Illiterate Idol

[Keer]

21 year old that can't read. I'm not making fun of her, but I'm amazed at anyone not being able to read by that age. How do you fake it? Not to mention having a hit song on the radio.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9556438/

[X'an Shin]

21 year old that can't read. I'm not making fun of her, but I'm amazed at anyone not being able to read by that age. How do you fake it? Not to mention having a hit song on the radio.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9556438/

No, please, MAKE FUN OF HER.

It's not like she can do anything about it. SHE'LL NEVER SEE IT.

I have ZERO empathy for the intentionally illiterate (any adult). I've had to work with them. They're impossible.

[Dwilah]

I can't imagine being unable to read. I can't imagine letting yourself continue to be unable to read in a world where it's so necessary. Some people have very difficult lives, but even in very bad places the education system is set up specifically to teach kids to read and write and develop those skills. It astonishes me still how so many people have poor writing abilities. Peer editing in beginning college English classes was frightening. Seeing some emails from high school teachers and professionals in the workplace is frightening.

The internet is another issue all together, where grammar and spelling is supposed to "not matter." I argue that it very much does matter and that English is not necessarily degraded but our culture is changing its language very rapidly from a well-utilized written tool into something that could possibly be very phonetic and informal.

I believe that people who value written language are being labelled as elitist and silly, and the decline of written media worries me. It might not catch on, but it bothers me that a major newspaper has been shut down recently in Birmingham due to lack of audience, and that libraries are starting to offer audio books via the internet.

In a place where text and image is fused and where there could be a really wonderful place of great pioneering in new media and new literary form, there is an over-abundance of underdeveloped intelligence and uncaring towards the tools being used. While language is fluid and ever changing, a lack of respect for common conventions only facilitates a rapid degeneration and mass chaos in our understandings of each other. It is, after all, the way we communicate with one another.

[Krusshyk]

I can't imagine being unable to read. I can't imagine letting yourself continue to be unable to read in a world where it's so necessary. Some people have very difficult lives, but even in very bad places the education system is set up specifically to teach kids to read and write and develop those skills. It astonishes me still how so many people have poor writing abilities. Peer editing in beginning college English classes was frightening. Seeing some emails from high school teachers and professionals in the workplace is frightening.

The internet is another issue all together, where grammar and spelling is supposed to "not matter." I argue that it very much does matter and that English is not necessarily degraded but our culture is changing its language very rapidly from a well-utilized written tool into something that could possibly be very phonetic and informal.

I believe that people who value written language are being labelled as elitist and silly, and the decline of written media worries me. It might not catch on, but it bothers me that a major newspaper has been shut down recently in Birmingham due to lack of audience, and that libraries are starting to offer audio books via the internet.

In a place where text and image is fused and where there could be a really wonderful place of great pioneering in new media and new literary form, there is an over-abundance of underdeveloped intelligence and uncaring towards the tools being used. While language is fluid and ever changing, a lack of respect for common conventions only facilitates a rapid degeneration and mass chaos in our understandings of each other. It is, after all, the way we communicate with one another.

Fuckin' A.

[Keer]

I can't imagine being unable to read. I can't imagine letting yourself continue to be unable to read in a world where it's so necessary. Some people have very difficult lives, but even in very bad places the education system is set up specifically to teach kids to read and write and develop those skills. It astonishes me still how so many people have poor writing abilities. Peer editing in beginning college English classes was frightening. Seeing some emails from high school teachers and professionals in the workplace is frightening.

The internet is another issue all together, where grammar and spelling is supposed to "not matter." I argue that it very much does matter and that English is not necessarily degraded but our culture is changing its language very rapidly from a well-utilized written tool into something that could possibly be very phonetic and informal.

I believe that people who value written language are being labelled as elitist and silly, and the decline of written media worries me. It might not catch on, but it bothers me that a major newspaper has been shut down recently in Birmingham due to lack of audience, and that libraries are starting to offer audio books via the internet.

In a place where text and image is fused and where there could be a really wonderful place of great pioneering in new media and new literary form, there is an over-abundance of underdeveloped intelligence and uncaring towards the tools being used. While language is fluid and ever changing, a lack of respect for common conventions only facilitates a rapid degeneration and mass chaos in our understandings of each other. It is, after all, the way we communicate with one another.

Fuckin' A.

ROFL....Krussh! What a response after such a concisely written argument for the written word. "Fuckin' A". That's like Hamlet's "To Be or Not To Be" soliloquy getting a "Damn skippy" from Ophelia jumping out from the shadows. LOL

[X'an Shin]

Lifted entirely from The Superficial (because they're awesome and you're ugly):

I've yelled a lot of random angry crap at a lot of people on my TV screen over the years, but I never imagined that I'd hit the nail on the head with, of all things, "Get off my screen, you illiterate fucks!"

But maybe I'm more perceptive than I think, because American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino has come out and said, "You got me!"

"American Idol" winner Fantasia Barrino reveals in her memoirs that she is functionally illiterate and had to fake her way through some scripted portions the televised talent show, which she won in 2004.
"You're illiterate to just about everything. You don't want to misspell," Fantasia told ABC's "20/20." "So that, for me, kept me in a box and I didn't, wouldn't come out."

First of all: "You're illiterate to just about everything"? What else can you be illiterate to other than words? My guess is nothing, but maybe I only know that because I can read stuff. Like dictionaries. Second: The article mentions that she dropped out of high school, and, um, I'm no Jean Piaget, but isn't reading a skill they need you to master in, like, elementary school? So how did she even get to high school? In fact, how did she get to be famous for singing songs she can't read the lyrics to? I'm thinking somebody really dropped the ball on this one. And that somebody? Is America.

[Krusshyk]

I can't imagine being unable to read. I can't imagine letting yourself continue to be unable to read in a world where it's so necessary. Some people have very difficult lives, but even in very bad places the education system is set up specifically to teach kids to read and write and develop those skills. It astonishes me still how so many people have poor writing abilities. Peer editing in beginning college English classes was frightening. Seeing some emails from high school teachers and professionals in the workplace is frightening.

The internet is another issue all together, where grammar and spelling is supposed to "not matter." I argue that it very much does matter and that English is not necessarily degraded but our culture is changing its language very rapidly from a well-utilized written tool into something that could possibly be very phonetic and informal.

I believe that people who value written language are being labelled as elitist and silly, and the decline of written media worries me. It might not catch on, but it bothers me that a major newspaper has been shut down recently in Birmingham due to lack of audience, and that libraries are starting to offer audio books via the internet.

In a place where text and image is fused and where there could be a really wonderful place of great pioneering in new media and new literary form, there is an over-abundance of underdeveloped intelligence and uncaring towards the tools being used. While language is fluid and ever changing, a lack of respect for common conventions only facilitates a rapid degeneration and mass chaos in our understandings of each other. It is, after all, the way we communicate with one another.

Fuckin' A.

ROFL....Krussh! What a response after such a concisely written argument for the written word. "Fuckin' A". That's like Hamlet's "To Be or Not To Be" soliloquy getting a "Damn skippy" from Ophelia jumping out from the shadows. LOL

I was going for more of that, "Ditto" from Taggert to Heady Lamar in "Blazing Saddles." Ya know...right before he calls Taggert a putz.

Hamlet is a little rich for my peasant blood.

[Keer]

I'll give her credit now, though. She's working with tutors to become a literate adult. She has made some success despite her shortcomings.

[xyryn]

Communicating may be done with tools other than language, but then it is done imprecisely. Precision takes words. English has the most words (Russian comes in second), therefore it should be the most precise way to communicate.

For instance: Trickle, rill, rivulet, creek, river, flood, flow, ebb, current, wave, surge, tsunami. These are all ways that water moves (yes, I know - I left out some.)

I have no problem with the language becoming more casual, grammatically ... after all, we no longer refer to a table as "she", a door as "he", or a little girl as "it". British English is even leaving out articles ... without a loss of precision in communication.

There are some spellings that could be adjusted. For instance, "through" could easily become "thru" and "laugh" could become "laff" with no loss in pronunciation or communication.

I do resent the loss of words and the dumbing down of grammar that inhibits communication. I resent having to listen to reports and read articles that purport to be for adults but are written for 12 year olds. I especially resent the implication by editors, that because we are Americans, we ALL have to considered to have an education no higher than 10th grade in a substandard school.

[warsloth]

I dont understand how her ignant' butt won Idol anyway. I can only assume it was because the other people were "no talent ass clowns" as Michael Bolton (the office worker, not the singer) would say.

BTW Dwilah- excellent post...

Krush- best reply ever, in the history of replies.

Keer- Soliloquy??? You educated or something?

the only thing I can compare that with is the famous reply in the winter of '44 "NUTS"
"Fuckin' A" would have been several levels more awesome however.

[Krusshyk]

I dont understand how her ignant' butt won Idol anyway. I can only assume it was because the other people were "no talent ass clowns" as Michael Bolton (the office worker, not the singer) would say.

BTW Dwilah- excellent post...

Krush- best reply ever, in the history of replies.

Keer- Soliloquy??? You educated or something?

the only thing I can compare that with is the famous reply in the winter of '44 "NUTS"
"Fuckin' A" would have been several levels more awesome however.

I dunno...in that era, I imagine "nuts" was about as edgy as edgy could be. My fiance's grandfather still says things like "my eye" instead of saying "I call bullshit."

[Jerrel]

This is not surprising to me. As many of you know I'm not the best speller out there. In part people like me, and to a horrid extreme Fantasia, are products of the American school system in large cities and the culture with in. First you have school systems that simply shuffle you from one grade to the next. They care very little about the student actually leaving the school with an education, as long as the state pays the school for the body to be there. Secondly you have the mentality in these schools that if you act smart your acting white. Being white this isn't really an insult to me but the degrading use of the word inferrs that your not cool, a race trator, an Uncle Tom, or whatever other racially motivated put down one can think of. The fact that this mentality is acceptable in the larger cities works only to futher degread the society. It infurriates me to think about all the people who put their lives on the line to have the right to go to school and become educated. I am sad to say that the revelation that Fantasia is illeterate is no surprise to me, I've known my fare share of people who are in her company who graduated high school along side me.

[warsloth]

It's called class.... it was lost somewhere from then to here.

[Skorixor]

Why is it that the most watched reality shows are the worst pieces of crap?

[E-bo Obi]

considering that they are all equally shitty no matter which one was watched the most you could make that statement.