Category: Literacy

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“…but most of it is dreck”

Eric Schmidt: Every 2 Days We Create As Much Information As We Did Up To 2003

Of course, to Schmidt, “information” is just bits ‘n’ bytes of data crunched by Google. But still, our society is awash in information. Most of it, IMO, is misinformation, disinformation and just plain uninteresting or completely trivial.

Take Twitter. Please. The “information” channel for twits*.

Far too many people “know” things that are simply untrue, fallacious, destructive and harmful. They’ve heard these things from “friends” (though few seem to know what a friend is) and acquaintances, seen these things on TV, heard them on the radio or, in rare cases, read them in newspapers or more likely on Farcebook, Twitter or blogs… written by other subliterate, ill-informed, misinformed, DISinformed, or simply self-lobotomized sheeple, dumbasses and liars.

How to sift the wheat from the chaff, separate the meat from the sizzle, refine the gold from the crap?

First, by attempting to become really literate. Seriously. No, not able to laboriously puzzle out those funny squiggles and put words to them or even to (mostly) understand some of those words’ primary meanings, as known to today’s subliterate culture. No, a literate person–or even one who’s made serious efforts to become literate–just automatically performs historical-critical analysis of what he reads and has multiple primary or other relatively reliable sources and resources to draw on in understanding a text.

Start with any of the “100 must-read books” lists that abound. Sure, they’ll all contain multiple instances of propaganda masquerading as history or historical novels like “The Grapes of Wrath” or many of the ancient historians like Thucydides or darned near all modern historians (though the classical histories are less arrogant and sneering than the modern propaganda papers), but they are at least well-written, for the most part, and as close to primary documents for their respective ages as can be found.

BTW, look askance at any “must read” list that doesn’t include The Bible and ALL of Shakespeare’s works. Lists that don’t include those two things are likely to be wanting throughout. In fact, I’d suggest reading the King James Version until you understand the language there at least as well as you understand contemporary English. It will serve you well both in reading many of the classics and in grasping the many, many cultural memes still expressed with biblical expressions.

Add to those lists some books and other resources that are often missing, such as The American State Papers (including The Organic Law of the United States), Ortega’s “Revolt of the Masses” and the modern “classic”, The Founders’ Constitution, and you’d have a good strong base of reasoning ability and knowledge from which to become more literate and able to at least evaluate the masses of infrmation flowing from various media nowadays.

Just sayin’.

*1twit noun \?twit\

Definition of TWIT…

2: a silly annoying person: fool

Continue reading ““…but most of it is dreck””

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I Just Hate This Kind of Stuff

Got an email from a politician. OK, I don’t mind that so much, since I solicit comments from politicians. What I disliked so intensely was the subject line:

Can I send you my book?

*feh* This is a politician who will not get my support. Of course someone on this pol’s staff actually wrote the email and that stupid subject line, but the pol’s responsible for the stupidity of “its” (my fav “gender neutral” pronoun *heh*) staff.

My answer, should the pol or its stupid staff care to read my reply email is, “Of course you CAN send me your book. You already have my contact information. You don’t NEED to ask if you CAN send it, dumbass. But since you ask such a stupid question, I’ll answer the question you ought to have asked instead. You MAY NOT send me your book, and if you do I’ll burn the thing rather than read something written by (or for) such a dumbass.”

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Sometimes, I Just Have to Say, “No”

A while back, I decided to give a Windows “news and tips” site a whirl and submitted a secondary email address in order to receive notices of site updates. Since then, it’s yielded a few interesting tidbits, but sometimes, “a few interesting tidbits” just doesn’t cut it.

Recently, a portion of a topic line stood out, as at least 2/3 of the topic lines received in updates from the site have. Again, not in a positive light. The portion–this time–that made me wince: “The reason behind its name revealed !”

WTF is with the (usual and customary, from this source) space between the last word and the punctuation? It’s stupid. And, as I said, usual from this source. But that’s just the normal quality of punctuation usage from this source. What about word usage and grammar?

In the same email update: “Not why it a browser.”

?!? Yes, that’s the entire sentence fragment posing as a sentence. Where’s the verb?

And then, “…to make it running as fast and stable as new.” No, dumbasses, “to make it RUN as fast and stable as new” would at least be marginally acceptable, although “fast and stable” in this context is problematic.

“Since the last couple of days I’m seeing… ” Obviously English is a second language for the writer. Either that or the writer is a recent American college graduate.

I’ve only scratched the surface of the ear-grinding English constructions in just this one email. I can’t take it anymore. Unsubscribing, with prejudice. *heh*

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Every! Single! Time!

A question posed in an online forum has resulted in all the usual suspects churning the aether… The question: “Are Homosexuals Discriminated Against?”

Lots of discussion, much of it from advocates of “normalizing” and mainstreaming homosexual behavior, including many, many who assert that not allowing homosexuals to “marry” is adverse discrimination and others who assert that special protections and privileges for homosexuals is a worse problem.

One thing I’ve noticed in the discussion is that advocates of what are, in fact, special, society-altering privileges for homosexuals both claim absolute moral authority and superior reason to be on their side. Unfortunately, to this point, none of this group has been able to marshall anything but argument by assertion (with no supporting facts) and continual dropping of the “homophobe bomb”.

And then there are the relatively calm advocates of homosexuals being granted special privileges and protections who assert their best arguments so:

“Homosexuality doesn’t change society, it’s apart of it.”

*sigh*

Really? He either meant “apart FROM it” or “A PART of it”. Frankly, since practicing, AND admitting but not practicing, homosexuals make up only about 3% of society, and are a dead end, “apart from it” is probably closer to the truth, but probably not what he meant to say. Continue reading “Every! Single! Time!”

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Borrowed Wisdom

I ran across the following quote at Jerry Pournelle’s place. It pretty well sums up a fairly serious problem with the “multi-culti” society so sought after by subliterate morons on the Left.

“Not a few of the students who apply to me for admission to the present form of Erskine’s [Great Books] reading course give me as a reason that they want “the background” and will have no other chance to “get it”, because they are about to study medicine or engineering. Their idea is we “give it” and they “get it.” But what is it that changes hands in this way? Background is the wrong word altogether. What is acquired is a common set of symbols, almost a separate language. I open today’s paper and I see over a story of naval action: ‘David-Goliath Fight by Foe at Sea Fails.” Immediately, I infer that some small enemy flotilla fought a larger force of ours. The image was instantaneous, and would have suggested more—namely the foe’s victory—had not the writer added that it failed.
“A common body of stories, phrases, and beliefs accompanies every high civilization that we know of. The Christian stories of apostles and saints nurtured medieval Europe, and after the breakup of Christendom the Protestant Bible served the same ends for English-speaking peoples. Bunyan and Lincoln show what power was stored in that collection of literary and historical works known as the Scripture, when it was really a common possession. We have lost something in neglecting it, just as we lost something in rejecting the ancient classics. We lost immediacy of understanding, a common sympathy with truth and fact. Perhaps nothing could better illustrate the subtlety and strength of the bond we lost than the story Hazlitt tells of his addressing a fashionable audience about Dr. Johnson. He was speaking of Johnson’s great heart and charity to the unfortunate; and he recounted how, finding a drunken prostitute lying in Fleet Street late at night, Johnson carried her on his broad back to the address she managed to give him. The audience, unable to face the image of a famous lexicographer doing such a thing, broke out into titters and expostulations. Whereupon Hazlitt simply said: ‘I remind you, ladies and gentlemen, of the parable of the Good Samaritan.’

“It is clear that no account of explaining, arguing, or demonstrating would have produced the abashed silence which that allusion commanded. It was direct communication; the note that Hazlitt struck sounded in every mind in the same way and it instantly crystallized and put into order every irrelevant emotion. That, if I may so put it, is what ‘background’ does for you. Even today, without Bible or classics, everyone possesses some kind of tradition which he uses without knowing it. The man who should look blank at mention of George Washington and the cherry tree, or who had never heard of Babe Ruth, or who thought that Shakespeare was an admiral, would get along badly even in very lowbrow circles. He might be excused as a foreigner but he would be expected to catch on as soon as he could. This does not mean that culture is for keeping up with the Joneses; it is talking to your fellow man—talking more quickly and fully than is possible through plodding description.
“In college and after, it so happens that the fund of ideas which it is needful to possess originated in great minds—those who devised our laws, invented our science, taught us how to think, showed us how to behave. They spoke in highly individual voices, yet rely on the force of a common group of symbols and myths—the culture of the West.”

Continue reading “Borrowed Wisdom”

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Was Pollyanna Stupid or Evil?

It’s a tough question. If you’re unfamiliar with the reference, take some time out. I’ll wait. Meanwhile, I’ll leave this here for interim consderation:

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.–Napoleon Bonaparte (ascribed)

There is such a thing as human evil. I’ll allow no argument on that point, because any argument otherwise is simply either stupid* or evil. Period. So, accept as axiomatic that human evil exists. Is it then stupid or evil to look human evil in the face and see good? (I’ll allow a third option: insanity.)

Examples abound:

Idiots who defend Islam as a “religion of peace”. Stupidity or witting enabling of the evil hate cult of Islam?

People who assert that America is an unjust society, because we have people they class as poor? Evil or stupid? Consider this:

Ahhh, I’m tired of this already, and my BP is starting to climb… *sigh*

So, are those who are enablers of the hate cult of the Butcher of Medina evil or stupid (or both–likely, IMO)?

Are those who seem to be actively attempting to destroy our society via such activities as encouraging the kleptocratic “gimme” culture evil or stupid (or both–likely, IMO)?

And when do we stop ascribing destructive behaviors to stupidity alone and start calling it malice?

Yes, I aborted a bunch of stupid/evil material ranging from “pro-choice” (which is really, “Deny ANY choice to the unborn”), “Edumacation”, the Thugs Standing Around program of full employment for goons and petty tyrants, and “feddle gummint” tyrannical meddling in citizens’ lives while actively enabling outlaws to The Cult of Anthropogenic Climate Scare-ism and numerous points in between. One can select any issue dominated by the lies of the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind, politicians *gag-spew* and Academia Nut Fruitcakes and plug it right into the “Stupid or Evil” matrix for consideration.

*I include in my use of “stupid” acts of witting, deliberate avoidance of facts. Witting, deliberate distortion of facts is evil–slander against truth.

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Yet Another Rant from the Literacy Loon

Son & Heir spent about $7 on a new hardback novel recently ($4 of that in shipping!). He let me read it first. Nice guy. It was well-written by just about every metric. I spent about $7 for a paperback the other day and found gripe after gripe to make about the writing:

Wrong words abound, e.g., “brake cables” instead of “brake lines” when speaking about the possible sabotage of a car. (Cars have only emergency brake cables; the main brakes are hydraulic and served by lines, not cables. Not a quibble.)

Bafflingly stupid grammar in a published work, e.g., “have rode” where “have ridden” is de rigueur. (“Rode” is simple past tense; the past perfect takes the helper, “have” and requires the use of “ridden”.)

With these kinds of things scattered all over the place, my primary “enjoyment” of this book has been using a red pen to correct the errors.

And this thing made the NYT book list.

No, I’m not naming the author or citing the book title. I wouldn’t want to let Google find those here. Just check page 176 on new paperbacks you’re considering buying, Mmm’K?

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Phractured Frases

Yes, I meant to write that. And I know that the words are “Fractured Phrases”. So, why? Simple. Most people I see and hear botching common words and phrases do so unwittingly. And therein lies a stealth danger to society, especially a society built, as ours once was, on shared cultural memes that cut across multiple imported ethnic and cultural traditions, enabling the kinds of cross-cultural communications that created the Melting Pot Society.

The single largest factors in the destruction of a healthy common culture here in the US are the growth of illiteracy* in the US and the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind. The illiterate among us aren’t limited to those who cannot read at all but include those who simply do not read and those who, when they do read, read only crap and scarcely understand even that. Having not read much at all, they are easy prey for the lies about current events, history and civics that are the toxic stew served up daily by the Hivemind in entertainment (“news” and other crap on TV as well as movies and manufactured “music”) that is designed to misinform and twist values away from those which made America, at one time, a great nation.

But what’s this gripe I have against fractured phrases and words? Simple, really. I see an apparently growing trend toward the subliterate and illiterate who simply do not know the meanings of common words (look for consistent uses of “then” for “than” or “affect” for “effect” in a person’s writing, for a couple of common examples: subliterate tending toward illiterate) or are so lacking in grounding in any broader culture than the simplistic, twisted culture presented by the Hivemind that they botch even simple child’s games.

Really? Yes. I ran across a long, massively stupid, “discussion” on a social media site recently where someone asked why paper beats rock, rock beats scissors and scissors beats paper. About one in four answers made any sense at all. No, seriously. A failure of both basic literacy and any sense of a culture beyond the Hivemind. (BTW, rock-paper-scissors has been around for thousands of years. Apparently, it takes a modern American Hivemind-dominated culture to denude it of any coherence.)

Minor examples of a major problem. “Major problem” because these minor examples are much, much less than the tip of the iceberg.

Continue reading “Phractured Frases”

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Not Just Sloppy Writing

The two people credited in a byline for an article that included the following should be whipped with a dangling participle, along with any editor who passed on their work:

“…the recently re-ignited 40-year-old cold case that has haunted the FBI for years.”

?!? OK, I don’t get paid to write anything, but even I know that is unnecessarily awkward. How about, “…the recently re-ignited cold case that has haunted the FBI for 40 years” instead? It’s even easier to write than the other, too. Clarity, simplicity, brevity: watchwords for reporters to observe carefully, IMO.

Of course, now that I think of it, where would the “journalists” of today find such writing to emulate? (And I’ll admit they’d not find it here, but then I don’t take anyone’s money for this gig.)

Just another small piece of the “literacy means more than just being able to painfully puzzle out those weird chicken scratches on paper” puzzle, along with idiot Hiveminders who don’t know such things as the difference between “affect” and “effect” or “than” and “then” (and don’t pretend you haven’t seen such abortions of literacy in print or heard them from Podpeople Pie Holes).

Such people don’t even qualify as subliterates in my book. That would be giving them too much credit.

OK, OK, these sorts of things have been around forever, I suppose. I just notice them more and more often nowadays. But… re-reading (and taking very little time to do so *heh*) a book from the so-called “Golden Age of Science Fiction” authored by one of its pillars, I ran across,

“…according to their desserts.”

Where the author meant, “according to their deserts.”

Yes, the first instance is incorrect and the second is correct. Check me, if you wish. I’ll wait. 🙂

OK, back now?

Now, that incorrect word usage may have been a slip of the typewriter 61 years ago, though since I’m conversant with this author’s work in print, and he was more literate than 99% of fair-to-middlin’-to-pretty darned good contemporary authors, even given the space opera-ish tone of his work, I suspect an error in transcription crept in along the way to the eBook edition.

And naturally, it went flying right past any proofreader or editor with nary a pause.

Chaps my gizzard, it does… *heh*