What views do you currently hold that will look outdated to your grandchildren?

[Synobun]

Actually, I can understand a couple staying together out of inertia and quietly tolerating infidelity but it seems a bit weird to me to openly do it.

Well, in true polyam, it's not infidelity.

But you're right that a lot of polyam relationships can end up being skewed and manipulated open relationships or based on infidelity.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Literacy has never been better. People read more than they ever have, write more than they ever have, in human history. What a joke.

They may write more, but what good does it do if it's a misspelled word salad?

 

[Synobun]

They may write more, but what good does it do if it's a misspelled word salad?

They seem to be getting information across just fine.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

They seem to be getting information across just fine.

Have you taken a look at some of the things posted on various sites? There's a woman who posts garbled messes on my MLA's FB page, and sometimes the only way I can tell what she's carrying on about is if she includes any emojis (she finds it hilarious when disabled people express frustration with the government). I've seen others who can't string coherent sentences together. Sorry, but "u" is not a word.

There are stories on fanfiction.net that are unreadable due to misspelled words, people who have no clue how to punctuate sentences with dialogue, or even that when you do write dialogue you have to start a new paragraph every time you change speakers.

People are still reading, but their writing skills are crap in a depressing number of cases. Some had these problems even when I was dealing with students in the '80s and '90s. There were times when I recommended the student check out the tutorials offered in the library, because I was tired and frustrated with having to deal with the same stuff all the time and most of it involved things they should have learned in junior high at the latest.

 

[Kyriakos]

Maybe my view that people should be treated equally. Not sure what laws will exist in the Neo-Byzantine Imperium.

 

[Gorbles]

I've seen others who can't string coherent sentences together. Sorry, but "u" is not a word.

Ah, cool, the grammar and lexis police.

I mean, "ah" isn't a word either. Or wasn't always. It's like (or is) onomatopoeic; an expression of a sigh.

I mean, your yardstick here is fanfiction dot net. It's fan fiction. Written to whatever standards the author is able to muster. Unless the person is proclaiming some kind of excellence in the English language, you're being elitist.

So back to "u" for a second. It's an abbreviation. From "text" speak, which arose in the early days of mobile phones where people are charged by the character for how much an SMS costs. I'm sorry if you already knew that, but that explains why people use it. People had valid, inarguable reasons to come up with it and use it. Text speak literally defined a generation (or more). It's habit. You can call it a bad habit if you want, but your anecdotes about how people are typing online is not indicative of baseline literacy or handwriting skills. And you're using it to justify a bad habit of your own - judging people for how they communicate on places like Facebook. That's not a writing site. It's not peer-reviewed. It's social media.

You are, in essence, in your complaint about a person's writing on a Facebook page (which you're happy to use a contraction for), complaining about the digital equivalent of an accent (or maybe dialect would be more accurate). Why? What's the point? Are you advancing the English language in any meaningful way?

How a person types in an informal setting has no bearing on neither their literacy or handwriting skills. Your correlation of the two is a poor one.

 

[Samson]

Have you taken a look at some of the things posted on various sites? There's a woman who posts garbled messes on my MLA's FB page, and sometimes the only way I can tell what she's carrying on about is if she includes any emojis (she finds it hilarious when disabled people express frustration with the government). I've seen others who can't string coherent sentences together. Sorry, but "u" is not a word.

There are stories on fanfiction.net that are unreadable due to misspelled words, people who have no clue how to punctuate sentences with dialogue, or even that when you do write dialogue you have to start a new paragraph every time you change speakers.

People are still reading, but their writing skills are crap in a depressing number of cases. Some had these problems even when I was dealing with students in the '80s and '90s. There were times when I recommended the student check out the tutorials offered in the library, because I was tired and frustrated with having to deal with the same stuff all the time and most of it involved things they should have learned in junior high at the latest.

30 years ago you would not generally have read most peoples writing. You may have had letters from people, but that would be a fairly self selecting group. Nowadays everyone writes on the internet, and some of it is bad.

If 'u' gets the message across, what is wrong with it?

 

[Synobun]

Have you taken a look at some of the things posted on various sites? There's a woman who posts garbled messes on my MLA's FB page, and sometimes the only way I can tell what she's carrying on about is if she includes any emojis (she finds it hilarious when disabled people express frustration with the government). I've seen others who can't string coherent sentences together. Sorry, but "u" is not a word.

There are stories on fanfiction.net that are unreadable due to misspelled words, people who have no clue how to punctuate sentences with dialogue, or even that when you do write dialogue you have to start a new paragraph every time you change speakers.

People are still reading, but their writing skills are crap in a depressing number of cases. Some had these problems even when I was dealing with students in the '80s and '90s. There were times when I recommended the student check out the tutorials offered in the library, because I was tired and frustrated with having to deal with the same stuff all the time and most of it involved things they should have learned in junior high at the latest.

And you think this is worse than how it was before... why? For a significant period of time, literacy was a function of privilege. Still is, really. If you are learned and surrounded by learned people, of course you will believe that being learned is the norm, and that the rest are knuckle-draggers. But in reality, literacy has never been more accessible than it is now, and despite that, advanced literacy is still a skill that is inaccessible to most. I've interacted with enough people across the spectrum of age to know that "inability to piece together eloquent sentences" is not somehow unique to the youths. Even today, nearly half of the adult population in Canada rank below high school levels for literacy skills.

You have the privilege of being able to write well, but fail to recognize that you are the exception and not the rule. You're applying a standard that less than 20% of the adult population can reach.

Spoiler :

u is perfectly acceptable slang for you. Your not liking it isn't relevant to its ability to communicate.

 

[NovaKart]

I think autocorrect might actually help my spelling sometimes since I notice how the word is spelled when I got it wrong. I don’t sit around trying to memorize spelling lists so I might not otherwise learn the correct spelling.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Ah, cool, the grammar and lexis police.

I mean, "ah" isn't a word either. Or wasn't always. It's like (or is) onomatopoeic; an expression of a sigh.

I mean, your yardstick here is fanfiction dot net. It's fan fiction. Written to whatever standards the author is able to muster. Unless the person is proclaiming some kind of excellence in the English language, you're being elitist.

Fanfiction.net is an example. I've seen books on Kindle that have so many typos and formatting errors that they're unreadable.

Proofreading and editing are things most people don't bother with, and it's not only people who post on social media. A browse through my news site on any average day will reveal plenty of articles that weren't proofread.

People got lazy over the past several decades.

So back to "u" for a second. It's an abbreviation. From "text" speak, which arose in the early days of mobile phones where people are charged by the character for how much an SMS costs. I'm sorry if you already knew that, but that explains why people use it. People had valid, inarguable reasons to come up with it and use it. Text speak literally defined a generation (or more). It's habit. You can call it a bad habit if you want, but your anecdotes about how people are typing online is not indicative of baseline literacy or handwriting skills. And you're using it to justify a bad habit of your own - judging people for how they communicate on places like Facebook. That's not a writing site. It's not peer-reviewed. It's social media.

I don't own a mobile phone. I have never willingly used one.

The Facebook site I post on is the one belonging to my MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly). It's a page for one of my province's cabinet ministers. If someone there wants me to take them seriously, they should not post word salads. I am aware that there are some for whom English is not their first language. But the woman I'm talking about doesn't have that issue.

You are, in essence, in your complaint about a person's writing on a Facebook page (which you're happy to use a contraction for), complaining about the digital equivalent of an accent (or maybe dialect would be more accurate). Why? What's the point? Are you advancing the English language in any meaningful way?

If anyone happens to read it who might actually want to improve their writing skills, that's a plus.

Word salads are not "accents" or "dialects." They're word salads.

How a person types in an informal setting has no bearing on neither their literacy or handwriting skills. Your correlation of the two is a poor one.

Where did I say anything about handwriting skills in my posts here?

30 years ago you would not generally have read most peoples writing. You may have had letters from people, but that would be a fairly self selecting group. Nowadays everyone writes on the internet, and some of it is bad.

If 'u' gets the message across, what is wrong with it?

It doesn't get the message across in any meaningful way with me. The first thing that pops into my head when I see it is not "you". It's "that person is lazy."

And you think this is worse than how it was before... why? For a significant period of time, literacy was a function of privilege. Still is, really. If you are learned and surrounded by learned people, of course you will believe that being learned is the norm, and that the rest are knuckle-draggers. But in reality, literacy has never been more accessible than it is now, and despite that, advanced literacy is still a skill that is inaccessible to most. I've interacted with enough people across the spectrum of age to know that "inability to piece together eloquent sentences" is not somehow unique to the youths. Even today, nearly half of the adult population in Canada rank below high school levels for literacy skills.

I said nothing about "eloquent sentences." Eloquence is nice, but coherence is more useful.

You have the privilege of being able to write well, but fail to recognize that you are the exception and not the rule. You're applying a standard that less than 20% of the adult population can reach.

Part of the problem is that many of the basic skills are no longer taught in schools, or are taught inadequately.

It should be interesting to see if more kids are interested in reading due to staying home with parents who might have extra time to spend with them, and using part of that time for reading.

I freely admit that I was lucky to have two grandparents and two parents who were all readers, they all were willing to read to me, and didn't bother waiting until I was in school to get me started on reading for myself. Most kids have a teddy bear in bed with them. I had teddy bears and a stack of books.

u is perfectly acceptable slang for you. Your not liking it isn't relevant to its ability to communicate.

Obviously it is not perfectly acceptable slang for me. I've already stated that.

 

[Synobun]

Part of the problem is that many of the basic skills are no longer taught in schools, or are taught inadequately.

What basic skill isn't being taught in schools anymore?

 

[Arwon]

I don't wanna hook my brain directly up to a neutral jack just to get news and social media

Holding the Olympics on the moon is too big an advantage to the athletes of Moon Nation who are used to the low gravity.

I stand by this

 

[AmazonQueen]

I'd be surprised if basic standards of literacy are any worse than they were 50 or 100 years ago.
And people have been complaining about how poor literacy is and how standards are falling for as far back as I can remember ( the '70's) and probably before.

The big difference IMO is that far more jobs require literacy, computer use etc and so does social interaction.
Leave school illiterate in the '50-60s and there were lots of well-paid jobs in factories etc that didn't require literacy. Almost all social interaction didn't either.
Now even an awful job in a call centre requires literacy.

 

[Arwon]

I'd be surprised if basic standards of literacy are any worse than they were 50 or 100 years ago.
And people have been complaining about how poor literacy is and how standards are falling for as far back as I can remember ( the '70's) and probably before.

The big difference IMO is that far more jobs require literacy, computer use etc and so does social interaction.
Leave school illiterate in the '50-60s and there were lots of well-paid jobs in factories etc that didn't require literacy. Almost all social interaction didn't either.
Now even an awful job in a call centre requires literacy.

Functional literacy would be the same or better, but abstract and spatial reasoning, complex problem solving and the like would be much better. Hell, they keep having to renorm/rebase IQ tests to keep the media at 100 because the results drift upwards over time.

 

[Hygro]

Yo if you want to see bad orthography just read the early days on this site. No one could spell until as Novakart said we learned from the spellchecker.

 

[Birdjaguar]

What basic skill isn't being taught in schools anymore?

Manners!

Yo if you want to see bad orthography just read the early days on this site. No one could spell until as Novakart said we learned from the spellchecker.

That is because you all were still young teenagers who didn't know crap.

 

[Synobun]

Manners!

It's not manners if you have to beat it into someone.

 

[Cutlass]

Ain't gonna have children. So ain't gonna have grandchildren.

 

[Birdjaguar]

What basic skill isn't being taught in schools anymore?

Manners!

It's not manners if you have to beat it into someone.

You injected something new into the equation. My statement only was that manners are not being taught in school anymore.

 

[Synobun]

You injected something new into the equation. My statement only was that manners are not being taught in school anymore.

What manners were taught that aren't now? What makes it manners? How were these manners enforced?