So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

belfastboy · Mar 15, 2020

MisterCairo said:
Use of apostrophe s to make any word in the english language plural. Anyone who does this - please die.

I have a much much younger brother. He came through the school system that was taught by my contemporaries....leading edge of the Boomer cohort. He suffered through the touchy feely teaching phase, open concept classrooms, whole language instruction, no times tables etc. He arrived in his junior year of high school totally ungrounded in basic English grammar and spelling. He, of his own initiative, hired a retired English teacher to instruct him in these areas. He used to curse at me and my stupid generation for the damage their cockamamie ideas had on his generation. He said we had some debts to pay.

GHT · Mar 16, 2020

belfastboy said:
He used to curse at me and my stupid generation for the damage their cockamamie ideas had on his generation. He said we had some debts to pay.

Not having any children, I don't know how I remember that our country had the same sort of "progressive" teaching, probably hearsay from friends talking about their children's education. How I sympathise.

We bought a new car back in 1996, it was just before we had both cell phones and the internet, remember dial up? The salesman had offered us a generous part exchange deal on top of a cash discount, now he had to work out the price we had to pay, he was doing it using some adding machine with a lot of whistles and bells, it might even have been a basic computer. All he had to do was, take off the purchase tax, we call it Value Added Tax, then deduct the discount, then add the new tax figure, it will be lower because the tax is a percentage of the cost, then he had to deduct the price of the part exchange that he had given us, leaving a total price to pay.

He spent forever tap-tapping away on his calculator, this bit wasn't right, that bit was wrong, then he started all over again. Then he checked with his manager. The manager explained the procedure, yes, yes he had done that only the figure came out higher than the cost before the deal. In the meantime, my wife and I stood at his desk, I slipped a piece of paper across to him, upside down, keeping my hand over it. At last he got there, but he still got his manager to check his calculations. I took my hand of the scrap of paper, the salesman turned it over, our figures matched exactly. "How did he do it?" he said, looking towards my missus. "He sat in a classroom when he was five years old and learned the times tables until he knew them by heart," she replied. "Times what?" He said. I can confirm that it was an excellent car, because we still have it. Not sure what became of the salesman, probably head honcho by now.

3fingers · Mar 16, 2020

^^^ I started school in 1970. Your brother and I must have had some of the same teachers. I taught myself details of several subjects as an adult that should have been thoroughly covered in school.
I can't see from my children's experience that it has gotten anything but worse since.

Fading Fast · Mar 16, 2020

We can argue, as we do here, about this or that grammar issue, but as to the above, my nieces and nephews (and a few close-friends' kids) - now ranging in age from mid teens to late twenty - several who are college graduates, all but can't write a respectable paragraph or do basic math in their head. Yes, one is a pretty good writer and one (maybe two) seem okay with math, but overall, they are, and I'm just going to say it, embarrassing. Yet, again, all are high school graduates and several have four-year college degrees.

I don't say anything to them - not my place - but I am amazed to see a high school or college graduate who can't write a short, grammatically correct and coherent note or do "ten percent off $20" in his or her head. I saw one grab his phone to do that calculation just this past Christmas. As to writing, it appears several of them do not have a basic understanding of sentence structure - forget about all the grammar minutia we "fight" about here at FL.

GHT · Mar 16, 2020

Fading Fast said:
I am amazed to see a high school or college graduate who can't write a short, grammatically correct and coherent note or do "ten percent off $20" in his or her head. I saw one grab his phone to do that calculation just this past Christmas. As to writing, it appears several of them do not have a basic understanding of sentence structure - forget about all the grammar minutia we "fight" about here at FL.

That really is a sad indictment of the standard of education that passes as acceptable these days. And not just in the US, it's seems endemic in the developed world.

LizzieMaine · Mar 16, 2020

"Progressive Education" began in the US in the late 1890s, and was commonplace in the United States by the middle of the 1910s. No American now living, nor their parents, ever experienced an actual old-fashioned "readin' writin' rithmatick'" education, nor would they actually want to. "Taught to the tune of a hickory stick" didn't actually teach a child much that would be of long-term value, and the literacy rate in the United States in the late 19th Century, despite internet memes showing Victorian sixth graders doing what would to day be considered college level work, was embarassingly low. If you have old family letters going back to the 19th Century era, look them over -- chances are you'll find plenty of mangled grammar, poor spelling, and semi-literate expression.

I can diagram a sentence just fine, having learned from Warriner's Grammar in junior high school. Bet I never have, in nearly forty years as a professional writer, had any need or call to do so. Diagramming sentences is highly overrated.

But I will agree that mathematical fads have had a negative impact. New Math messed me up bad. I can one-to-one match and explain set theory I learned in the first grade, but I can't do basic pencil and paper arithmetic beyond about a fourth grade level. By the time calculators came along I was already a lost cause.

Fading Fast · Mar 16, 2020

Lizzie knows way more about the history of education in this country than I ever will and what follows is purely anecdotal, but my grandparents and their friends, my parents and their friends (most, not all, high school grads but no more) and their friends (many, not all, college grads) had/have better writing skills than my nieces and nephews.

Diagraming a sentence, something I learned, was, IMO, not about being able to use that as an actual IRL skill, but I thought it was a way of teaching one to learn about sentence structure and parts of speech so that you had an understanding of how to construct a sentence. And while it helped me, I have no doubt there are many ways to teach the concepts of sentence structure and parts of speech without diagraming a sentence. That said, whatever they are teaching (at least the kids I noted) today, isn't working too well.

And as noted, whatever they are doing with math, seems equally bad.

LizzieMaine · Mar 16, 2020

I've come to think that writing skill is an inborn talent. It can be nurtured by education or not, but an education can't really give that skill to someone who doesn't already have a strong aptitude in that area. And if everybody had that talent, we'd all be (insert your favorite author here.)

If you look at a lot of old letters from ordinary people, you begin notice how many of them are made up of the same trite phrases taken from "phrase books" and "model letters" without actually expressing original thoughts. "Thought I would write you a few lines to say I am thinking of you. How are Aunt Bess and the kids. We all here are fine. The weather here has been cold but what can you do ha ha. Ed is getting more hours down to the foundry but he thinks they will put on a new man soon. The dog got sick the other day and we had to put her down. It was too bad she was a good dog except for biting the milkman. He got better but he was some mad. Well, that is all I have to say from here. Write soon, we like to hear from you." Sure it's clear, but does it actually say anything?

My niece went to the same school system I did, but thirty years later. I had 1940s-era Dick and Jane readers in elementary school. She was taught "whole language." She published a book a couple years ago and made more money with it than I did with mine. So I guess that's something.

As for math, I think Tom Lehrer said it best...

Fading Fast · Mar 16, 2020

I think there is a difference between great or even very good writing and adequate writing that conforms to basic norms of sentence structure, punctuation, etc. I doubt great writing can be taught, but I think adequate-for-day-to-day writing skills could be taught to the majority of the public and it seems (again, my anecdotal experience only, not discussing anything more) we did that better for generations than we are doing currently.

Fading Fast · Mar 16, 2020

Oh, and how much money a book makes is only loosely related to the writing skills of the author.

LizzieMaine · Mar 16, 2020

Well, that makes me feel a bit better at least.

tonyb · Mar 16, 2020

Basic literacy in this country is about 99 percent among people age 15 and older.

I know people a generation and two younger than me who, during their high school years, were doing the sorts of coursework I didn’t see until college.

At my high school, way back in the mists of time, you got a diploma if you showed up half the time and didn’t burn the place down. The faculty and staff pretty much let us smoke whatever we felt like smoking, provided we kept it to the back parking lot, where concerned citizens were less likely to witness it.

As to Lizzie’s suggestion that writing skills are inborn ...

Perhaps, but I remain receptive to other arguments. It’s not that some skills aren’t innate. I got a tin ear. I’m a lousy musician, I have difficulty discerning one English-language accent from another, I can diagram sentences in many foreign languages but I have great difficulty understanding those sentences when spoken. This isn’t because I was deprived of auditory enrichment as a youngster. I just got a bad ear.

I’ve coached aspiring writers, with varying degrees of success. I’ve found it’s mostly a matter of showing people how to get the hell out of their own way. One of the best pieces of advice ever imparted on me, and which I’ve shared many times myself, is “spit it out.” Just say it. Don’t overthink it. Go back and fix it later, but just get the words out.

Bushman · Mar 16, 2020

Fading Fast said:
I think there is a difference between great or even very good writing and adequate writing that conforms to basic norms of sentence structure, punctuation, etc. I doubt great writing can be taught, but I think adequate-for-day-to-day writing skills could be taught to the majority of the public and it seems (again, my anecdotal experience only, not discussing anything more) we did that better for generations than we are doing currently.

For what it's worth, my high school's freshman English classes taught something called "minimum competency" where it broke down the English language, and taught an in-depth study of it. It was indirectly required for you to pass this before graduating as you needed to pass to get into a second language class, which were required to graduate. Minimum requirement was 2 years of a second language, though I took 3 and was able to apply that class towards college credit.

Fading Fast said:
Oh, and how much money a book makes is only loosely related to the writing skills of the author.

Similar could be said of movies. Sure, Transformers movies make a lot, but they're not worth a spit.

Trenchfriend · Mar 18, 2020

The trick on watching ASMR-videos is to cross you arms!

With crossed arms, the triggering works much better, I tell you!!

Enjoy!

Hercule · Mar 19, 2020

My son (9th grade) suggests to me that apostrophe s is now the standard even if a word ends in S - "Charles's". This wouldn't surprise me. Anything to streamline education and eliminate exceptions to the rule. That's what we have come to. But, son advises me that he doesn't do it because it's stupid. So there you have it.

Maybe such changes aren't a bad thing in the long run. Perhaps they're an attempt to bridge the gap between spoken and written language. I really don't know as my formal writing tends to be very traditional, even if challenged when it comes to the use of commas!. Seems to me German underwent a "revision" a few years ago?

LizzieMaine · Mar 19, 2020

Language is in a constant state of evolution and revision -- which is why we don't talk or write like Shakespeare or the King James Version anymore. No authority decides this, no rulings are handed down, there is no overarching plan at work. It just happens because that's how a living language works. A century from now today's speech will sound impossibly quaint and stilted, just as a book from 1900 seems impossibly pompous today.

tonyb · Mar 20, 2020

1966 ...

ChiTownScion · Mar 20, 2020

LizzieMaine said:
Language is in a constant state of evolution and revision -- which is why we don't talk or write like Shakespeare or the King James Version anymore.

Fun fact: the "King James Bible" that 99 44/100 of the people who say that they own one today isn't the original 1611 "Authorized Version" at all. It's a 1759 rewrite known as the "Standard Text."

The 1611 Authorized Version included fourteen Deuterocanonical books of the Apocrypha when it was published. The Standard Text of 1759 omitted those books, and changed the text of the remainder in at least 20,000 instances. So, you might say that even the King James Bible today doesn't reflect King James (i.e., 1611) English.

tonyb · Mar 20, 2020

^^^^^
If it was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.

KILO NOVEMBER · Mar 20, 2020

tonyb said:
^^^^^
If it was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.

Shouldn't that be in quotes?

So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

belfastboy

GHT

I'll Lock Up

3fingers

One Too Many

Fading Fast

GHT

I'll Lock Up

LizzieMaine

Fading Fast

LizzieMaine

Fading Fast

Fading Fast

LizzieMaine

tonyb

Bushman

I'll Lock Up

Trenchfriend

Hercule

Practically Family

LizzieMaine

tonyb

ChiTownScion

Call Me a Cab

tonyb

KILO NOVEMBER

One Too Many

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