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-- The degeneration of English
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quote:

Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On Language is not static. Language is just a lesser, more base form of communication.

Language is a symbol!

This is terrible!

The solution obviously is that we have to give the young folk a love of reading at an early age, that way it will be with them throughout their entire lives.

But how can we do this? I think if we put a think tank of the world's smartest people together that we could find a solution.

Maybe something that would catch their imaginations? Something with wizards, and dragons, and Hogs and Warts and all that kinda stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by Marc Summers Language is a symbol!

People have this *awesome* tendency to deify symbols. Especially in America.

A symbol is nothing beside the actual concept it seeks to describe.

quote:

Originally posted by Subey This is terrible! The solution obviously is that we have to give the young folk a love of reading at an early age, that way it will be with them throughout their entire lives. But how can we do this? I think if we put a think tank of the world's smartest people together that we could find a solution. Maybe something that would catch their imaginations? Something with wizards, and dragons, and Hogs and Warts and all that kinda stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by kush paintings There are far more pressures facing our generation than any other.

Nah, not at all. Other than that, though, perceptive comments.

I think what will happen is a larger and larger gap will develop between "high-level literacy" and the "average level." Not that the highest level will somehow be increasing, but the average level will be plummeting to the bare minimum needed for "functionality." It is true that teaching kids the skills needed to read and comprehend Shakespeare or The Federalist Papers or Last of the Mohicans is mostly superfluous; it is not "necessary" for a booming economy or a lively culture, and it is dishonest to pretend that it is. I do think that something significant gets lost when the vast majority of people can no longer understand the works of their fairly recent ancestors, but ultimately high-level reading skills can be done without, and not enough people feel the way I do for the trend to reverse itself.

quote:

Originally posted by DigitalPhoenix Everyday I hear the English language butchered down in certain parts of Miami, but it's because of latin people not knowing how to speak it properly. I do agree however that proper grammar MUST be taught regardless, it urks the fuck out of me to see people mispell common words: 'you're vs your' - would be a perfect example. That and Geography are my peeves...if you dont know where Guyana is...school yourself!

Yeah, that really Irks me too.

quote:

Originally posted by Subey This is terrible! The solution obviously is that we have to give the young folk a love of reading at an early age, that way it will be with them throughout their entire lives.

The solution actually lies in parenting, and not in academia. Some kids will naturally gravitate towards reading, which I did... and some not... like my older brother.

For my own part, what made it enjoyable was that I was never forced to read, only encouraged... and books were made available as and when I wanted them... even comic books.

For the more complicated books I attempted at an early age, my mother, who loves reading too, was always around to help with words I didn't understand.

As far as the degeneration of writing skills, grammer, spelling and basic manners go; it's in my opinion an inevitable phenomenon, as more and more parents spend time in the office, at work... away from their kids.

Thankfully in India, we still have strong family ties, and being a homemaker is considered serious business and not perceived as a lack of ambition.

quote:

Originally posted by nikhil chinapa For the more complicated books I attempted at an early age, my mother, who loves reading too, was always around to help with words I didn't understand.

Maybe it's not so much the parenting as it is the parents.

Like, encouraging your kids to read or not...being there or not...when the parents are illiterate and simply cannot help their children with words, the trend simply repeats itself.

quote:

Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles Nah, not at all.

Really? College admissions are getting exponentially harder, my generation is the first to more or less "have" to do summer internships if you want to make it in the business world, there isn't a high school guidance counselor in the country who will deny that there are far more pressures on students by their parents, amplified by competition from their peers. In short, you, my friend, are wrong. Biotch.

quote:

Originally posted by kush paintings Really?

Yes, really. If you were talking about just educational pressures, then what you said may be accurate. But you did not specify that.

And I would not say that college admissions are getting tougher. In fact, with grade inflation at all levels and the "recentering" of SAT scores, it is easier than ever to be (or appear to be) a "high achiever."

quote:

Originally posted by kush paintings In short, you, my friend, are wrong. Biotch.

Wow. Just wow.

quote:

Originally posted by nikhil chinapa Thankfully in India, we still have strong family ties, and being a homemaker is considered serious business and not perceived as a lack of ambition.

While I have no problem with the truth in that, is it also not true that in India women are expected to give up their jobs when they become married? And that this expectation isn't a function of the respect for being a homemaker but rather a function of cultural norms for women which are behind the cultural evolutionary curve?

quote:

Originally posted by kush paintings And it hadn't degenerated over just the past hundred years? Thanks for the news flash.

Haha. Nice.

read this you whore knocker

I keep reading how admissions are getting tougher and tougher at my school in our school newspaper, but since I can't find the articles, here is another article... you must truly be oblivious.

They are "tougher" in the sense that more people are competing for the same spots, yes,* but not tougher in the sense that standards have changed in any significant way.

* Because of the foolish and widespread perception that anybody without a college diploma is worthless for all but the most menial jobs.

I left school when I was 17, didn't do well at it, didn't like it and managed to do quite well since then just working my ass off on average about 12hours a day for the last 10 years. University defiantly has its merits if that's what you're good at, undoubtedly necessary for some fields of employment and you'll not be wasting your time if you can score very high marks there.
As for what I use in terms of literacy and mathematics (about the only things I did well in) though I don't think I've used much in day to day life and employment since that hadn't been learned at around the age of 16.
But I did learn it, some people just don't learn anything regardless of how many years they spend in an educational system

To respond to both of your questions, as well as I can with the room spinning as it is, I feel both of you are speaking (more or less) to the rare cases of success in spite of lacking a college degree.

To Mr.whateverthefuck, college standards have, in fact, increased and even so within the past five years. As more people apply, the bar for act/sat test scores becomes higher and higher until schools once thought of as average, University of Miami for example, require excellent work in the classroom in addition to well above average test scores. Now, I agree, that our society's system of automatically assuming kids with Ivy Leagues degrees, for example, are going to be a tremendous asset to a company is as erroneous as assuming that a kid who hasn't graduated from high school should be left to clean our failed attempts at the toilet. However, if you think the world is should be or even is just, you are a fucking fool and I don't doubt you have yet to pass grade school.

Next, Lilith, surely you must realize your story is an exception. If you look at any research gathered, most in your shoes have not faired as you have. And to insinuate you would not have at least improved the two fields that you feel only apply to your current job, is simply a demonstration of how uninformed you are to the universities available. In addition, if "some people" have not learned anything in their years at school, they only have themselves to blame.

We are getting extremely off subject, but I wanted to clear up these misconceptions of the University/school system in the U.S., no matter how flawed it may be.

quote:

Originally posted by kush paintings To Mr.whateverthefuck, college standards have, in fact, increased and even so within the past five years. As more people apply, the bar for act/sat test scores becomes higher and higher until schools once thought of as average, University of Miami for example, require excellent work in the classroom in addition to well above average test scores.

A large part of this "increase" is that both SAT scores and classroom grades have been inflated over the past half a century in order to "combat" the fact that scores were getting lower and lower. The more telling measure of academic accomplishment is one's position among one's peers, which is measured by percentiles and not "absolute" scores. As standardized tests and classes become easier, the "required scores" to get into the same school will of course increase.

The other thing I would like to add as an outside observer to US education systems is that they are mostly just full of people whom or who's parents have the money to put them through the system. There's also a small section who get a grant to go through it as well with corporate or military sponsorships.
Scores are one thing, money does most of the talking.

What this does is set a dangerous precedent though to create a very, very large gap in education systems between what is essentially private tuition and public tuition.
Then, we're going to have the real killer.
There's always going to be a small group on top
There's a group in the middle
There's another group at the bottom
In terms of economic and educational benefits.

Group A
People at the group at the top. They have the money to pay for their children's and their own education at the best there is, they will learn the english language and its grammatical nuances in full.
Group B
People in the middle, scraping in with a bit of highschool and a bit of maybe say community college education. They will always be here, someone has to do the work, however it costs money to educate them and from an economic sense in any kind of employment training, its now always necessary to 'learn' them everything if they're only going to be doing a couple of things.
So, we'll save a bit of money and let them scrape by with say, 1/3rd of the english language, mostly spell it and kick grammar out the door as another cost saving measure. Welcome to public education
Group C
People at the bottom, go through some highschool and frequently supplement their education with community college, they're probably going to be doing only very little and a lot of it menial or hands on. From an economic sense which it will end up like the middle group and they can get by on less than 1/5th of the english language and allowed to do what they want with it in terms of grammar and spelling.

Now, we do this for long enough over a couple of generations, are these groups actually going to be able to communicate with each other on a written form?
Are certain groups going to be disadvantaged over time when it comes to sourcing information from say, Group A's education system when they're clawing their way up from C?

quote:

Originally posted by Lilith In terms of economic and educational benefits. Group A People at the group at the top. They have the money to pay for their children's and their own education at the best there is, they will learn the english language and its grammatical nuances in full.

Well as a proud member of Group A all I can say is:

4 shizzle my nizzle!!

Ok, Ok, after confirming with the Delegation from Austrialialalalla I must confess, I am a B....... . {walks off with head still held high}

*cough*
peasant
*cough*

Damn cold change in the weather...

teh intarnet is bad for teh traditional English.

keyboards are bad for handwriting.

i miss the good old hand written letters to penpals. Frenchie or Lilith want to be my penpal?

quote:

Originally posted by eRRaTiK keyboards are bad for handwriting.

So true, A drunk headless chicken could write mo better than me.

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