Just about no matter where I go on the Interwebs (a few bloggers aside), I have from time to time been chastised by poorly-read folks for my vocabulary. Hey, lazy-asses! I work HARD to dumb it down for you!
Thatisall.
Subliteracy Abounds
I have seen this several times, including in Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind “reports,” and while I celebrate what folks are trying to say, I find it distressing to see such widespread evidence of subliteracy that apostrophe abuse like this demonstrates. Think it through. “Apostrophe + s” indicates either possession or a contraction of the noun with a verb e.g. is, has, was). The former is nonsense here. If this were to indicate the latter, then it would still be nonsense, because not only would it be nonsense, but IF the possessive form of the plural of “Bundy” were used, it would be be the proper plural form (Bundys) followed by an apostrophe: Bundys’.
This is just basic literacy. Writing nonsense English indicates a stunted ability to understand written English. But, of course. . .
I Am Sooo Tired of Pretentious, Subliterate Boobs Who Think They Can Write
. . . in English, at least. One stand-out giveaway that some wannabe writer is both pretentious and a lazy subliterate: using subjective case pronouns as objects, rather than using the proper objective case.
Typically, these sorts of poorly-read, poorly-educated boobs use I, she, and he in place of the correct me, her, and him as objects of verbs or prepositions, apparently thinking it sounds “classy” or at least that it is correct. Some even rationalize it, when confronted, with an argument of an assumed subsequent verb that would convert the object into a subject, but that’s just a back-formed excuse.
There are many such examples of simply execrable grammar, syntax, and word misusage that are hallmarks of subliterate pretensions to literacy, but this one is a dead giveaway. Such wannabe writers should–and would, if they had any worthwhile ethics whatsoever–enroll in remedial English classes, and keep taking the classes until they are able to at least pass the course.
Dim-Witted Boobies Abound
Saw a “meme” calling for the tearing down of a statue of Lenin, because he was responsible for “starving five million Ukranians in one year!” *sigh* Boggled my mind. I related that to my (librarian) Wonder Woman and she had the same reaction I did: “Get your facts right!” Yeh, in 1921, Lenin had grain shipped from Ukraine to Moscow (food shortage in Moscow was the stated reason) for a while, but relented when Ukranians experenced a drought. Eight years AFTER Lenin died (1932) STALIN began his program of deliberately starving Ukraine into submission. Low end estimates of deaths: ~7,000,000. Stalin, not Lenin.
Gee, I thought EVERYONE knew this stuff. . . but I mistakenly attributed a higher level of literacy to “everyone” than I should have.
This kind of stuff ain’t rocket science. Folks have to work really hard to be this ignorant.
English. Learn Some.
Building an AR-15 Under 5 Pounds
Nice article, and reads like a nice build. I do lack a bit of confidence in their math, though, given that the build they were comparing to was 5lb5oz and ~$3,500 while the 4lb13oz build was “slightly more than $1,800, nearly half the price of the carbine in the article that spawned this exercise.”
“[N]early half the price”? No, slightly MORE than half the price. “Nearly” implies “almost” or “not quite,” and $1,800 is more than half of $3,500.
Numbers. Language. Not strong suits for this writer.
One Doesn’t Need Any Time to Master “Anytime”
A simple explanation of “Anytime” vs “Any Time” that is unnecessary for any well-read or even semi-well-read) person, here.
This is Emblematic of Contemporary Writing/Speech
One of the problems I see and hear in the speech and writing of contemporary native (ab)users of English is a baffling lack of an ability to grasp simple tenses. Example: Writing about an event in the past of a character,
“If he knew, he probably would think twice.”
#gagamaggot
No, “If he had known, he probably would have thought twice.”
OK, even that construction is a wee tad stupid as a statement, but at least it would have properly reflected the circumstances the writer attempted to convey. (Better: “In hindsight. . . ” but the writer’s vocabulary didn’t seem to stretch that far, if other text is any indication.)
Making Learning Too Easy?
When I first ran across the Study Guides and Strategies site, my first thought was, “What a wonderful resource! I wish something like this had been available during my undergrad/grad years.”
And then I paused a moment to consider: with such resources as this, and with the vast research and general information resource that is the Internet, why are so very many college students nowadays (and Academia Nut Fruitcakes, for that matter) so very ignorant, poorly-read (which results in formal illiteracy) and flat-out stupid? Hmm.
I know there are many, many reasons for the ignorance, subliteracy, and stupidity, but perhaps one reason could be that such sites as the Study Guides and Strategies site seem to obviate the need to discover ways to comprehend–preferably master–subject matter. Just plug things into a formulaic study system and bang! It’s done!
Of course it is not that easy to do, but without at least some hard work discovering or creating one’s own study style, I suspect the hard work of conquering new subject matter is harder still.
I suspect that attempts to make learning easy could make it seem too easy. [Not gonna deal with all the aspects of this right now. Just suffice it to say this seems to be both a problem preparing students for college and an ongoing issue in college. . . and beyond; if it’s easy, it ain’t worth much, but if it ain’t easy, it’s avoided, etc.]
Still, since I’m already familiar and competent in my curent reading and study styles, I think I can find some good things to apply to my current learning efforts at Study Guides and Strategies.
Note: I was very briefly introduced to the SQ(W)3R study system in the Summer of ’68 during a freshman level p-sych course (the only useful thing I gained from the course), but I modified it greatly to fit my own reading/study styles, instead of following the brief (15 minute?) outline the prof suggested we use for the course readings.
But yes, given my (apparently increasing) absentmindedness recently, a slightly more detailed application of the SQ(W)3R system has already been implemented. *heh*
Sometimes, Even Subliterate Writers Can Be Entertaining. . . Though By Accident
Sometimes, text written by a subliterate writer can lead to fun stuff. A silly, 20-something self-pub subliterate writer (whose “editorial” helpers are no more literate than he is) provided such a brief moment, before I ashcanned his stupid book.
“. . .tells me that a newly discovered landmark was uncovered by the storm and that the ruin is not in any kind of withered [sic] state.”
Oh, my. The subliterate writer was probably groping for “weathered,” but since
a. his ears are apparently dull and
b. he just flat-out doesn’t know the differences between “wither” and “weather,”
. . .he went with a near homophone that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
But. . . then I paused and thought of the different meanings of wither, and their etymologies. (Yes, because I spent much of my youth reading dictionaries–and still do to this day, for that matter–and have a wide range of interests in disparate fields, I knew that the noun “wither” and the verb “wither” came from two very different roots. *shrugs* So? 🙂 ) So I had a bit of personal entertainment contemplating a horse’s withers and the withering of a plant.
And then, back to the Badly Written Text to a further description of the “ruin”:
“In fact, it doesn’t look “ruined” at all! It appears to be in perfect condition!”
*head-desk* Then why, oh why, did the “eminent archaeologist” initially refer to it as a “ruin”?
Because the writer had no appropriate vocabulary to describe it else, of course.
Well, this lil incident combined with four others in the two pages since I picked the book back up to convince me I needed to delete it from my library entirely, so as not to even accidentally pick it back up.
Oh, well. At least I managed to get all the way to 4% of the thing this time. . .
FWIW
