We use money and technology when brainpower trumps them both. Thought is bypassed with acronyms and teenage girl-esque slang. Even a dog's bark is a language. Is alpha grunting the next hot fashion?
If letter writing is indeed a lost art, true literacy will succumb to the domino effect. Skillfully writing an e-mail is an utterly basic way to make a good impression and even distinguish yourself. Yeah, this is my good impression; in person I just seem pissed and insane.
Our great language is found everywhere, yet competent usage eludes so many. Slang is used whenever possible: I prefer old-fashioned profanity. Books are available at supermarkets, yet only tabloids are sold. Many Americans subscribe to Christianity, yet are unaware the book of Proverbs calls them “a fool.”
Before cable TV and the Internet, it was either dull TV shows or a good book. I read most of the classics; read them again, ran out of books, and resorted to encyclopedias. Yes, I'm a scholar of useless information, but you have to give a damn about Shakespeare to be on Jeopardy!
Five minutes later, every youth is plugged into one idiot box or another and engaged in techno-mindless activity whenever possible. A new variant of illiteracy is poised to pervert the way we use language and intellectually maim our country's future. What a Hell-bound future it is.
How can one have any genuine train of thought when playing with a goddamn cell phone at all times? I write down more thoughts than I blurt out as if it were urgent business or the meaning of life. I've got a cell phone, but I can't figure out text messaging for some reason. Oh, yeah, that's because I'm fully literate. I've read more cogent statements on bathroom walls than on cell phones. Convenience store owners use less broken English.
Future generations are pretty much screwed regardless, and adults' minds are just as easily influenced. Whether scholars or nimrods, we became literate by practice. Practice can also have degenerative effects on the mind.
Writing ability and intellectual growth itself is a lifelong process. Articles of mine that were hailed in college I now see as preschool finger paintings. My developmental milestones since then have been my sweetest moments. Nothing would please me more than to see my mind grow further.
America is fine with becoming fat; shall we grow dumber as well?
Article comments
1 - Matthew T. Sussman
I've never understood this belief. More people text message, and there are lots of misspellings, so therefore we're getting dumber.
In the days of Dickens and Hemingway, very few people were published writers. Today, everyone's a writer, an e-mailer, blogger, a texter, and a Twitterer. The vast majority of people aren't trying to win that Pulitzer when communicating to their friend where they are in the mall.
And have you ever gotten an e-mail from journalists? A good number of them don't even know what that shift key is for unless they're on the clock.
Also, during the days of Dickens, women weren't really, um, all that schooled. So if you submit that we're getting dumber, I reject and re-submit that we've actually gotten smarter, since we were never that adept with the written word in the first place.
2 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Ya know, when I was in High School, my Reading teacher always bugged me that the year after her class should have been spent in "Advanced Reading" where they focus on the works of Shakespeare & Edgar Allan Poe. First off, I went to a vocational school,so, I didn't even bother taking a third year of Reading class. Second, While Poe's work might have been interesting for me, trying to read Shakespeare is a goddamn waste of time! I don't care what anyone says,that babbling, f*cking idiot makes me wanna puke. Imho, it would be like learning Spanish for business purposes. Too many words - too little time. I could never understand why anyone would want to torture themselves with that useless tongue of the English language.
Granted, I may not like the "text" English I have seen but it's efficient and gets your point across. One day, this type of communication might be essential for effective business transactions( I hope not..)
So, if being a scholar of language is the benchmark for intelligence, do you know how to build a website utilizing XML? Why is that most "scholars" don't know how to fix a PC or replace a harddrive? Just,maybe, your benchmark for aptitude is too old & meaningless...
3 - MarkSaleski
i can put together a website, but can't fix a computer. i have no idea what that means.
4 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Have you ever tried?
5 - MarkSaleski
yep, i tried replacing a hard drive and it came up half of its supposed size. that was the last time i tried.
i hate pc's and windows. too many hassles. i just want a computer to work, like my tv. i don't give a hoot what's inside or how it works.
6 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
i just want a computer to work, like my tv. i don't give a hoot what's inside or how it works.
I hear ya... I was just using it as an example to support my pov that literacy isn't necessarily the ultimate benchmark for intelligence. Or because people don't type like Shakespeare on their keyboard doesn't mean they are dumb.
7 - MarkSaleski
no, that's true. i don't feel exactly the same way you do about shakespeare. but i do have to say that i never enjoyed any of it. of course, i don't think i had a decent teacher for it either.
but man, i read this book once called (i think) Brush Up Your Shakespeare...and it was quite amazing how many common figures of speach we use that originated from him.
i also don't think that all knowledge is good, even if it seems like it might not apply to you at present.
8 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
i also don't think that all knowledge is good, even if it seems like it might not apply to you at present.
Huh??
9 - MarkSaleski
oops. too much coffee.
ahem...
i also think that all knowledge is good, even if it seems like it might not apply to your current (or even near future) situation.
10 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Honestly, I can totally understand Mr.Harris' point of view & I can even sympathize but I feel like the internet & E-mail has given us "unintelligent" folk a chance to connect on many levels. Maybe even learn a thing or two! I don't feel like we are getting dumber because of technology, I just feel like it is a different path to brilliance.
I know, I shouldn't insult Shakespeare... I just can't stand that sh!t.
As for me, all I wanted to do was play my drums & listen to some MehTul. And, now at 34, my musical education is priceless.
11 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
*Ahha*... I couldn't agree more but then you run into the issue of what knowledge will benefit you in your life and what knowledge is a waste of space in the gray matter.
12 - MarkSaleski
the reason i reference the future is that you just can't know. i'll use my experience as an example. i was great at math in high school, and ended up starting college off in mechanical engineering. bleah, i sucked at it....changed majors to computer science after taking a required programming course.
as luck would have it, the comp sci department was in the college of arts & sciences (this is umaine), so there were a lot of electives available (unlike engineering majors at the time, who took very few non-technical courses).
i ended up taking a pile of psychology and philosphy courses. friends gave me a lot of crap for it...the old "what the hell are you wasting your time with that stuff for?" thing.
well, there's no way i could have known that this writing thing was going to happen to me many years later...and i'm certain that all of the reading i had to do for those courses has been a big help to me.
ok, time for more coffee.
13 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Well, of course there's no way to know what things are bound to happen to us later on in life but there is no reason why you shouldn't pursue the things that interest you no matter what other people think.
I went to a vocational school with the hopes of taking part in the computer science training that was available back then(1988) and I ended up in Plant,Building & Grounds Maintenance because they combined electronics with that course and my position fell on the waiting list.Plus, I have slight nerve damage so I wasn't any good at Commercial Art. Thus, I graduated from HS and was supposed to go to college for Computer Science and they dropped the course...HA!! Maybe they had no idea how much of a role that computers would have in our lives. So, I stuck with (and am still sticking) with my dream of "making the ends meet" with music. Hell, I can dream can't I??
14 - MarkSaleski
Hell, I can dream can't I??
yep, that's one i do. every day.
15 - duane
Excellent rant. I feel your pain. But Sussman (#1) makes a valid point.
16 - Cindy D
Joe,
Your maintenance of yourself as an "intellectual" is holding you back, maybe. If "growth" is your objective.
You are hard on yourself (but with an air of superiority) and hard on others. We're taught to do that. I was anyway.
It sort of limits one's perspective about literacy in general. If literacy is merely the reproduction of the incantations of the dominant culture, then literacy is nothing grand. It's more like repeating fun facts at a cocktail party. It promotes a nice image; but it won't really help one learn anything besides the transmitted "wisdom". (yeah i like to do this period out side the quote thang)
Here is something I find extremely illuminating regarding literacy. That is, if you are interested. I will say this--if you aren't, don't even bother trying to read it. It would take a very interested person multiples tries to get half of what this speech is about.
17 - Cindy D
Joe,
Something else for you. The video there on the left, RICH.TXT"LANGUAGE IN MOTION: Using Proper English, is worthwhile, imo.
18 - STM
Must B Gr8 4 sum1
19 - Ruvy
I can't stand how teenagers have taken written English and turned it something someone dumber than a monkey can speak. But, it is not all their fault. Text messaging has certain requirements, and frankly technology - and teenagers adjustments to it - have turned a literate language into garbage.
f evr1 kn blg nrit bt wn tha rit, u knt reed it, wt us iz t?
20 - Christopher Rose
Ruvy, have you seen the hilarious "Grumpy Old Men" TV show?
21 - Ruvy
No, Chris, I haven't. I do seem to remember a movie by that name, though.
I have an 83 year father-in-law who likes to get on the computer and read and write. So, I know what a grumpy old man can be like - even from a third of a world away. But looking at some of the stuff written in the comment threads here at BC for example - you know which articles I'm talking about - you're stuck reading them all - make even an illiterate monkey look like a physics professor.
22 - Cindy D
txt is a language. If you don't understand it then perhaps you should explore what you have against multilinguals.
23 - Cindy D
you know, i mean, if you don't understand it as valid, not actually understand it.
24 - Joe Harris
Damn the multilingual scum! I attend heated demonstrations against those undesirables and plot hate crimes in my leisure.
Cindy, I can only assume you are joking yet I fail to see the humor. Get real.
25 - Cindy D
No Joe, I'm not joking. I left my question for you on Jonathan's thread.