WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO EDUCATION Since 1895 ?

Quote Aidan

Because the sad fact is that about sixteen percent of the adult population in this country (the UK) are functionally illiterate. I'm not sure what the percentage is in the US....

It's a bit higher here, the 20 - 25% range is what I see quoted most often. I've seen as high as 55 - 60% as a national average, but I find that hard to believe....23% sounds about right, that is if anything about adult illiteracy can be called right.

No sweat hoss.

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This is one of the main problems when dealing with statistics...this goes with my comment about Mississippi...in that it depends on who is compiling the data and to what end...what are they trying to show us, what, if anything, did they set out to prove/disprove. Are they being objective as pure math dictates, or letting their personal agendas sway the total column...and some just set different parameters for what they will include from the study into the final analysis.

Absolutely right !
( and insightful )

Figures don 't lie,
but liars figure.

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It seems that in most sociological studies of this nature, no two conclusions are ever alike. The 23% would be my personal benchmark for this particular issue...simply a rough average in my head.
I hope that it is high, but I'm afraid it is not.

My own observation, does not accord with this.

In the fullness of candor,
I can 't think of anyone offhand
who can 't read, write and calculate.

I accept the proposition that illiteracy exists,
but I don 't remember seeing any in front of me;
( no -- wait -- there was one fellow, a cashier,
who told me that he can 't read ).

In any case, if the problem were so pervasive as over 20%,
I think it wud be much more evident.

David

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Also, it's really nice of you to worry about me making friends. Luckily, I haven't had any problem with that here in England. I find British people lovely- to work and socialize with and just be around in general. I'll miss them when I go back to the states. (Did you read what Gwynneth Paltrow said about the difference between Brits and Americans? I honestly can't disagree with anything she said).

Will u tell us the gist
of what she said ?
David

No sweat hoss.

This is one of the main problems when dealing with statistics...this goes with my comment about Mississippi...in that it depends on who is compiling the data and to what end...what are they trying to show us, what, if anything, did they set out to prove/disprove. Are they being objective as pure math dictates, or letting their personal agendas sway the total column...and some just set different parameters for what they will include from the study into the final analysis.

It seems that in most sociological studies of this nature, no two conclusions are ever alike. The 23% would be my personal benchmark for this particular issue...simply a rough average in my head. I hope that it is high, but I'm afraid it is not.

LE's comments about regional dialects of English within England are all well taken. Within the United States, spoken versions of English can be almost incomprehensible from one region to another. Get a coastal South Carolinian speaking to a Downeaster from Maine, and you are guaranteed a passage of silly fun, but little in the way of mutual comprehension. I have lived much of my adult life in the American South, and yet there are people from South Carolina and Georgia whose speech is nearly incomprehensible to me. When i visited Maine, there were times when i just smiled and nodded, and pretended in understood.

If people did adopt the extreme standards by which David seeks to achieve phonetic spelling, the likelihood is that you'd have more confusing in reading English rather than less. Standard orthography makes it possible for us to understand one another, even when we might find it difficult or even impossible to understand one another's speech--those in the antipodes who speak "Strine" can communication in writing when other English speakers would be clueless as to what they were on about if they simply heard them speaking. (Strine refers to the thickest of Australian accents, and the word "Strine" is an nearly perfect phonetic spelling of the way those people pronounce the word "Australian.")

But the English language is the property of more people than simply those for whom it is the mother tongue. People who are native speakers of Hindi learn to speak English very fluently--but they don't even use the Roman alphabet, so there is no reason to assume that they would be able to understand what David calls phonetic spelling. There are, literally, more than a billion (nearer two billion) native speakers of Chinese on this planet, and their language doesn't even use an alphabet, never mind the Roman alphabet.

David fails to make his case, in my never humble opinion. Changing "through" to "thru" is not unreasonable, but using "n" for "and," or "r" for "are" is a prescription for confusion among the billions of people on this planet who use English on a daily basis.

David - I thought at first you were testing someone's reading comprehension using my quote- when you asked me to tell you the gist of what she said.

(That's part of testing for literacy). You have someone read a passage or listen to a passage being read by someone else and you ask them to tell you the gist of the passage. Then you ask what the main idea is. Then you ask for two details. I'm telling you this so that you will understand that even if someone can decode words (the act of reading), they may not be functionally literate in that they cannot comprehend those words well enough to elicit useful meaning from them.
So, if the words they trying to understand contain information or instructions, they cannot apply the meaning to use that information or instruction in a meaningful or functional way.

I have students who can read the words, but when I ask them what it means they say, "I don't know what the hell that means..."

I can't think of anyone in my everyday circle of acquaintances who I know can't read either. Most people don't advertise the fact that they're illiterate. It's something they feel deeply ashamed about. And most people who have reached adulthood without having learned to read have mastered elaborate coping strategies and ruses to convince people they can read.

*Gwynneth said that Brits are more polite in general. From my experience, I'm afraid I have to agree. She said they're more interesting. At dinner they don't sit and talk about money and work - they talk about issues and ideas. Again, I have to say that's been my experience. I can't remember what else she said specifically - but my reaction was agreement all the way through.
I wish Americans would read it and instead of getting all incensed and huffy, try to make some changes. I saw changes I needed to make in myself since living here.
Honestly, I can't tell you how many dinner parties I've gone to in the US attended by medical people who spend the whole time talking about their profession as if it's the only profession in the world. I've been to a lot of dinner parties with medical professionals here as well. But unless you ask them what they do - you wouldn't know. They don't advertise it. Work is not the be-all and end-all of their existence. And they're very adept at finding topics that might interest all the people at the table. I've found them to be very interesting and polite people, and better-informed about the history and current events of the rest of the world. I think there are reasons for that, but I still find it refreshing.
I'd have to say that the average Brit is more socially adept and considerate than the average American (at least in a way I prefer). Of course, please note this is only my opinion based on my personal observation so don't take it as gospel. Also, sorry if this offends anyone.

If you had done any work in the criminal justice system - you'd have run into a much larger percentage of people who are illiterate. Illiteracy is one of the precursors of criminal activity.

The Spanish shud not be allowed to keep a monopoly on sound reasoning as to spelling.

David, the list of words below include some of your phonetic words, as well as real ones. I include "wud", as I assume, following your previous logic, that you would spell the word "would" in this fashion.

Now, please could you tell me how you would teach a 5 year old which of these words should be pronounced with a short "u" sound, and which of them should sound like "oo", as in hood?

shud cud bud mud sud wud

Good point, and I think it has just revealed David's real problem.

OmSigDAVID wrote:

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The Spanish shud not be allowed to keep a monopoly on sound reasoning as to spelling.

David, you do realize the Spanish language only has 5 sounds for Vowels, don't you?

Yes; how many SHUD thay have ?

-A---E-------I----O-----U <- In this order the sounds are:
Pa made these old boots.

English has 12 vowel sounds, where as Spanish only has 5. You don't see how that could make it a hell of a lot easier to spell phonetically without confusion? Look at this string of different vowel sounds in English:

heed(I), hid, hayed(E), head, had, who'd(U), hood, hoed(O), Hud, hawed(A), hod, heard

For clarification, in the example above the 5 Spanish vowel sounds are Bold and identified in parenthesis. Consider how much simpler it is write such a narrow range of sounds phonetically.

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I learned an alphabet in a college course that contained enough symbols for vowels and consonants to cover all sounds in our language, regardless of the speaker's accent. This was a well thought out system used by linguists.

What OSD has concocted is just plain silly

OK, let it be SILLY.
Its a STARTING point.

A starting point need not be
as polished n refined as an ending point.

The Future will yield fonetic lexicografers
who can and who WILL perfect the system.

" A journey of 1000 miles begins with but a single step. "


MY rendition can be JUST PLAIN SILLY,
or
non-existent
( as u desire it to be ) and complicit
in perpetuating the wasteful system,
that has endured with little complaint
( other than from the children who r its most severe victims ).

I was complicit in perpetuating the defective old
spelling paradigm for well over half a century,
my attention being turned to other matters.

I wish to atone anti-logical practice.

David

I wish to atone anti-logical practice.