"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
Book begins:
“[Xx] didn’t like the [Yy], there were too many rules.”
Since the lede is a COMMA SPLICE, I have all the information I need to know the writer DGARA about killing readers’ brain cells, and was too cheap to pay a literate proofreader or editor.
Pass, because the book’s a FAIL.
“. . .inside a dog, it’s too dark to read.” ~ Twain
Re: reading programs in general. My Wonder Woman (a school librarian/”Media Specialist”) has finally seen some movement resulting from her campaign to get away from regimented reading programs and encourage/allow kids to read whatever interests them (within the scope of what she is allowed to have in her collections). Circulation at both her libraries is up, and reading scores have improved dramatically since the regimented reading programs in her two schools have been relaxed in one and eliminated in the other.
One of the things she has excelled in is taking kids with very low reading scores on standardized testing and engaging them in ways that spur their interest in books, primarily by focusing on their personal areas of interest. So far, this has resulted in not only contributing to improving their reading skills but also in broadening their interests. More and more of these “marginal readers” (below grade level, sometimes by several grades) have advanced to well above grade level in reading comprehension.
Interest. When kids discover that books can increase their knowledge/understanding of the things they are interested in, it can make a difference for the better.
(Of course, those with severe cognitive/perceptive impairments of some kind require other kinds of intervention, but excellent tools and materials are available there, as well.)
Usage note: “utilize” =/= “use” If I were to dig holes in the ground with a tractor and PTO auger, then that would be a case of USING the auger (that is, for its intended purpose). If I were to effectively and efficiently bore a hole in a tree with it, I would be UTILIZING it (for a purpose for which it was not designed or intended). BTW, attempting to effectively and efficiently bore a hole in a tree with a tractor-powered auger would seem a bit. . . silly, at best, and probably doomed to failure. _Utilizing things is a hacker’s gig.
In my experience, people who misuse “utilize” when they describe an action to which “use” applies are usually subliterate, pretentious twats. (YMMV, of course.) Such persons’ misuse is creeping slowly, a bit at a time, into dictionaries, though, further impoverishing English by blurring clear and very useful distinctions, as has already been done with more and more words as the democratic subliteracy of the Internet accelerates pejoration and even outright destruction of useful meanings. (Simple example of destruction of meaning is the most prominent use nowadays of the word invented by Richard Dawkins to refer to “a parallel between the way that genetic information propagates in the gene pool and the way that cultural information is transmitted through a culture.” Nowadays, most usage of the word refers to graphics with pithy captions attempting to make the leap to widespread cultural transmission. *cough* #ICanHazCheeseburger *cough*)
(Note: utilize can also refer to effective and efficient uptake of a nutrient by a biological entity. In fact, that is its best, clearest use.)
On top of flood cleanup (and other home projects), my summer just keeps filling up with other things, as well. Take my “Summer reading stack,” for example. I just found another summer read. (Cassell’s Italian-English/English Italian Dictionary.) I may not get very far into it, though, since I’m still wading through my Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. . . among other reads. 😉
I do so very much wish that at least some writers would at least head on back to a remedial English class. *sigh*
“These three people are about to find out what happened to [blank].”
“And they’re going to wish they never did.”
No, “. . .they’re going to wish they never HAD.”
*smh*
No, this isn’t a post about low-carb dieting. It’s about part of what makes reading dictionaries entertaining, even fun. “Desert” (the verb: to abandon) was derived from a different Latin root (deserere: forsake, abandon) than “desert” (the noun meaning deserving a certain treatment for one’s behavior, as in “just deserts”) was derived from a _different_ Latin term (desevire: serve well; de–~completely, sevire–serve), while “desert” (the noun meaning wasteland, wilderness, barren area) was derived from the same Latin root as the verb meaning to abandon.
And “dessert,” of course has nothing to do with any of the meanings of “desert” noted above, although it is pronounced similarly to ONE of the words spelled “desert.”
Yeh, reading dictionaries is just plain fun. ? Also, as James D. Nicoll has so infamously noted, “We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
GOOD dictionaries can unlock these words, provide linguistic and even historical context, and thus greatly enrich one’s experience of English, both spoken and written. Why more folks don’t read dictionaries for pleasure, I just can’t fathom.
*smh* Self-pub writers who just HAVE to “write” a book, but who have no interest in becoming literate enough to avoid felonious assaults on the English language just give me a rash. It’s not that hard, for example, to learn the differences between “go” and “come,” or “take” and “bring,” or that plural subjects take verbs that indicate, urm, you know, MORE THAN ONE, etc. But wannabe subliterate self-pub writers (there are good self-pub writers) have another major flaw: they usually seem to have an overabundance of confidence in their subliterate writing, and avoid literate proofreaders and editors like the plague.
(Aside: it’s often a Very Bad Sign when a self-pub writer thanks his mom for “critiquing” his book. As a matter of fact, in my experience, it’s a 100%, dead certain indication that the writing will stink up whatever room the book’s read in.)
This is not a good thing.
. . .here in America’s Third World County™. . . until Summer School starts on May 28. *heh*
The last couple of weeks of pubschool reveal its essential nature as “prisons for kids” or “glorified daycare.” *sigh*
Oh, and when did “graduation” from eighth grade (or sixth grade or KINDERGARTEN) get to be a big deal? OK, maybe I could understand making a big deal of eighth grade graduation back in my grandfather’s day when an eighth grade education carried some sort of meaning, but now? #feh “Here’s your meaningless piece of paper certifying that you are ‘graduating’ to a status of lowest of the low, wandering generality in a sea of your elders, bottom of the pecking order. Buh-bye!”
And kindergarten graduation?!? “Congratulations! You are no longer just a tadpole! You are now a tadpole with a piece of paper you can’t read and the start of being a tadpole with legs! Enjoy your next twelve years of regimentation!”
I am currently reading a book by an otherwise fairly competent and literate writer who regularly and consistently misuses “utilize” for “use.” The two words are not the same. *sigh*
Sadly, the writer also has no clue what the differences are between “bring” and “take,” so not as competent and literate as I had assumed.
Yet another example of why formal literacy is an always moving target, something one can strive for for a lifetime but only approach: I just discovered “Noctes Atticae” — “Attic Nights” — (“Attic” here referring to the nature of the tales contained in the 2nd Century volume of fables, since they were or were based on old Grecian folk tales, fables, and myths). It’s a good example of the “holes and gaps, lacks and losses, absences, silences, impalpabilities and the like” in my own literacy. Specifically, I was reminded last night of the fable of “Androcles and the Lion” (similar in plot and moral to Aesop’s “The Lion and the Mouse”), but I did not know until I reviewed the fable today that the first known statement of the fable was in Aulus Gellius’s “Noctes Atticus.”
Now, I feel a need to read Gellius’s collection to see that else I have missed. Unfortunately, since I only have the little Latin I have gleaned through other readings and via interpolations from other languages largely derived from Latin, I’ll be best served to read one of the available translations. *shrugs* I don’t think I can effectively manage to shoehorn Latin lessons into my “scattergun” autodidact program, now.
I’ll never have read enough to achieve formal literacy that satisfies me. . . or, it seems, closely approximates the literacy of some I have known.