Tuesday, November 18, 2008

English as she is writted


[Sigh]

I speak English fairly well, with the odd profanity thrown in here or there when things get a bit much. I grew up in a home where we were expected to speak properly, corrected if we didn't, and punished if we ignored the correction. By the time I got to University, no errors in grammar, spelling or punctuation were tolerated by our lecturers. If we made any such mistakes, we lost marks for them (sometimes heavily). That was simply the way things were.

It seems that things aren't that way any more . . .


Some people collect sports memorabilia, or rare coins, or sea shells from the beach at Ocean City. Wilson Watson collects sentences.

He taught local community college students for 35 years and has now slipped gently into retirement. But his students’ sentences trail behind him like ship’s anchors, evidence of the sinking of American writing skills.

Or, as one of Watson’s scholars wrote so succinctly: “Some people use bad language and is not even aware of the fact.”

Or, another: “It’s good I’m doing something with my self; Therefore, I can do better in the foochure.”

Or, “People who murder a lot of people are called masked murderers.”

Some of this feels like masked murder of the English language — such as the student who explained in a note, “I was absent on Monday because I was stopped on the Beltway for erotic driving.”

Watson taught English at Catonsville Community College — now the Catonsville branch of the Community College of Baltimore County — and through the years was occasionally amused and sometimes appalled at his students’ writing. Eventually, he started jotting down their sentences and holding onto them.

“Understand,” he says, “this is not just Catonsville I’m talking about. Through the years, I’d talk with colleagues all over the state. They all had the same stories. We’d ask each other, ‘What’s happened to writing? What’s happened to language?’”

You want more examples? How about these beauties:

  • “The person was an innocent by standard, who just happened to be the victim of your friend’s careless responsibility.”
  • “Society has moved toward cereal killers.”
  • “Romeo and Juliet exchanged their vowels.”
  • “Willie Loman put Biff on a petal stool.”
  • “Another effect of smoking is it may give you cancer of the thought.”
  • “The children of lesbian couples receive as much neutering as those of other couples."

Or, when asked to use the past tense of “fly” in a sentence: “I flought to Chicago.”

Some sentences reflect a lack not only of basic thought, but also of historical awareness. Such as:

  • “Benjamin Franklin discovered America while fling a kite.”
  • “Christopher Columbus sailed all over the world until he found Ohio.”
  • “Many attempt to blame Kurt Schmoke for the decline in the population, yet Donald Schaefer suffered the same oral deal.”
  • “Michaelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sixteenth Chapel.”

“All these sentences,” Watson says, “were written by college students who were not intending to be funny. But they don’t read much any more, and they haven’t had much exposure to language. And it’s gotten worse over the years.

“The thing that’s really concerned many of us is the inability of many students to think clearly. It’s reflected in their writing. Some of it’s just gibberish. It reads as if written by someone for whom English is a second language, with mixed-up phrases and ideas. You ask them what they mean, and they can’t tell you verbally, either.”

The result is students saying things they clearly don’t intend to say, or spelling things that make their sentences take on entirely new meanings. For example:

  • "Keith helps me to have good self-a-steam.”
  • “For example, one homeless person lives under a bride in Lanham, Md.”
  • “Jogging on a woman’s ovaries can be dangerous to her health.”
  • “Including snakes, most people consume six meals a day.”
  • “The French benefits of this job are good.”
  • “Christopher Columbus discovered America while sailing in Spain.”

“Most students,” says Watson, “make it clear that they don’t like to read, and they don’t want to read. Many struggled tremendously with their reading. So they just wouldn’t do it. And yet it’s so important.

“When you read, you get to see the language used correctly, and you’re exposed to a range of vocabulary far beyond your own. I listen to students today, and the number of words they use is limited to slang and colloquialisms.

“Also, we live in a culture where everything moves so quickly that you don’t have time to think about it. Reading lets you slow things down and think about them. But, because they don’t want to read, you get sentences like these.”

  • “Jogging is excellent exercise anywhere, but I prefer to jog in a warm climax.”
  • “My brother and I took a fairy across to Martha’s Vineyard.”
  • “A very good thing for your health is the Arabic exercise.”

Like I said . . . [Sigh].

I'm very grateful to my parents for bringing me up in a house with over 3,000 books, and encouraging all of their children to read at as early an age as possible. It's stood me in good stead over the years - and the lack of reading in many of today's families shows, too.

Peter

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's the air, you see.

Both you and LawDog seem to have benefitted from salubrious African air in your youth.

I suspect that educated parents also had much to do with it, as you say, and maybe some teachers trained in Britain, or at least following what USED to be British standards, back in a forgotten era when Britain actually had standards.

Reading firearms websites (THR, TFL and others) makes me cringe, and sad that the standards have fallen so low.

I propose that we send the miscreants to Africa, where they might inhale and learn.

Robert McDonald said...

As a college student, I get to see this first hand. I got to see it in high school, too. The standards have been dumbed down in the public school system because the more students that graduate, the better the school system appears. I make my own mistakes with grammar, spelling, and punctuation, but I'm a world apart from most of the people I know. Then again, I read hundreds of books every year. It does help. Five minutes of, "I don't get it," and "this is too hard" will get a high school student assigned to 'special education' where his or her work load will be stunted to the point that most first graders could excell at it.

Anonymous said...

I'm happy to report that my two children, ages 7 and 10, are avid readers. My 10-year-old recently completed the Harry Potter series, and the 7-year-old is champing at the bit to be allowed to read the books. In fact, we often have issues with both of them resulting from being more interested in reading than doing things like household chores, their other homework, paying attention in class, etc. Not at all coincidentally, both of them are straight-A students, despite the occasional in-class problems caused by burying their noses in their books too much.

But, it's a problem I'm willing to live with.

Anonymous said...

My students are occasionally attacked by spellcheckers. Since they don't read enough to recognize different words, they let the computer do the selecting, with occasionally amusing results.
They also complain fiercely about my grading for both grammer and content (note: I don't teach English). My response is "If I cannot understand what you are trying to tell me, how can I grade your argument and ideas?"
LittleRed1

Anonymous said...

I was once reading another student's paper, and where they had wanted to write about someone being a prima donna, they instead wrote "pre-madonna." Sheesh. I had to bite my cheek to keep from laughing at them.

I do believe that poor writing does come from folks not reading. If they read (repeatedly) the ways words are supposed to be spelled, they would no doubt write better.

--chicopanther

Anonymous said...

I continuously try to get the kids to read and write correctly and carefully and continuously the teachers are telling the kids and us parents that they are supposed to just plow on ahead, read and write down what they want, regardless of proper rules of spelling and grammar. At 1st and 3rd grade they say they don't want to "discourage" the child from reading and writing by insisting on correctness. They keep saying that proper spelling and grammar will be taught "later". Yeah, I doubt that day will come.

Yes I probably have upwards of that many books in my house- I never counted. But I do know my husband says it's "too many" (and I say, all civilized homes used to have a room called a "library" or a "study" for heaven's sake) and the kids complain about the number of books in their room. So I think I'm on the right track :-D

Anonymous said...

Serfs do not need to read, write or develop ideas. Just enough to do their jobs. Sound cynical? I am- It astounds me we have fallen so far, and I am not sure it is by "accident". How much easier it is to control those who have no analytical abilities and who must rely on emotion to make decisions.

An interesting note- In the book "Ordinary Men", the story of Police Reserve Battalion 101" the author notes of the rarity of any self employed persons, university graduates, artists or craftsmen in the ranks of the killers. In short, anybody who was used to thinking for themselves and making decisions. The killers (ordinary men) were mostly drawn from factory workers, laborers or similar occupations where there was a clearly defined hierarchy and they were told what to do by a superior.
This book is a fearful lesson in the nature of humans.

Anonymous said...

The article postulates that the students' inability to think clearly is revealed by their inability to write clearly.

Me, I think they've got it backwards- being able to write clearly develops your ability to think clearly. How to organize your thoughts if you aren't even able to articulate them?

Christina RN LMT said...

I have a young colleague at work who's about to graduate college with a teaching degree. Her ignorance is appalling, as are her grammar and spelling. I've helped edit a few of her papers...scary!
She frequently asks me what certain words mean, since she's finally taken the initiative to start reading and is stumped by the vocabulary. Her New Year's resolution for 2008 was to read ONE BOOK. Thankfully, she finished that one and has kept reading since she got hooked...:) So there's hope for her yet!