Category: Education

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Memory Hole?

Intercollegiate Studies Institute performed an annual “Civics Literacy” survey for six or seven years in a row, tracking trends in the general population with isolation of various demographics. While all demographics showed levels of civics literacy that would not be able to pass the dumbed down quiz prospective naturalized citizens are required to take, two things stood out to me:

1. High School seniors consistently out-performed college seniors, and
2. The lowest scoring demographic was. . . elected officials.

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“Exterminate! Exterminate” ~ Every Dalek Ever

On the subject of the destruction – nay! extermination! – of meaningful communication, this sidebar:

More and more often I find myself baffled by the precipitous pejoration of “decimate” used to imply utter and complete destruction instead of the former pejoration implying destruction of a large part of [whatever]. What useful purpose does it serve to utterly destroy a formerly useful sense of a word? It’s almost as bad as Dhimmicraps harping on “democracy” when they mean “tyranny by means of vote fraud.”

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Nope

I just ran across a “writer” who has apparently walked around his whole life with his eyes closed. Wrote that a character went from very bright, full sunlight into a very dark place and had to SQUINT in order to see until his eyes adjusted to the dark. *smh* OK, maybe the “writer” has been blind all his life, and not just walking around with his eyes closed all the time. (Oh, the scare quotes? It’s a juvie I tried to read for review that I have already discarded as not even worth panning. The “writer” needs to at least pass a Remedial English course before writing for kids’ consumption. The concept behind the book might garner readers in the target age, but it’d just teach them poor language “skilz.”)

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Book Blurb Sadness

It’s a bit. . . weird, or weirdly sad (or sadly weird?) I suppose is the word, when a book blub has to include “Note: This book does not contain any coarse language, harem elements or sexual situations.” *smh*

Of the three, at least two serve no useful purpose, unless, I suppose, prurience is the end sought. OTOH, “coarse language” does have legitimate, though limited, uses, but it’s almost never _necessary_ to further a plot or “enrich” a characterization – more effective, IMO, to “coarsen” a character via action. But. . . yeh, verbiage is easier. *shrugs*

Of course, the definition of “coarse language” varies from the merely (usefully and appropriately!) vulgar, which is primarily objectionable to subliterate Neo-Victorian Bowlderiizing “Karens,” to the obscene and even actually profane. So, “coarse language” is a particularly squishy term, and not really useful at all, at all. It’s just a way of saying, “I avoid words that offend some people,” and that road leads to blank pages.

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Unreasonable Standards

Disclaimer: I am no genius, and nor am I someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of darned near everything, but. . . I am an Odd, and my education is even Odd-er.

That may not explain to my readers why, when I read something written by a typical 20-something or older “grup” writer, I often just shake my head and compare their vocabulary, spelling, grammar, and knowledge base to an eleven or twelve-year-old. . . me.

Yeh, when I read a writer who has groped blindly for a suitable word and instead grasped an execrably UNsuitable word to use, I compare that writer’s vocabulary to my sixth grade self, partly because, while recovering from a second surgery, I discovered a set of vocabulary quizzes in a two-volume dictionary set (each volume at least four inches thick in large, oversized formats). Yes, I went through the college-level vocabulary test, NOT because I was “smarter” than the average sixth grader, just because I had read more, even before becoming temporarily restricted physically, but VORACIOUSLY more so during that restricted period.

And that, combined with my fundamentally Odd way of looking at reality, probably defined as much of the next sixty years of my life, as much as simply being an Odd has in general. And so, people with a Stupid Level Vocabulary™ (and often even stupider level grasp of syntax, orthography, and basic arithmetic, physical mechanics, and life in general) probably tend to irk me more than is useful.

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Fortunate Son

I was blessed (though some seem to think “cursed”) to be raised in a family of literates, and not just “functionally literate,” but liberally-seeded with formally literate adults, and eventually (sometimes) not-too-shabbily-literate sibs. Combine that with the fact that I am an Odd1 and my life has continually been filled with bafflement when confronted with folks who, quite apart from literacy, aren’t even fluent in English, when it’s their native tongue!

So, yeh2, I spend way more time than is probably healthy listening around some folks’ grammar. But. . . about that word. *sigh* I do really tire of folks misusing it to the point that it has now lost a usefully distinctive meaning. Nowadays, it seems to be used primarily either in a pejorative sense in the phrase “grammar Nazi” to mean someone who is picky and offensive about language and who often corrects others’ misusages. And in that vein, “grammar” is generally misused to be a reference to any correctly spoken or orthographical speech or writing.

Nope. Grammar is “A set of rules and examples dealing with the syntax and word structures of a language. . . “3 Oh, it is more than that, and in common usage nowadays it is. . . much, much less. *sigh*

So, I am bothered not by the pesky gnats of syntax alone, but illiterate word misuses, bafflingly stupid punctuation (in writing, of course, although the way some speak weirdly placed commas can also be heard *heh*), and nonsensical neologisms**. Add to that the creation of subcultures with “lects” that are both independent of regional dialects and that seem to be structured specifically to utter nonsense (LitRPG/gamers for example, though not the only example; there is the “Friends” dialect as another example) and call it English, the popularized illiteracy/subliteracy/pseudo-literacy prevalent in the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind, bureaucratese, lying liars who illiterately lie (A.K.A. politicians), and English seems to be in dire straits.

Oh, well. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. *heh*

(Oh, and just a wee lil “BTW,” here: “I’m trying really hard not to correct your grammar,” really should read “I’m trying really hard to not correct your grammar,” even though I really don’t try at all. . . )

Better:

2 Yeh, I find “yeh” to be a better representation of the expression than “yeah.” So sue me. It sounds to my ear more like what folks actually say.

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Thanks for the Memories, John.

I’ve enjoyed the Heinlein-esque space opera by John Hindmarsh via Kindle Unlimited, so in memory of John and the pleasure he has afforded me (as well as in very minor support of his wife, Cathy), I’ve begun buying those space operas instead of just giving a wee tip via Kindle Unlimited. It’s a small thing but within my reach.

The next one (started by John and finished by Craig Martelle, with permission) drops on September 20th: You Don’t Know Jack. It’s a little Heinlein mixed with C. S. Forester series. A nice antidote/anodyne to the poisonous pain of Suckitudinous Fiction.

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Faux-Literacy Example #8,759,356

“Paper mâché” #gagamaggot. Seriously, if one uses a French term adopted into English, use it correctly, not butchered half-anglicized and just wrong. Papier-mâché. Heck, if one is going to get the accent marks correct and flub the rest, why even use the term at all?

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Practice Does Not Make Perfect

At most, practice makes permanent. Only perfect practice can make “perfect,” and that ain’t gonna happen this side of the Jordan. . .

Still, practicing a musical piece. . . so many different methods, and choices/successes depend largely on skill level and preferences, but I always preferred reading through a piece and listening to it “between my ears” as much as possible before setting hand (and mouth, depending on instrument) or voice to the music. *shrugs* During a quick read-through, I could generally identify places that might need special attention, and could often iron them out, at least a bit during the scan. Then it was mostly discerning and effecting the teleos of the piece, as I inferred it from the leading of the tune and harmonies, as well as the composer’s directions on the page (notes and signs and etc.). When leading a group through a sight–reading. I came to appreciate the STARS method for young/inexperienced/amateur performers. For a group with more developed music literacy, just walking through a piece and noting to the group where I thought the different sections (or the group or the piece or both) might require a bit of attention. That was usually enough to get that attention paid during the first sigh reading session. Usually. *heh*

With volunteer choral groups, I preferred handing out an abbreviated rehearsal schedule, with bullet points derived from my much more detailed outline for each piece in the schedule for that rehearsal. Kept things moving and saved time. Of course, I had to remain flexible and touch on unanticipated issues though those were usually rare. A fav book on choral conducting informed the time I spent doing that. . . I occasionally had voices like those referred to below, and I celebrated their inclusion:

“I have never paid much attention to the ‘quality’ of a choral candidate’s voice. I am much more influenced by the extent of his desire to sing, and by his interest in music. . . May I offer an extreme example of this indifference to vocal endowment. I once had, as members of a chorus, two monotones. It would be impossible to exaggerate the delight they experienced in having a part in the rehearsal of great music, and had I denied them one of the real resources of life, I should always have regretted it. They were not the least sensitive over their deficiency and made no protest at being seated together a little apart from the chorus. Fortunately, their voices were not strong ones. They sang, without deleterious effect, not less than four major choral works with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and its conductor.” —
_Choral Conducting_, Archibald T. Davison ©1940, sixth edition: 1950,pp. 27-28.