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illiteracy


Pawww

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Our partner in crime is pretty bad at it.himself and I am not saying I am perfect but I will try my best to use proper spelling and have it make sense. But what I have been seeing lately in our area is just plain laziness. Cachers out here, and I mean either newbies or sock puppets, have been putting out more and more caches pages with blank descriptions. I mean nothing. What is it? The cache is so dull they can't even think of something to write about? Some may actually have one sentence. Boring! once but I have seen quite a few lately in my home area and further. I think the only cache I owned that came close to that was a puzzle that had two pictures of birds and the type in white. At least it had something to look at besides a blank page. A puzzle I can understand. But a traditional. Pleasseees!

Edited by jellis
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Why are so many 'cachers illiterate? Here's a recent log for instance: Yes I too did some dark night bushwackin! Yes it the only way to go strate through the nettles.

Almost to GZ and saw to lights in the dark woods.

And yes it was a much easyer way out. I also had the cache 45 feet off.

Thank for the run in the dark.

Is this a sport for the ignorant?

No. But those participating in the sport are representative of the general population. It is unfortunate that our school systems are doing such a poor job, but then what would you expect when teachers are not allowed to enforce discipline in the classroom, students are allowed to disrespect educators and each other, homework is discouraged because it cuts into sports, and class time is wasted with discussing everything except reading, writing, and arithmetic. We desperately need to cut the crap out of our schools and get back to educating.

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Why are so many 'cachers illiterate? Here's a recent log for instance: Yes I too did some dark night bushwackin! Yes it the only way to go strate through the nettles.

Almost to GZ and saw to lights in the dark woods.

And yes it was a much easyer way out. I also had the cache 45 feet off.

Thank for the run in the dark.

Is this a sport for the ignorant?

No. But those participating in the sport are representative of the general population. It is unfortunate that our school systems are doing such a poor job, but then what would you expect when teachers are not allowed to enforce discipline in the classroom, students are allowed to disrespect educators and each other, homework is discouraged because it cuts into sports, and class time is wasted with discussing everything except reading, writing, and arithmetic. We desperately need to cut the crap out of our schools and get back to educating.

 

The problems started when they removed corporal punishment from the schools. I remember back when I was in school they sent a form home for the parents to sign that allowed the school to hand out spankings if the kids got out of control.

 

Now a school would be sued.

 

Before we were educated, now kids are barely babysat.

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Why are so many 'cachers illiterate? Here's a recent log for instance: Yes I too did some dark night bushwackin! Yes it the only way to go strate through the nettles.

Almost to GZ and saw to lights in the dark woods.

And yes it was a much easyer way out. I also had the cache 45 feet off.

Thank for the run in the dark.

Is this a sport for the ignorant?

No. But those participating in the sport are representative of the general population. It is unfortunate that our school systems are doing such a poor job, but then what would you expect when teachers are not allowed to enforce discipline in the classroom, students are allowed to disrespect educators and each other, homework is discouraged because it cuts into sports, and class time is wasted with discussing everything except reading, writing, and arithmetic. We desperately need to cut the crap out of our schools and get back to educating.

 

The problems started when they removed corporal punishment from the schools. I remember back when I was in school they sent a form home for the parents to sign that allowed the school to hand out spankings if the kids got out of control.

 

Now a school would be sued.

 

Before we were educated, now kids are barely babysat.

 

Actually the problem started when the schools felt they had to send out the forms asking for permission to discipline the kids. Before that it was a given because the kids were controlled at home and it was expected that the control would continue at school. Yes, Reading and Writing have been pushed to the back burner and it shows, but on the other hand Science, Math, and Sex Ed are way ahead of the standards of the 50s. :laughing:

Edited by edscott
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Our partner in crime is pretty bad at it.himself and I am not saying I am perfect but I will try my best to use proper spelling and have it make sense. But what I have been seeing lately in our area is just plain laziness. Cachers out here, and I mean either newbies or sock puppets, have been putting out more and more caches pages with blank descriptions. I mean nothing. What is it? The cache is so dull they can't even think of something to write about? Some may actually have one sentence. Boring! once but I have seen quite a few lately in my home area and further. I think the only cache I owned that came close to that was a puzzle that had two pictures of birds and the type in white. At least it had something to look at besides a blank page. A puzzle I can understand. But a traditional. Pleasseees!

 

Perhaps they are afraid the literacy police are gonna come get 'em in the middle of the night.

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apart from the foreigners, and i mean people that physically leave in a another country where english is not first language, why don't the ones residing in english speaking countries have a spellchecker on their browsers?

 

i often wondered how do those with bad language/grammar skills get by when they need to write an official letter, do they just pay a professional and arm and a leg to write it for them?

Am I the only one to see the irony in that post? :D

Nope, we saw it too.

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Why are so many 'cachers illiterate? Here's a recent log for instance:

Yes I too did some dark night bushwackin!

Yes it the only way to go strate through the nettles.

Almost to GZ and saw to lights in the dark woods.

And yes it was a much easyer way out. I also had the cache 45 feet off.

Thank for the run in the dark.

I have seen much worse. My favorites are the folks who can't be bothered with punctuation, and who type in ALL CAPS or in all lower case or use random caPitaliZatIon. Some cannot be bothered with any words and leave only smilies for their logs. I have even seen completely blank cache descriptions.

 

Poor writing skills are sometimes to blame, but for most people it is laziness. Writing is work, and quality writing--even at the modest level of cache logs--is hard work. Too much bother. Sadly, this often extends to cache descriptions which are so muddled they might as well be puzzle caches.

 

I am glad for the few geocachers who do take the time to create well-crafted logs and caches. They are a joy to read.

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Stupid is as stupid does. If you don't want to appear ignorant then YOU should take it upon yourself to learn basic grammar and spelling. Nobody is perfect but some of the kids now days are just pathetic. English as a second language is NOT a excuse if you are a US citizen.

 

picard.gif

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Stupid is as stupid does. If you don't want to appear ignorant then YOU should take it upon yourself to learn basic grammar and spelling. Nobody is perfect but some of the kids now days are just pathetic. English as a second language is NOT a excuse if you are a US citizen.

 

picard.gif

 

Should we tell him?

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Stupid is as stupid does. If you don't want to appear ignorant then YOU should take it upon yourself to learn basic grammar and spelling. Nobody is perfect but some of the kids now days are just pathetic. English as a second language is NOT a excuse if you are a US citizen.

 

picard.gif

 

Should we tell him?

About the missing comma, or about the "a excuse" thing? You did notice the missing comma, didn't you?
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Stupid is as stupid does. If you don't want to appear ignorant then YOU should take it upon yourself to learn basic grammar and spelling. Nobody is perfect but some of the kids now days are just pathetic. English as a second language is NOT a excuse if you are a US citizen.

Do you speak a second language?Just curious.

My grandparents came here from Hungary.They spoke no english.They became proud US citizens and contributed much to our society dispite other "American citizens" putting them down because they could not speak or write in "our" language.They did the best they could with poor spelling and broken english.Did their lack of english language skills make them any less a US citizen? My grandparents were neither stupid nor ignorant.I know of no law or requirement that states that you must speak perfect english to be a US citizen.Your post comes off as prejudice to me personally.

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Stupid is as stupid does. If you don't want to appear ignorant then YOU should take it upon yourself to learn basic grammar and spelling. Nobody is perfect but some of the kids now days are just pathetic. English as a second language is NOT a excuse if you are a US citizen.

 

picard.gif

 

Should we tell him?

About the missing comma, or about the "a excuse" thing? You did notice the missing comma, didn't you?

 

If I am to be honest I have to admit that I missed the missing comma. But in my defense, I'm not much for picking apart someone else's posts. Well, not for grammar and spelling, anyway. :)

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Stupid is as stupid does. If you don't want to appear ignorant then YOU should take it upon yourself to learn basic grammar and spelling. Nobody is perfect but some of the kids now days are just pathetic. English as a second language is NOT a excuse if you are a US citizen.

 

picard.gif

 

Should we tell him?

About the missing comma, or about the "a excuse" thing? You did notice the missing comma, didn't you?

 

If I am to be honest I have to admit that I missed the missing comma. But in my defense, I'm not much for picking apart someone else's posts. Well, not for grammar and spelling, anyway. :)

Do you count the missing periods as one or two mistakes? I would also count the inverted usage of "Stupid is as stupid does" based on the common excepted meaning of "it cant be helped" as an additional grammatical mistake.

The capitalization of words are also a no no when bold and italics are available.

Ans Ims da last person ta git on someun fo it, lessin they is screwing it up wilest dissin on it. :)

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Stupid is as stupid does. If you don't want to appear ignorant then YOU should take it upon yourself to learn basic grammar and spelling. Nobody is perfect but some of the kids now days are just pathetic. English as a second language is NOT a excuse if you are a US citizen.

 

picard.gif

 

Should we tell him?

About the missing comma, or about the "a excuse" thing? You did notice the missing comma, didn't you?

 

If I am to be honest I have to admit that I missed the missing comma. But in my defense, I'm not much for picking apart someone else's posts. Well, not for grammar and spelling, anyway. :)

Do you count the missing periods as one or two mistakes? I would also count the inverted usage of "Stupid is as stupid does" based on the common excepted meaning of "it cant be helped" as an additional grammatical mistake.

The capitalization of words are also a no no when bold and italics are available.

Ans Ims da last person ta git on someun fo it, lessin they is screwing it up wilest dissin on it. :)

OMG!! I just noticed a 2nd place that should have had a comma (If you don't want to appear ignorant<insert comma here> then)!! Of course, Geobain should also have had one after "If I am to be honest".
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Stupid is as stupid does. If you don't want to appear ignorant then YOU should take it upon yourself to learn basic grammar and spelling. Nobody is perfect but some of the kids now days are just pathetic. English as a second language is NOT a excuse if you are a US citizen.

 

picard.gif

 

Should we tell him?

About the missing comma, or about the "a excuse" thing? You did notice the missing comma, didn't you?

 

If I am to be honest I have to admit that I missed the missing comma. But in my defense, I'm not much for picking apart someone else's posts. Well, not for grammar and spelling, anyway. :)

Do you count the missing periods as one or two mistakes? I would also count the inverted usage of "Stupid is as stupid does" based on the common excepted meaning of "it cant be helped" as an additional grammatical mistake.

The capitalization of words are also a no no when bold and italics are available.

Ans Ims da last person ta git on someun fo it, lessin they is screwing it up wilest dissin on it. :)

OMG!! I just noticed a 2nd place that should have had a comma (If you don't want to appear ignorant<insert comma here> then)!! Of course, Geobain should also have had one after "If I am to be honest".

but ive already admitted my fallacies in this area.it be one of the reasons you want fined me correcting nobodies english.

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It wasn't very long ago that only a small percentage of English speakers were literate at all. Universal, mandatory schooling is a fairly recent luxury in the grand scheme of things. Beating children doesn't help them learn - in fact, there is a fairly substantial amount of evidence to suggest a correlation between physical abuse and poor school performance.

 

English itself isn't a particularly old language, and there has never really been one, true, correct English. There have always been dialects, profession-specific jargon, and a distinction between "high" and "low" usage of the language. Sometimes, using the "high," standardized form of the language isn't necessary. I think casual internet communication, like cache logs and public discussion forums, is a place where it isn't necessary.

 

Languages change, shift, blend, evolve, and die. Standard forms of English (different places have different standards) are very useful for mass media, academia, science, law, and politics because it can be used to communicate with a very broad audience, but it's not the only English out there. It never was. It's really not that important for every single Anglophone to have an expert-level grasp of written English. Most of us don't, and never will.

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IMO, the only way to have an expert grasp of written English is to read lots and lots of properly-proofread English. Going to school does not exactly instill this into you, though theoretically you should be reading a lot, and writing a lot, and having your written English corrected (which should help), assuming that your teacher is competent. But there really is, in my mind, no substitute for constantly reading well-written writing. By doing so, you get a sense of what is right and what is not. It is far more useful (and practical) than, say, trying to memorize Elements of Style.

 

But if your primary method of taking in information is oral (that is, through spoken language as transmitted by the radio, television, or in everyday conversation), or if you spend most of your time reading pieces that were written by people whose work was not proofread (by this I am referring specifically to the majority of Webstuff like blogs, forum posts, instant messaging, etc), then you are probably going to write English the way you hear it (or see other people write it), and it's probably not going to be technically correct.

 

This is why, I think, we see stuff like "...she could of said something" or "your video is really grate", or rampant and tragic apostrophe abuse ("it's" used as a possessive, or "'s" used to indicate plural).

 

Does it bug me? A little. It's like special effects: if you notice the special effects, they're bad special effects. If I'm noticing all of the errors in your* writing, it's detracting from my ability to simply get what you're trying to convey. I'll still (eventually) get it, but will be distracted along the way. If I'm in a professional situation and you're writing like that, I'm going to be thinking "this person is unprofessional". Even if you aren't unprofessional, that will be my first thought, and I will have to consciously correct myself.

 

With geocaching? Well, it's not a professional environment, so it doesn't bug me as much. It only really bugs me when I have to work really hard just to get a basic understanding of a person's writing, or when someone spends $100-200 on geocoin dies without realizing that there's a bad spelling/grammar error on there (in which case I just feel sorry for the person who either has to plunk down another $50-100 to have the die recut or to live with the coin as-is).

 

*I almost wrote "you're". Man, I have been on teh Interwebs too much lately. I need to go read a book. : )

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Excuse the rant in the next paragraph.

 

I post on a electronics forum where there are a lot of international members. I am surprised at the quality of English grammar from people who clearly speak English as a second language. I am also surprised at the number of new members that post in "leet speak" which uses deliberate contractions, lack of even basic grammar such as capitalizing the first letter in a sentence. Their posts rarely get a response. At least make an attempt to get it right.

 

PS, for my highschool English, and Social Studies final exams, I used a computer that had spell check. I am quite sure that I would have failed otherwise.

 

Short anecdote:

 

When I was in college certain people would go into the Macintosh computer labs and add deliberate misspellings to the personal dictionary in Mac Write. The user's documents would spell check just fine. I thought it cruel but clever.

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This thread reminds me of an unwritten rule on certain writers' forums to which I subscribe: Thou shalt not criticise the spelling or grammar of those who post herein. This is closely followed by the branch of Murphy's Law that ensures a strong probability of any post you make to criticise the spelling and/or grammar of another containing at least one such error! IOW it's considered very bad form to make such criticism.

 

When I was in college certain people would go into the Macintosh computer labs and add deliberate misspellings to the personal dictionary in Mac Write. The user's documents would spell check just fine. I thought it cruel but clever.

That reminds me of poems (there are several similar) that get an airing every so often on those lists and give a clue why one shouldn't rely on machine spell-checking alone!

 

Ode to a Spelling Checker

 

I have a spelling checker

It came with my pee sea.

It plane lee marques four my revue

Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

 

Eye ran this poem threw it.

Your sure real glad two no.

Its very polished in its weigh,

My checker tolled me sew.

 

A chequer is a blessing.

It freeze yew lodes of thyme.

It helps me right awl stiles two reed,

And aides me when aye rime.

 

Each frays comes posed up on my screen

Eye trussed too bee a joule.

The checker pours o'er every word

To cheque sum spelling rule.

 

Bee fore a veiling checkers

Hour spelling mite decline,

And if we're laks oar have a laps,

We wood bee maid too wine.

 

Butt now bee cause my spelling

Is checked with such grate flare,

There are know faults with in my cite,

Of nun eye am a wear.

 

Now spelling does not phase me,

It does knot bring a tier.

My pay purrs awl due glad den

With wrapped words fare as hear.

 

To rite with care is quite a feet

Of witch won should be proud,

And wee mussed dew the best wee can,

Sew flaws are knot aloud.

 

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays

Such soft wear four pea seas,

And why eye brake in two averse

Buy righting want too please.

Geoff

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I dont use the apostrophy..I actually dont know where it is B)

seriously? :D

 

on the standard US keyboard, it's between the ";" key and the enter key.

 

asdfghjkl;'

 

see?

hehe..yes.omg I thought that was another comma.. :) Now I have no excuse not to use it. I can't wait to try it out. :D

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