Illiteracy.

Channel 4 News had an interesting piece tonight about the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Unfortunately the title on the backdrop behind Jon Snow read:

Congo – the forgotton war

I kid you not! :rolleyes:

You’re right, you’re absolutely right. Am I defending the kan’t spel brigade? No. I’m observing some of the contributing factors.

Kev’s original question is about (il)literacy. Is spelling the same thing? Does spelling need to be consistent/standardised to enable comprehension? Is literacy the capacity to communicate and have the other party comprehend what you are talking/writing about?

I favour degrees of similarity in spelling to facilitate clarity and hopefully certainty of communication. At some degree a lack of standardisation will lead to misunderstanding. But what are these degrees of standardisation? I have no difficulty understanding, clearly, both US and UK variants of English. And options like spelt and spelled.

So is it worthwhile to demand/require absolute consistency? I’m in favour of it; I feel it is easier to stay away from the the slippery slope of misunderstanding than to tack across that slope part-way down.

Yes, agree there. The ability to read, write and comprehend is more important than spelling but the English language in terms of spelling and meaning should be standardised. The English way of course, but we’ll lose because the US has Money:Microsoft:Motive to rule the world, and we have a roll-over and take it up the jacksy Government/authorities.

Nowthen, you ask does spelling get in the way of comprehension?
Well, yes. If I see a letter that is full of spelling mistakes and bad grammar, it gives me the impression that this person is not well educated so I tend not to take notice of the contents.
I see C.V’s (Resume for you merkins out there) with spelling mistakes. They don’t get to the read again pile. Not only can they not spell, but they cannot hit F7 to spellcheck!

Do you not think that your points have been trotted out by the kan’t spel brigade, to justify their own inadequacies? This is actually how standards drop in the first place.
To ba5tardise Mr Burke…
“All that is necessary for the triumph of illiteracy is that good men do nothing”

You’re right, you’re absolutely right. Am I defending the kan’t spel brigade? No. I’m observing some of the contributing factors.

Kev’s original question is about (il)literacy. Is spelling the same thing? Does spelling need to be consistent/standardised to enable comprehension? Is literacy the capacity to communicate and have the other party comprehend what you are talking/writing about?

I favour degrees of similarity in spelling to facilitate clarity and hopefully certainty of communication. At some degree a lack of standardisation will lead to misunderstanding. But what are these degrees of standardisation? I have no difficulty understanding, clearly, both US and UK variants of English. And options like spelt and spelled.

So is it worthwhile to demand/require absolute consistency? I’m in favour of it; I feel it is easier to stay away from the the slippery slope of misunderstanding than to tack across that slope part-way down.

… only a little.

My points are:
1. The relative difficulty of English contributes to the illiteracy issue … some other languages don’t encounter this problem to the same extent.
2. For most of it’s “life” English has not been bound by fixed/common spelling and gramatical rules, that is a recent phenomenon … that may not last.

As a related aside, another digression 😉 others above have commented on this … the advent of the ‘net, and Google in particular, adds further to the wider literacy context. I was talking to my 16 yo son a couple of days ago about his high school maths curriculum. I made the observation that later in life, in work, one nearly never uses all that algebra etc. But it sets a basis for comprehension. I told him I’d spent 5-10 minutes, on a whiteboard, reverse engineering a cagr equation to solve a growth rate puzzle I had re. our revenues and market share. You know that thing you do where you spin the equation around to figure out a different component of it? Anyway he looked at me amazed and said “why didn’t you Google it?”. Bloody hell! I Google a lot of things … but an equation? To my mind … that is an outrage! Where is the spirit of enquiry? Figure something out for heaven’s sake!

Do you not think that your points have been trotted out by the kan’t spel brigade, to justify their own inadequacies? This is actually how standards drop in the first place.
To ba5tardise Mr Burke…
“All that is necessary for the triumph of illiteracy is that good men do nothing”

As for the maths, my algebra has long been forgotten as I have not really ever used it since school 34 years ago…..(Only in the simplest form such as I=V/r for calculating fuse sizes or similar)
Oh, and I do my statistics (S. Error, S deviation etc.) long hand but in MS Excel. The in-built formulae for such things tells lies (The wrong kind of lies).
I always throw a Z test Hypothesis into the discussion when somebody quotes me an average.

Remember, when your wife tells you you are the best lover, consider the sample size before feeling smug. 🙂

Trigonometry however has stuck with me, simply because I need some form of it every day.

Accountancy, that winds me up because it is basic sums made difficult by a list of disguised lies hidden amongst latin. And a closed shop of Accountants Charters which ensure mere mathematicians cannot understand the construction of the books…thereby ensuring the Accountants get full employment at £200 per hour. Which, is a good protectionist method while it lasts.

My ex mother in law was a head teacher at a primary school and she told me that a large part of the problem was the old methods of phonetics (or phonics as it is referred to now in the teaching profession) and learning by rote was done away with for being ‘right wing’. Unfortunately, it was replaced with a method which is mainly responsible for the reading and writing problems encountered by universities and employers. When they are learning to read, the children are given the first letter and last letter of a word and have to guess what the word means from that. Many schools are now going back to phonics or phonetics – unfortunately, more than one generation of children has now been let down by trendy teaching methods.
I attended a Jesuit school in Ireland. Each night we were given ten words to learn and in the morning we were tested on them. Anyone who got less than seven correct was sent out into the corridor to await a patrolling Priest who would administer five cuts of a ruler across your hand. It sounds rather brutal and I would not have wished it on my children but my whole class were very good at spelling.

Sigh. 🙂

A “more correct method” ?

Funnily enough I was going to to give the example of Luftwaffe (given this forum and being by definition a fairly recent concept) … obviously made up of luft (air) and waffe (fighting force). Think here also of Lufthansa and Nina Hagen’s wonderful 99 Luftbalons and Waffen SS … and etc.

So I reached for the more correct English form to create the counter-point … and lo and behold, it’s Airforce.

Perhaps English is now also adopting the logical form?

The literal translation of Luftwaffe would be Air Fighting Force. This would disinguish it correctly from the Air Police Force, or even the Air Ambulance.
OK, I know the Copper Choppers are just a sub-division of the Police Force….but the Air Force is also a sub-division of the Army Air Corps.
(Ducks from incoming) 🙂

…measuring stick? :confused:

Sorry. 😮

That’s not evolving, that’s corrupting a word which already had a true and proper meaning.
“Texting”, a fair and just word that has evolved into use in the last decade for example. One can’t really use SMS ing

Personally I think text speak is a significant factor in the causes of ‘illiteracy’ amongst kids/young adults today.

I received two text messages from a teenage girl I work with, the first enquiring about her transport to work was 18 words long only 5 were spelt properly and the second was 14 words long with only 6 spelt properly, the rest was in ‘text speak’.

She may be able to write those two sentances out correctly now but in say 5 years time of regular text speak will she still be able to or by then will she be classed as illiterate?

Spelt?
Sentance?
:diablo:

My ex mother in law was a head teacher at a primary school and she told me that a large part of the problem was the old methods of phonetics (or phonics as it is referred to now in the teaching profession) and learning by rote was done away with for being ‘right wing’. Unfortunately, it was replaced with a method which is mainly responsible for the reading and writing problems encountered by universities and employers. When they are learning to read, the children are given the first letter and last letter of a word and have to guess what the word means from that. Many schools are now going back to phonics or phonetics – unfortunately, more than one generation of children has now been let down by trendy teaching methods.
I attended a Jesuit school in Ireland. Each night we were given ten words to learn and in the morning we were tested on them. Anyone who got less than seven correct was sent out into the corridor to await a patrolling Priest who would administer five cuts of a ruler across your hand. It sounds rather brutal and I would not have wished it on my children but my whole class were very good at spelling.

… only a little.

My points are:
1. The relative difficulty of English contributes to the illiteracy issue … some other languages don’t encounter this problem to the same extent.
2. For most of it’s “life” English has not been bound by fixed/common spelling and gramatical rules, that is a recent phenomenon … that may not last.

As a related aside, another digression 😉 others above have commented on this … the advent of the ‘net, and Google in particular, adds further to the wider literacy context. I was talking to my 16 yo son a couple of days ago about his high school maths curriculum. I made the observation that later in life, in work, one nearly never uses all that algebra etc. But it sets a basis for comprehension. I told him I’d spent 5-10 minutes, on a whiteboard, reverse engineering a cagr equation to solve a growth rate puzzle I had re. our revenues and market share. You know that thing you do where you spin the equation around to figure out a different component of it? Anyway he looked at me amazed and said “why didn’t you Google it?”. Bloody hell! I Google a lot of things … but an equation? To my mind … that is an outrage! Where is the spirit of enquiry? Figure something out for heaven’s sake!

You could try the word ‘Sturzkampfflugzeug’ to illustrate your point. But, we digress…

A prime example being the German method of adding words together. Welsh does that. The English will allow a more correct method to evolve.

A “more correct method” ?

Funnily enough I was going to to give the example of Luftwaffe (given this forum and being by definition a fairly recent concept) … obviously made up of luft (air) and waffe (fighting force). Think here also of Lufthansa and Nina Hagen’s wonderful 99 Luftbalons and Waffen SS … and etc.

So I reached for the more correct English form to create the counter-point … and lo and behold, it’s Airforce.

Perhaps English is now also adopting the logical form?

English language is made up of words from just about every language on the planet, long may it evolve and…

…measuring stick? :confused:

Sorry. 😮

A linguist will be corrupted by the problems faced in teaching the spoken word. And most of her problems will be because her students are from foriegn lands. That’s not our problem. Our language is the world datum, and it should be used correctly. Other languages are older, less adaptable, less descriptive. A prime example being the German method of adding words together. Welsh does that. The English will allow a more correct method to evolve.
English language is made up of words from just about every language on the planet, long may it evolve and rule.

German (and I don’t speak it) has some illogical elements too. For example all things in German are either male, female or neuter (?) so this unnecessary additional information must be remembered, whereas in English we just say ‘the’.

English is illogical ?

I heard an interesting discussion on the radio the other day. A linguist was talking about the English language and the difficulties people, not only English speaking children but especially foreign language students, have with learning English.

An issue is that it is illogical. The comparison was given with German which uses a simple technique of adding words together to create new words of more complex meaning. In contrast, English has many words with fine distinctions of meaning and all sorts of spelling and phonic “same but different” issues. Classics like through and thou and though … and so it goes. The linguist noted this is due to a couple of key factors …
– the mix of invasions and languages etc. over time
– the point that most English was spoken and there were no dictionaries until (relatively) recently.

Briefly on that that last point, she noted that the idea that a word must have fixed spelling is a very recent phenomemon. I grew up with the 3 R’s and find comfort in “correct” spelling and grammar but I (and by extension many of you) are not representative of the English speaking peoples over time.

Back to my earlier point about German simply assembling complex words from smaller words. She gave me to understand that if you wanted to create a concept for a “small house with a large black door” the German language simply assembles the new word in that manner. Certainly I’ve seen many long-winded German words that appear to follow that dictum.

She then extended this point to note that; English is unique in requiring and testing learners on spelling and grammar, other languages are so much simpler to work with that these actions are redundant for their students.

Interesting debate.

So does Dyslexia fit in here ?

You have to delete the American spell checkers from the PC’s before basic standards can be improved.
And destroy all Websters Dikshunneries. They are an abomination to the beautiful language.

The Oxford is the only one to refer, and even that boils my guts when they allow certain things to change.
Apparently, a “Ruler” is now an acceptable word to use for a measuring stick.

A “Rule” is a measuring stick, a “Ruler” sits on a throne. Or has mod. status.

Personally I think text speak is a significant factor in the causes of ‘illiteracy’ amongst kids/young adults today.

I received two text messages from a teenage girl I work with, the first enquiring about her transport to work was 18 words long only 5 were spelt properly and the second was 14 words long with only 6 spelt properly, the rest was in ‘text speak’.

She may be able to write those two sentances out correctly now but in say 5 years time of regular text speak will she still be able to or by then will she be classed as illiterate?

Well said that man!

I encounter far too many people who believe everything they read in the internet, and in the media, and who have not the slightest wish to question any of the “facts”, but simply accept what is put in front of them:

Maths? I’ve got a calculator for that! And if I can’t work out how to pay my mortgage or rent I’ll just default, and fall back on the state to bail me out.

Spelling? My word processor spell checks for me! Anyway, my SMS message doesn’t need long words…

General Knowledge? The wwweb knows everything, and I can tap into it anywhere – even on my mobile, so why bother remembering anything myself – thats too much effort!

Ability to Reason for myself? What? Why do I need that? My nanny state government knows whats best for me -look at their “sound bite” press releases that tell me this, they even do the maths to prove their point….. and the papers and TV programs tell me everything else I need to know..don’t they?

Maybe it’s not the inherent illiteracy thats my worry, its the seeming lack of desire to learn or understand, and the worrying underlying belief that no-one needs to know anything anymore, except what the current popular “personalities” are doing in their sordid, and relatively insignificant, private lives.

Why bother to try and learn “stuff” when you can live you life through the pages of the trashy “popular culture magazines”, and hope that one day you’ll be that famous yourself 😡

Of course, none of the erudite readers or contributors on the forums here fall into the above stereotype, but I am sure we all know, or work with some people who do…. worrying isn’t it?

Well, hmm, yes and no to your statements. My missus, for some unknown reason to me, likes to read these naff magazines, and understands everything that is happening to every media personality going, so what, you may think, and so do I.
However she is a very intellctual person, she can strongly hold and have arguments about any political situation going, she knows alot about life generally and not a force to be tangled with, she would give the aformentioned students a good run for their money on any topic, maybe not on quantom physics, but who knows, she probably has something up her sleeve with regard to that.