and follow directions: that’s ALL the test measured.

His gripe about the math test is that no one he knows needs to know any of that information, so kids shouldn’t be tested on it? Well, they’re not. The test is a math test like a “driver’s test” at a kiddie bumper-car ride is Le Mans. The test is simply a test of whether those taking it can think their way out of a wet paper bag.

And the guy’s gripe about the reading test?

“On the FCAT, they are reading material they didn’t choose. They are given four possible answers and three out of the four are pretty good. One is the best answer but kids don’t get points for only a pretty good answer. They get zero points, the same for the absolute wrong answer…”

Well, duh. It’s a TEST, dumbass! Do employees choose all their reading material at work, or do they have to follow directions? Do people really WANT to read the directions for taking a prescription medication? Is “reading” but not comprehending such material really a Good Thing? OF COURSE reading COMPREHENSION is a survival and success attribute, but this guy thinks kids should only be quizzed on whatever they WANT to read, and that getting wrong answers is just as good as actually understanding the printed word and being able to use information thus transmitted to get correct answers.

This guy’s a perfect example of those things that are wrong with education in America. We’d all be better of if he and his ilk were placed on chain gangs making little rocks out of big ones. For life.

Note: while I am absolutely convinced that there is ample evidence to assert that “education departments” of colleges and universities are intellectual wastelands largely populated by the least intellectually gifted attending college or university, I also know a number of standout exceptions to that rule. There are good teachers who are bright, capable and hard-working. Unfortunately, I think the evidence is strong that those who combine those characteristics are not the norm in education.

My hat’s off to good teachers everywhere. Sadly, I don’t feel I need tip it all that often.

Continue reading “Tar Him, Feather Him and Give Him a Box of Matches to Play With”

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*sigh* eWeek Can’t Issue a Simple Warning About Malware Without Screwing Up the Lede

FBI Issues Warning about Phishing Attack. That’s a good thing to pass around, but eWeek’s Fahmida Y. Rashid needs to take some remedial English classes. Note the lede:

“FBI warned of a new spear-phishing campaign that tricks users into downloading Zeus malware and then looting their bank accounts.”

While one can infer that the author meant to say that the malware seeks to loot users’ bank accounts, that’s not what the sentence says. The lil “and” indicates the two linked phrases are equivalents referring to the phishing campaign” that “tricks users” into two actions: “downloading” and “looting”. While that’s obviously not what the author intended to say, it’d help promote literacy if the author would say what she means, viz.,

“FBI warned of a new spear-phishing campaign that tricks users into downloading Zeus malware which then attempts to loot their bank accounts.”

But, in terms of the warning, only very (very) stupid people will be fooled by this phishing malware attempt. Would YOU click on a link in a (SPAM!) message that purports to come from “the National Automated Clearing House Assocation (NACHA)” and tells you the link is to reset your banking credentials? If so, I have some great ocean front property in New Mexico I’d like to sell you and a bridge located in Brooklyn I just know would interest you.

Oh, and this absolutely stupid comment from another eWeek article by the same author really takes the cake:

It’s difficult for the savviest Internet user to identify some of the latest scams.

That was in the context of email inbox filtering to filter out dangerous attachments and other email. Really? It’s difficult for anyone with more active brain cells than a 10-year-old cracked crock of spoiled kimchi to identify some of the latest scams? Really? Ocean front property and a bridge in Brooklyn…

And the author follows that statement, in a paragraph “debunking” the idea that training users will enhance network security, with this:

While technology can be patched, the human brain can’t.

OK, I may have to give him that one. In fact, I’ll admit that he’s a good data point in support of the assertion.