Demonizing The Un-educated

[Gabriela]

Yes, English has standardizations.  That includes using fairly decent spelling and not using numbers in words.

 

Please do me a favor and don't tell me what I mean.  I mean that people who can't write and dislike being criticized should self select themselves off message boards.

 

 

Please note the question mark in my original sentence and the double negative in your original sentence that clearly (or rather, not so clearly) communicated the opposite of what you apparently meant.

 

Ummm, I never said anything about minor errors.  I am suggesting that people with serious language problems who find correction troublesome may not want to be on the board, and it's their cross, not ours.

And yet, all your complaints about it imply that is in fact YOUR cross. Which you bear rather loudly.

 

How about, capitals, punctuation, decent grammar, readable spelling.  No numbers in words, no trying to look cool by adding z's or shortening words like because.  Would 2 more letters really kill the poster?

 

The question is: Who are you to set this standard? When half of America—and nearly all her youth—find such writing online (and in other new communication technology media) perfectly acceptable, it's YOU who are going against the grain, not them.

 

Besides pointing out the op's inconsistent use of is as "iz" no one is bashing anyone.  I acknowledged my own failings in spelling and grammar.  However, I do not agree with the OP and other posters that I must accept nearly unreadable text and like it.  

 

I agree: You do not have to accept or like it.

 

I DO think that knowing you have a problem with writing and not improving (and saying everyone else has a problem) is verging on sinful.  

 

You know the argumentum ad hitlerum/holocaustum? In a Catholic forum, an argumentum ad peccatum is just as bad.

 

Written communication is a gift God gave to humans.  Dogs, apes and whales all communicate verbally.  

 

Really? Verbally? Since when? That's circus material!

 

It can take someone a signification amount of time to learn English either because of disability, second language or never being taught.  However, it can be done.  In the meantime the person who is in need of improvement has no right to get mad if people can't or won't read what they wrote.

 

Given your spelling of "significant" here, I suggest you take your own advice and not get mad.

 

hotpink, I'm not trying to bait you. I also find misspellings and poor grammar incredibly annoying at times. But online, I recognize that I am in the minority, and also that I occasionally misspell a word or use poor grammar (sometimes deliberately). Given that we are all guilty of this now and then, I just think it's hypocritical to call others out on it as vehemently as you do. I also think that standards of language are fluid, context-dependent, and subject to agreement by language users—not grammar dictators such as you seem to have appointed yourself to be.

 

That being said, I appreciate your contributions here to the community of language users discussing their views on "uneducated" language use.  :like:

[Era Might]

The necessity of a "standardized language" is a creature of modernity. It was a necessary tool in unifying the political conception of the modern nation-state. Standardized languages have their uses, but you can never have a culture from a standardized language. Culture is inherently vernacular.

 

As far as "uneducated" use of language, this too reflects a concept of the modern nation state. Schools are modern society's way of enforcing norms and ensuring efficient adaptation of official ways of thinking and being. To speak in an "uneducated way" is, in other words, to be alienated from society's approved institutions. Again, standardized has its uses in fostering intelligence, but it also has the opposite effect: it stifles any real thought and culture. Students today have for so long been fed through the standardized system where proper form is paramount...having something to say, however you say it, disappears.

 

More often than not, if someone in a novel is known for speaking in "standardized language," they're probably on the short end of the joke. Vernacularity is not just about language but about people's way of being in the world, and standardized culture strangles that.

 

Online and text speak is another issue, I think. It is a breakdown of standardized culture rather than a new language culture. It is also an effect of modern technical ways of thinking, where feeling and bodiliness are absent. This is reflected in words like "strategy," "solution," "project," etc. A word like "population" has lost its roots in the idea of bodily "populating" and is now what the scholar Uwe Porkson calls a "plastic word." It's a technical idea, a statistical idea, "population."

[Era Might]

What was the first gift the Apostles received after Christ ascended? The gift of being able to evangelize in foreign tongues. Why? So that their message could be understood. What were the two things slaves were forbidden to learn? To read and write and to swim. To read meant they could read maps and swimming allowed them to cross streams and rivers. Both meant escape. To a slave, learning to read and write properly was the cornerstone of their deliverance. People who remained ignorant, remained slaves.

 

True, but becoming "educated" was not in itself "freedom." Malcolm X is a useful example here. His transformation in prison was fed by voracious reading and learning, but his ultimate goal was not to be accepted by white society, but to take all its learning and language and use it against them, to indict them with their own tricks. This is the great failure of the law...it is a trap, though a useful one. But ultimately, the real point of life is not the law, but freedom from the law (that's the whole Christian message). The beggar on the street is greater than the saint in heaven precisely because his greatness is outside any kind of argument and reason. Only those who have eyes and ears can understand it. That's why Jesus would never argue with the pharisees, instead he confounded them.

Edited May 1, 2013 by Era Might

[Ice_nine]

wasn't there an ancient philosopher who was like "zomgz the written word is going to totes cause major crisises!"

 

Maybe he had a point :)

[Era Might]

wasn't there an ancient philosopher who was like "zomgz the written word is going to totes cause major crisises!"

 

Maybe he had a point :)

 

Plato (or Socrates, probably both) warned about written language, because it is an illusion. He described memory as logs floating along a stream, which you can never get back, but written language creates the illusion of the mind as a sort of "page." Human society has for so long been literate that we conceive ourselves in terms of language...we think of conscience, for example, as a written list. But there was a time in human history when there was no such thing as language because there was no such thing as an alphabet, which is the technology we use to record sound.

[CatholicsAreKewl]

Plato (or Socrates, probably both) warned about written language, because it is an illusion. He described memory as logs floating along a stream, which you can never get back, but written language creates the illusion of the mind as a sort of "page." Human society has for so long been literate that we conceive ourselves in terms of language...we think of conscience, for example, as a written list. But there was a time in human history when there was no such thing as language because there was no such thing as an alphabet, which is the technology we use to record sound.

That's deep. I wanted to prop this but I'm saving up in case Nihil posts another pony thread. 

[PhuturePriest]

I can't even read what that says. Proper grammar and spelling is essential if you actually want people to understand you. 

 

Really? I read it without any trouble.

[Socrates]

Why on earth would anyone demonize the uneducated?

 

 

If someone can't put together an intelligible, grammatical sentence, I certainly don't presume that person to be evil or fiendish.

I merely find him ignorant and illiterate.

 

 

 

ps ~ One doesn't need an expensive education or degree to write literately.  I've read great writers who have never gone to college.  Though it is best that one read plenty of good books, which can be borrowed at your local public library.

[CatholicsAreKewl]

Why on earth would anyone demonize the uneducated?

 

 

If someone can't put together an intelligible, grammatical sentence, I certainly don't presume that person to be evil or fiendish.

I merely find him ignorant and illiterate.

 

 

 

ps ~ One doesn't need an expensive education or degree to write literately.  I've read great writers who have never gone to college.  Though it is best that one read plenty of good books, which can be borrowed at your local public library.

Or purchased through Amazon.com. Remember to clear your cookies before clicking this ad:
 

 

Edited May 2, 2013 by CatholicsAreKewl

[Norseman82]

Pax domini bretheren,sympathieszers and others...

 

Who agrees that demonizing the less educated in the manner of spelling and grammear is anti christian.? What iI mean is putting too much emphasis on such to someone whom is less educated can actually cause friction, paticularily if your you're not willing to go through there their  writings with them. And also iI think you will find some of the great saints' works are edited, sSt. tTherese of lLiseux wrote in a very street fFrench as far as i I'm aware, and iI assume her works where edited for spelling and grammatical errors. I could get nasty about this but iI won't. Also a lecture on sSaint pPaul iI watched said he had dictators scrolling all he said. I think it may be the other way around with him though making his language more accesible to the poor.

 

Please consider.

 

Jesus izs Lord.

God is Good,God is Love.

 

On the flip side, you need to know good grammar, spelling, and punctuation if you want to get ahead in life (trust me, I work in corporate America).  I believe the whole "textspeak" phenomenon is going to be the death of our language and culture as we know it, as it is a source of "dumbing it down". 

 

Edit:  on the other hand, if any of that is due to differences between Australian and American English, I apologize.  Having to communicate with people in India on almost a daily basis, I do know that even among the most educated adults there are differences that may seem strange.  Example:  in India, there is a phrase that is used:  "kindly do the needful".  When we first heard that, we thought it was poor grammar, but I later found out that the phrase was developed after much study to determine the least offensive way to commumicate the idea "please do what needs to be done" across the traditional Indian caste system.

Edited May 2, 2013 by Norseman82

[Nihil Obstat]

On the flip side, you need to know good grammar, spelling, and punctuation if you want to get ahead in life (trust me, I work in corporate America).  I believe the whole "textspeak" phenomenon is going to be the death of our language and culture as we know it, as it is a source of "dumbing it down". 

Actual linguistic research demonstrates that there is no statistical link between texting and stunted language skills.

[Norseman82]

Actual linguistic research demonstrates that there is no statistical link between texting and stunted language skills.

 

Try writing a corporate communication in textspeak and see how it is received. 

[Nihil Obstat]

Try writing a corporate communication in textspeak and see how it is received. 

Excellent subject change. I hope you do not change the subject when your corporate bosses point out that you are wrong.

[Basilisa Marie]

My dad told me about the "kindly do the needful" when he came back from a business trip to India.  

 

There might not be stunted language skills because I know a whole lot more young people who use full sentences and grammar when they text than adults, and it's mostly adults I know who use text speak.  Sure, my sample size is limited, but it's a thing.  

[Nihil Obstat]

I am right now performing a corporal work of mercy by educating the ignorant:

 

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4099

 

 

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=45

 

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=335