*heh*
More Evidence Suggesting That Even Reading News Can Make One Stupid
From an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article in 2009 that I ran across looking for something else,
“Sometimes called the ‘silent epidemic’ because it can manifest itself in a victim for decades without showing any symptoms, hepatitis C has become better known publicly in recent years.”
Oh, really?
man·i·fest
[man-uh-fest]
–adjective
1. readily perceived by the eye or the understanding; evident; obvious; apparent; plain: a manifest error. . .–verb (used with object)
3. to make clear or evident to the eye or the understanding; show plainly: He manifested his approval with a hearty laugh.
4. to prove; put beyond doubt or question: The evidence manifests the guilt of the defendant. . .—Synonyms
1. clear, distinct, unmistakable, patent, open, palpable, visible, conspicuous. 3. reveal, disclose, evince, evidence, demonstrate, declare, express. See display.—Antonyms
1. obscure. 3. conceal.
A thing cannot be “manifest” while not “showing any symptoms”. It’s just not possible. What the idiot who wrote the sentence above apparently meant was something like, “Sometimes called the ‘silent epidemic’ because it can remain hidden in a victim for decades without showing any symptoms,” but that’s an unnecessarily cumbersome and excessively wordy way of saying simply, “Sometimes called the ‘silent epidemic’ because those infected often show no symptoms for decades. . .”
But, of course, the subliterate idiot who wrote the article (and his editor) apparently don’t know the meanings of the words they use, so they “misunderedumacate” their (also likely subliterate) readers.
And no, it’s not comforting to know that major newsrags are populated with “reporters” who are no more literate than those who write for America’s Third World County’s weekly birdcage liner.
With crooks like this (yeh, taking pay as a wordsmith for subliterate screeds is theft, IMO) populating so-called journalism–and they’re prevalent in all the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind–such crap polluting public discourse seems designed to bring literacy down to the lowest common denominator. And that feeds right in to my blog’s header quote…
The Brightest, Most Intelligent President Evah #1
I know this has been beat to death, but it needs to be used to beat something else to political death.
Barack Obama: “I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go?”
Yeh, yeh, I’ve heard all the excuses about this “mis-speaking” but none of them wash. It doesn’t matter HOW tired or pressured this asshole was, “57” (with one left to go–and specifically excepting Alaska and Hawaii, since he was referring to the contiguous states) is simply not the kind of thing that any American who’s marginally literate would even mistakenly say, because the 48 contiguous States would have been drilled into his unconscious.
No, this “intelligent” Hahvahd-edumacated idiot has only a surface, semi-, transient connection to anything approaching a knowledge of American history and geography, and he’s ruling by fiat from the White House along with fellow Dhimmicrappic conspirators against the Constitution in Congress who are afraid Guam will capsize because of over-population and that “every month that we do not have an economic recovery package 500 million Americans lose their jobs.” (Total US population is somewhere a tad north of 300 Million, even counting children, illegals, retirees and welfare slugs.)
Hmmm, seems innumeracy is rampant in the “Party of Smart People” eh?
Updating the Emperor
“The opinion of ten thousand men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.” —Marcus Aurelius
Nowadays, our electorate can more properly be described by,
“The opinion of ten thousand men is of no value if they are all willfully ignorant.”
There are adequate means now for ANY person in these (dys)United States to be adequately well-informed about the important issues of the day, but, sadly, few bother to take the time or make the effort to do anything but soak up–directly or indirectly–the viewpoints of the Ruling Elite mostly via the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind.
Keep in mind: your ignorant, self-enstupiated neighbor’s vote counts just as much as yours does.
Educate the stupid.
Once More Unto the Breach
The bane of having read voraciously since an early age: bad writing stands out like a sore thumb. Now, don’t take that as an assertion that I can readily emulate good writing. No, I’m simply critical of others’ bad writing. *heh*
What spurred me to comment once again? Raymond Khoury. I picked up his first novel at the library yesterday while I was there checking my email and performing other “essential” connectivity tasks (because service had not yet been restored here at twc central). What a waste of time. Cardboard cutouts for characters, straight from central casting–no surprise since Khoury apparently cut his teeth on television production–combined with stock “footage” of scenes from all the really boring cops shows that’ve come down the pike are bad enough, but his presentation is worse.
Example: a car chase (near New York City’s Central Park, no less), complete with driving through a chain link fence and vacant lot (where?!?) and this little gem of stupidity:
“Reilly jinked the Chrysler through a chicane-like cluster of cars and trucks… “
OK, setting aside the Irish Catholic “cop” (OK, in order to make him BIGGER, Khoury’s “promoted” the cop to FBI agent *feh*) as the primary in a novel about a stolen Vatican artifact *sigh*, what’s with “chicane-like cluster of cars and trucks”? Really stupid. Better, if one is going to have the boring car chase at all, would be “through a chicane of cars and trucks”. Much better imagery, much tighter reading. (Assuming the subliterate boobs reading the book were to know what a chicane is. Or how to use a dictionary to find out.)
But everything in the first 70 pages of this book has persuaded me that this is as good as it gets. The best is pedestrian stock “footage” from bad cop shows. This is one of those rare books I have no desire or motivation whatsoever to read to its predictably boring conclusion.
I suppose it’s a truism for a reason, but the good writers just don’t write fast enough. *heh* And writers like Khoury (and Dan Brown, for that matter–a few of the worst-wasted hours of my life were forcing myself to finish a Dan Brown best-seller) flourish–and even make best seller lists–because their readers are subliterate boobs who would’t recognize good writing if someone slapped them between the eyes with it. OK, OK, I’d not recognize good writing if it were presented to me in that fashion either, but you get my intent, eh? 🙂
Essential Requirement for Modern “Tech” Writers
To be a “tech” writer for websites nowadays, it seems a requirement that English orthography be disregarded. One example of many:
“From retail stores to residential homes LEDs hold the promise of better durability and a longer lasting light but more important they use less energy than a standard incandescent bulb.”
Two written syntax errors and one grammar error in one sentence. And the writer got paid for doing that. *sigh* I’ll not link the source, but this sentence is just one example of many in one short blurb that is much, much more literate than most.
The Purpose of the System…
“The purpose of the school system is to protect teachers regardless of competence. The purpose of government is to collect taxes and pay them to government workers. It may be that some teachers and some government workers do something useful, but that is not the purpose of the system. The Iron Law* prevails.” — Jerry Pournelle
The Real Problem? I Discovered the OED at an Early Age
Seriously. As a child I enjoyed little more than reading dictionaries and encyclopedias, and when I discovered the OED (and in my tender young manhood, Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament and its exhaustive treatment of Koine Greek *sigh*), well, I was in hog heaven.
So, understand that when I read some illiterate blurb in an email come-on to an online article such as the sentence below, I am a bit disturbed:
“It’s not the cheapest set out there, but it’s chalk full of features.”
It’s not that the author of the blurb is necessarily functionally illiterate (he did, after all, manage to spell his misused word correctly *heh*), but that he apparently has no idea that “chalk full” is nonsense reveals that he’s actually read very little. Any even passably semi-literate person such as myself knows full well that the phrase is “chock-full” or a close variant, and dictionary addicts such as I know why (hint *cough*: the majority opinion leans toward the first word in the term deriving from the Middle English “chokken“–meaning to cram or pack tightly, and NO opinion of any literate person even considers “chalk” to be in the same room as “chock” for the expression :-)).
Then blurb was written, more than likely, by some subliterate college graduate who’s heard the expression but never read it… and never even considered that looking up an expression he’s heard but not read might be a Good Thing before putting it in print.
Dumbass.
And, as my Wonder Woman pointed out to me, the writer of that excrescence is apparently an illiterate, uncultured savage whose only exposure to coffee has been limited to the crap sold by Starbucks and other boutique gathering places of the illiterati. Otherwise, he might have heard of, seen or even imbibed some of this:
(OK, OK, my Wonder Woman was too kind to characterize this savage as what he–oh! dread! it could be a “she”! *heh*–obviously is. I added the “illiterate, uncultured savage” and the comment on the crap that’s sold as coffee by Starbucks. Doesn’t make my editorializing incorrect, though.)
Department of Education
Jerry pournelle is always worth listening to, and never more so than when he speaks about public education, and especially about the effect of the “feddle gummint’s” Department of Education.
In 1983 the National Commission on Education, headed by Nobel Laureate Glenn T. Seaborg, wrote that “If a foreign nation had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would rightfully consider it an act of war.”
Go ahead and read the rest of his brief comments at the link.
You Have Absolutely NO Idea How Many Times I Wanted to Do Something Like This…
But almost exclusively with seventh grade students…
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1932079
(Watch the video before reading past the jump.)
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