Yes, I have a topic I'd like to see addressed.

[elfs]

Is Our Children Learning?

I spotted this poster at Yamaraashi-chan's school, and yes, there's a topic I'd like to see addressed: Why the hell can't my child's peers speak and write in English?

You know, I'd like to see some standards maintained, even in the childhood warehouses public schools. I'd like to see teenagers required to speak and write in the language their future employers (or, hopefully, future investors) expect from them.

Comments

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

I've never see "about" spelled with a peace sign before.

[edichka2.livejournal.com]

You're so sexy when you talk curmudgeon.
Cheers,
- E

[gromm.livejournal.com]

Oh hush you old curmudgeon. Your parents asked the very same question for the very same reason. Because teenagers talk in code.

[casualprofessor.livejournal.com]

Horrors! The "i"'s are dotted with a tiny heart. Aieeeeee! The unprofessionalism!

Relax - this is teen speak. As long as they can use regular language at correct times and know when to switch from leetspeak to Elitespeak, then you have no worries.

[urox.livejournal.com]

This *is* how their future employers write. Still annoys the hell out of me when my coworkers (and manager!) do it.

[resonant.livejournal.com]

"the language their future employers (or, hopefully, future investors) expect from them."

Mandarin?

[lemur123.livejournal.com]

Hindi?

हिन्दी

[omahas.livejournal.com]

OMG. You are officially old, Elf.

What's next?

"I walked up the hill both ways..."

"Get off my lawn!"

"Pull those pants up!"

[slutdiary.livejournal.com]

Well, tell me how exactly they can simultaneously call themselves gangsters and also be incapable of running away when the cops chase them? Pants belted at or below the femoral crease do not really tell me "thinking ahead".

...another old curmudgeon.

[ben-raccoon.livejournal.com]

Gangster fashion seems explicitly designed for allowing minimum effort on the part of the police while creating maximum humiliation on the part of the 'gangster' in question. "Go ahead and dress like me! That way when you try to emulate my fictional actions, the cops don't have to work to catch you!"

[omahas.livejournal.com]

But dear, the vast majority of "gangsters" are incredibly stupid (a short perusal through Fark.com is enough to prove that). So, doesn't clothing wear go along with the behavior? ;)

I had a great time with the daughter of a friend. She came to an event wearing her pants down below the hips. So, every time she passed by me I pulled them down to the ground. I said, "honey, if you're gonna start pulling them down, finish the job." Eventually it just became a game between the two of us.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

Omaha, you're awesome!

You're making me wish that I was female, since there's no way in h311 that a guy could get away with that, even with another guy.

[ben-raccoon.livejournal.com]

You have to give them points for using the correct there and remembering an apostrophe for you'd.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

Y'know, I'm of two minds about this.

I go absolutely nuts about "ambiguizing shifts": two vs. too vs. to and their vs. there vs. they're.

Flattening those homophones down to a single spelling makes text harder to read, since they cease supplying context and force you to parse extra surrounding context to figure out which meaning to use.

OTOH, things like "2 C" are just a rebus for "to see," and has been around since before you and I, Elf, were in the 1^st Grade. Other spelling shifts — "rite" & "nite" & "brite" — are fine by me. Let's face it: no English speaker has pronounced that "gh" in the past 6-8 centuries. (BTW — that "gh" should be pronounced the same way that the Dutch pronounce the letter "g". Think the "ch" in the Scottish pronounciation of "loch" … only harder and further back in the throat!) Also, while "rawt" may look like an uneducated, illiterate form of "wrought," why keep unpronounced consonants and a dipthong that doesn't represent the actual dipthong used today? (Does any English dialect/accent pronounce "wrought" so that the dipthong comes out as "oh"+"oo"?)

As Dr. McWhorter says, "Languages are full of Charlie Brown heads."

Come on now

[(Anonymous)]

Come on now, didn't the slave owners forbid their slaves from learning to read and write? Easier to control them if they are illiterate. High school graduates who are functionally illiterate? Perfect!