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Saturday, September 15, 2012

To Write - Perchance to Spell

I was disturbed today.  Perhaps it would be more accurate to admit that I was simply more disturbed than on other days. (I suspect I barely beat you to the punch on that one.)  

Various things disturb me:  the landscaper who makes unscheduled stops while missing most of the scheduled ones; the deer who have now eaten pretty much everything in the backyard except the stone bird bath, and it shows teeth marks along the rim; the young woman at the fast food drive-through who could neither take my order nor deliver it correctly; a peach with a bad spot, which is always a pity; a dust mote ... okay, now I am just being petty.

However, the specific thing that truly disturbed me occurred this morning, before I had even finished my first cup of tea.  This is never a good way to begin the day.

The particular fly in my early morning ointment was this - an article in the Sacramento Bee.  John Hechinger reported that in recent national academic testing, "nearly three quarters of eighth and twelfth graders" could not pass a standardized writing test, despite being allowed to use a computer to take the test and being allowed to use spellchecker.

As one might expect, he then decried the over all effects of tweeting, texting, and other shortcuts that our students currently use instead of learning to actually write.

They cannot spell (even with a spellchecker), they cannot punctuate, and heaven defend us if they ever were called upon to diagram a sentence (which goes a long way toward explaining why they cannot decently construct one either.)

I must be getting old if this comes as some sort of surprise to me.  After all, I knew we were on the slippery slope to the intellectual waste lands the first time I heard "valley girl" speak.  I mean, like, you know, it was like, really, like scary.

I couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry, or do both.  I distinctly recall deciding not to do either one; because if I do both, I always get the hiccups, which can last for hours.  It just wasn't worth the risk.

There was, however, one tiny little bright spot in Mr. Hechinger's article.  Unsurprisingly, studies show that "...students who wrote more often at home did better on the test."

And there you have it.  Those of us who grew up keeping diaries, and journals, and making lists, and even just writing penmanship exercises somehow ended up actually learning how to write.

Can it come as any surprise that young people who grow up asking -
              war r u?  
              mt me at 8?   
              Il b ther 
              gr8
misconstrue the above to be poetry, perhaps haiku?

Here is something even more frightening; often function follows form. Thus, the time may not be far off, if this revolting decline in the level of writing skills continues, when we will all be reduced to just pointing and grunting, as that is all we any longer know how to do.

And anyone who thinks that the engineers who keep the power grid up and running communicate by pointing and grunting had better think again, my friend.  We could be looking at another dark age, and all because Susie couldn't be bothered to learn to spell, much less write .

Dear me, who would have guessed that those brilliant innovators who gave us laptops and tablets and e-readers would eventually lead to a society who will not even be able to turn the things on.  How do I know this?

Because in order to operate such devices, one must be able to read and write! (Pointing and clicking notwithstanding.)
                                  # # # # # 
Quite honestly, I had almost gotten past this morning's disturbance.  However, in recounting it for you I have now ended my day nearly as disturbed as I began it.
                                # # # # #
Hope you are influencing any young folks you know toward learning to take pleasure in the simple art of writing a note, without using the word "like".  

Until next time .... you know, like, have a good evening.
Marsha

26 comments:

  1. Hi Marsha,

    Very good, thought provoking post. Thank you for sharing. I struggle with trying to write the abbreviations, such as r u there etc.

    God Bless - Nita

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    1. Nita,
      Good for you for even trying. I do not text or tweet, so I spare myself the trouble.

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  2. Thank you for visiting my blog.
    I like what you've written here. I'm not much of a writer myself, I tend to use a lot of photos to tell my stories with.
    I have a question.....if you don't mind. Can you explain to me what is meant by "diagram a sentence"? I've never heard of that. I understand it may be something to do with grammar rather than spelling, but I didn't finish school, leaving at 15 and going to work.

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    1. River,
      I enjoyed your photos very much.

      As for diagramming a sentence, it is a bit complicated to explain here; however, essentially it is a visual way to break out the subject and verbs in a sentence, and then show how the modifers (adjectives and adverbs)attach further depth of meaning to the sentence.

      I did not get to go to college until I was a middle aged adult, and always worked hard from a very young age - so I can relate to your comment above. Much of this post was written with humor in mind, so I hope I did not put you off. Thank you for stopping by.
      Marsha

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  3. I sometimes wonder about the outrage of us oldies towards the latest trend in language and how its taught or not taught. I bet our parent's generation made similar groans about the language of our generation as I guess their parents said the same about our parents. Language is forever changing. No one still writes in old English and the spelling has changed a lot since then too. We have those who are disturbed because American spelling is creeping into our youngsters writing which I find is natural as they are exposed so much to American writing. I could go on forever here about the rising and falling of education standards and the change in direction of education, but I wont.
    I was flabbergasted yesterday when I went to my neighbour to borrow some cream. Their 12 year old son, Alex, was home with a friend but mum was out. Alex goes to a local private school. He is quite smart at schoolwork and is a whiz with technology. The school expects all students to have a laptop which is used for most of their studies. Alex is well mannered and well brought up, although he is going through a bad time with his mum's messy divorce. I asked him could I borrow some cream. He said , "What's that?"

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. What I meant to say is that the young man must not be a tea drinker, unless he only uses lemon and honey, like my own "honey" - the LOC. :)

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    3. I couldn't believe that he didn't know what cream was but after a short discussion he went to the fridge and found some. I think I caught him off guard as he was busy playing football in the back yard when I called.

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  4. I teach middle school English. Did you hear me shouting, "Amen!" at each paragraph? I can't add anything to what you have said so well.

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    1. Shelly, Although this was written somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the sad truth is that too much of it is true. :(

      I hear your "Amens" reverberating. And my sincere thanks goes to those of you who are still fighting the good fight on the front lines of the language battle in written form. :)

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  5. A big ditto to all you said, not to mention what the tech world is doing to the social skills of the next generation. It makes you wonder, doesn't it?

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  6. I think the time - unfortunately is here at hand. Amen to what you said.

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    1. Well, I guess we had better bone up on our "pointing and grunting" skills then. :)

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  7. You always put a chuckle in my day. I worked at a high school for years and saw the decline of the written word. Some couldn't read cursive!
    Is it parents? Schools? Society? Technology? Could be all of them.

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  8. Great post and guess I really show my age because I do text but still spell out every word and punctuate. Just another sign of what our society has declined to.

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    1. Nice to meet you. And yes, it is sad, what we have declined to. (And there you have a dangling participle, or a split infinitive, not sure which; but then how likely is anyone to call me on it?)

      Only my daughter, who is a college English writing instructor. :)

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  9. well, i'm afraid i've taken on one bad habit, myself. i do not use capitalization when i leave comments or type emails. :)

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    1. That is okay. You can just pretend you are e.e.cummings. :)

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  10. Oh I hear you Marsha - it is scary that this generation of young people will become tomorrow's leaders etc.
    When my youngest applied to university this year one of the comments on the application form said they would not accept text speak. Wow, I can't imagine that anybody would apply to university with this shortened language. I'm very pleased to report that my Emma didn't :))

    Many thanks for your lovely comment on my post - such a nice comment for you to make and I really appreciated it :))

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    1. Hi, Ellie. You are most welcome. And thanks for your feedback.

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  11. Wow, you just took me back several..and several more decades to when I sat in class and learned to diagram a sentence! Do they still teach that in high school?
    I think our talents and strengths dictate how well we remember these things. I could diagram a sentence, but I never understood algebra, which my grandsons find incredible. The algebra part, not the diagramming. I do believe that texting and all of it's sinister partners discourage proper spelling and grammar. Over a hundred years ago when I learned shorthand, whoa...old person alert....it kind of made a mess of my spelling skills. Obviously, it doesn't take much for me!
    Great post, and I do relate!

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  12. This is one of your best posts! Young people today are the most disconnected connected generation yet!!

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  13. A lot of people couldn't spell before texting and tweeting, but I agree that it's getting worse. When I taught high school English oh so briefly, I was told not to correct spelling or punctuation errors. The students were supposed to focus on ideas. La di da, la di da, la di da da da da. Their ideas were usually as bad as their spelling.

    Love,
    Janie

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