Month: March 2018

While examples of illiteracy abound in Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind “reporting,” books–whether published by traditional publishing venues or self-pub writers–and social media (a rich, rich field to mine for examples), almost nothing beats so-called “memes”¹ for a steady supply of illiterate text. Example:

The “meme” featured above was apparently composed by a “misunderedumacated” product of “public education” (A.K.A. “prisons for kids”). The abbreviation for “second” is “2nd,” not “2ed.” Oh, and standard English orthography does NOT have a space between the last word in a sentence and the punctuation closing the sentence, and a question should be punctuated with a question mark, not an exclamation mark. Those practices are reserved for those who never became literate.

But I am sure the reader can supply many, many such examples of folks proudly displaying their illiteracy in “memes” they hope will spread (and infect others with their illiterate text).

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¹meme: “an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture,” or at least that was the meaning when Richard Dawkins coined the word. Since, stupid people have misused it enough that a secondary meaning has become accepted by many as the only meaning they are (illiterately) aware of: “amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online especially through social media,” and further devolved to mean some graphic/text combo that some illiterate boob hopes will spread. . . #gagamaggot

From The Online Etymology Dictionary:

“apocalypse (n.)

“late 14c., “revelation, disclosure,” from Church Latin apocalypsis “revelation,” from Greek apokalyptein “uncover, disclose, reveal,” from apo “off, away from” (see apo-) + kalyptein “to cover, conceal,” from PIE root *kel- (1) “to cover, conceal, save.” The Christian end-of-the-world story is part of the revelation in John of Patmos’ book “Apokalypsis” (a title rendered into English as pocalipsis c. 1050, “Apocalypse” c. 1230, and “Revelations” by Wyclif c. 1380).

“Its general sense in Middle English was “insight, vision; hallucination.” The meaning “a cataclysmic event” is modern (not in OED 2nd ed., 1989); apocalypticism “belief in an imminent end of the present world” is from 1858. As agent nouns, “author or interpreter of the ‘Apocalypse,'” apocalypst (1829), apocalypt (1834), and apocalyptist (1824) have been tried.”