The Dumbing Down of America - Here's Why

Espee · Jan 29, 2013

All I remember from my brief foray into dictionary-reading is "erubescent."
W.C. Fields' nose was erubescent. (And large.)

Espee · Jan 29, 2013

Any time I had encountered the word "avuncular," I had said to myself "Ahh... well, that would mean something like, er, well, it must be an adjective, meaning... hmmm... I'd better look that one up, in a few minutes..."
But I never did, until it kept coming up in "Ukulele Heroes."
Cliff Edwards, Arthur Godfrey, and one other male uke star were... like an uncle.
Wow-- there's "unc" in the midst of avUNCular. Easy to remember-- if you ever LEARN it!
By the way, the aunt-equivalent is "materteral."
An aunt is sort of one step to the side of a mother. But Ian Whitcomb must not have found Tessie O'Shea or May Singhi Breen to be aunt-like.

MisterCairo · Jan 29, 2013

Even Dr. Johnson himself had his vocabulary expanded, in an anachronistic fashion:

[video=youtube;hOSYiT2iG08]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOSYiT2iG08[/video]

LizzieMaine · Jan 29, 2013

A few words I love --

Saponaceous -- of or pertaining to soap, or posessing the qualities of soap -- Slippery. Slick. Also applied to politicians, lawyers, and business executives. "The saponaceous CEO wriggled out from under the indictment and squirted off to the Cayman Islands."

Oleaginous -- Oily, oozing, falsely ingratiating, and by extension insincere. "His oleaginous apology for his embezzlement failed to convince the judge."

Punctilious -- Overly-precise, exaggerated attention to rules and accepted conventions. "Despite the chairman's punctilious adherence to the codes of fashion and public behavior, he remained a charmless git."

Foxer55 · Jan 29, 2013

Lizzie,

Punctilious -- Overly-precise, exaggerated attention to rules and accepted conventions. "Despite the chairman's punctilious adherence to the codes of fashion and public behavior, he remained a charmless git."

Ah, now I have a moniker for a guy in my office.

Foxer55 · Jan 29, 2013

Lizzie,

Punctilious -- Overly-precise, exaggerated attention to rules and accepted conventions. "Despite the chairman's punctilious adherence to the codes of fashion and public behavior, he remained a charmless git."

Ah, now I have a moniker for a kid in my office.

vitanola · Jan 29, 2013

filfoster said:
I have found 'catamite' a useful pejorative.

It appears that we must run in very different crowds.

Fletch · Jan 29, 2013

Does your crowd
a) not know the word?
b) know it, but don't hold with that kind of talk?
c) not consider it particularly pejorative?

...or d) think it has to do with cats who have ear mites?

Fletch · Jan 29, 2013

Foxer55 said:
("punctilious") Ah, now I have a moniker for a kid in my office.

And now I have a moniker for StyleForum.

I Adore Film Noir · Jan 29, 2013

V.C. Brunswick said:
The decline began when phonics was replaced in schools by Whole Language, a system which was originally designed to teach illiterates how to recognize danger and warning signs. Sometimes I can't help but wonder if all this is by accident or design.

Ah yes, I agree. Phonics! "sound it out", I'll never forget.

LizzieMaine · Jan 29, 2013

We had one year of phonics, in the 2nd grade, but most of my generation's primary-level reading was in the Dick-and-Jane look-say method, introduced in the 1920s and dominant in American schools thru the sixties. That seemed to work out alright for most of us. That and a good dose of Warriner's Grammar in junior high left us reasonably literate.

The whole-language method became a big issue here in the early '90s, in the days when I was covering the local education beat as a reporter. There were violent, knock-down-drag-out battles on local school boards over its use, but it seems to be pretty much a dead issue today. Kids seem to be able to read fine, whatever method they're using, but they can't spell worth a nickel.

Fletch · Jan 29, 2013

As someone who's considered a career as a plain-language advocate, what really chaps my breeches is that a needed service is not valued and is being obsoleted.

Business, government, medicine, law all lament the lack of good clear written expression. But organizations rarely spare the money or even the time. In technology, poor documentation even has a certain value: it gives developers or management a place to shift blame when things don't work.

LizzieMaine · Jan 29, 2013

Obfuscation is the first refuge of the insecure mind.

Kathleen'sMeg43 · Jan 30, 2013

I think my favorite "Stumping" word would have to be "Idiosyncrasies" (oddities)

It's so aweful though, that a lot of the time I find myself having to "dummy down" my vocabulary when talking to most of my friends. At one point not too long ago, I was going to say that a certain situation was "Disconcerting" and had to change my wording knowing it wouldn't be comprehended on the other end... It was so sad because whatever word I ended up using didn't anywhere near describe how I felt.

dhermann1 · Jan 30, 2013

Well, it's fun to show off our vocabularies, but what really interested me about the article was what it said about CONTEXT being the key to learning and vocabulary development. The content has to be coherent and coordinated.

vitanola · Jan 30, 2013

Fletch said:
Does your crowd
a) not know the word?
b) know it, but don't hold with that kind of talk?
c) not consider it particularly pejorative?

...or d) think it has to do with cats who have ear mites?

I haven't associated with folks to which that term might be properly applied for many years, now.

Maj.Nick Danger · Jan 30, 2013

V.C. Brunswick said:
The decline began when phonics was replaced in schools by Whole Language, a system which was originally designed to teach illiterates how to recognize danger and warning signs. Sometimes I can't help but wonder if all this is by accident or design.

By design. It's far easier to control the ignorant than it is to control the erudite.

esteban68 · Jan 30, 2013

Maj.Nick Danger said:
By design. It's far easier to control the ignorant than it is to control the erudite.

I'd agree with that....the same thing has been happening over here in the last few years or so, however language and the use thereoff is no guarantee of intelligence.
I work within the NHS with some very intelligent and well spoken people of all ages however several of them to employ a phrase oft used here " are as thick as pig..."you know what! they cannot fix anything that breaks, get lost even when using sat navs and many struggle to attach anything to an email.
On the other hand I know a great many people who don't speak 'proper' but are amongst the brightest people I have ever met, they speak local dialects and thus are judged as 'thick' by their 'superiors'....having said that over here and I'd guess over there? people often match their speech to their surroundings/peers etc.

Bruce Wayne · Jan 30, 2013

I remember back in the 99-00 school year I was a junior in high school. My first class of the day was English (I forget the actual name of the class.) Several time throughout the year we read books. Most of them I enjoyed such as Hatchet, but I digress. The point of this story was that when the rest of the class was about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through the book I was done & working at that days homework or catching up on homework for later periods. Needless to say the teachers assistant got fed up with me asking where the class was when it came time for me to start reading & I received a detention a few times & I even think a Saturday School. When I went to the Saturday School we were told no sleeping & we needed to explain why we were there. When I explained the status of why I was there the instructor laughed. Shortly after we all fell silent & began our studies the teacher called me to the front of the class & informed me that if I wanted to sleep that was fine & she would inform the principal of the situation on Monday. Shortly before lunch on Monday I received a not from the assistant principal that my Saturday school had been stricken from my record.

I can only imagine how bad it is now in classrooms.

filfoster · Jan 30, 2013

vitanola said:
I haven't associated with folks to which that term might be properly applied for many years, now.

Of course, that's the fun of using it. The receiver is usually not sure what has just been said but the context implies it's not a compliment, but something rebarbative.
It would be interesting to receive a 'thanks!' for that one, and not a little scary.

The Dumbing Down of America - Here's Why

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