Words!

[Prepoia[$]]

I am having a terrible time accepting the examples and limitations of vocabulary.

Firstly, during the school year, half of the new/newer teachers don't give spelling words to Junior High kids because they can't prounounce many of the words and definitely don't know what they mean. They throw in a whole lot of "whatever"s but have no clue what words in the literature books mean and can't help students prounounce them. They also don't take time to look them up but will (sometimes) ask my Language Arts collegue or myself how to pronounce them. Heaven forbid they take the time to look them up. These are not just Math teachers (the opposite in many ways of English teachers) but many who teach reading and writing to kids. It's no just our school either. I used to assess college students who student taught and their speech patterns and vocabularies was absolutely too limited.

Secondly, the media. Just today, while listening to the radio, a newsperson read an item about Clinton kids/Bush kids and one of the words was "decisive". He first thought that the word was a mistake and then admitted he'd slept through that day's lesson in English class. Couldn't say it and had no clue to the meaning.

Newscasters never use adverbs anymore, either. (He ran the pass quick.....He ran the pass quickly) but that's a whole new rant. That and the asinine expressions used it sports today. I HATE This team SPANKED that team. It reminds me of an older student that always had to objectionable writing when composing formally. He always had at least one "spank" (like in monkey) in every essay. He probably didn't think I knew the meaning but I now hate that word when used in print or in the media.

Whew.............




Thank you for letting me let off steam. You may return to your regular broadcast now.

Sandy

[juliette]

I know exactly what you mean, especially when it comes to teachers.

My daughter was (quite rightly) kicked out of a high school class once by a teacher for continuing to play with a string of noisy beads during the lecture, even after he had asked her to stop.

I read the "Discipline Report" he wrote, and I did kind of laugh at the apoplectic way he carried on and on, finally claiming that it was the "gestalt" of her actions that made it necessary for her to leave his class.

I totally laughed though, when my daughter told me that when she got to the Dean's office, she had to first explain to him the meaning of the word "gestalt" before she could be disciplined.

[Redlass]

I was talking to a high school senior yesterday who was complaining about her literature course last year. Now, I have a little bit of sympathy for the teacher because she normally taught math and was pulled in at the last minute to cover for a sick literature teacher.

She was teaching Macbeth. The student said something about the porter scene being an example of comic relief. The teacher told her she was wrong. So the student went and looked it up and showed it to the teacher. The teacher responded with, "Well, that's not in my book and it's not what will be on the test."

Obviously this teacher has never seen Macbeth--or at least not a very good production of it.

[sylvanb]

Oh, I'm so glad I dropped in here. I have been ever since yesterday and need to vent. On NPR's "Talk of the Nation" the discussion was about the publishing business, especially the huge advances for celebrity books. The woman from "Publishers Weekly" talked about a publisher "recuperating" its investment. I figured it was just a slip of the tongue, since after all she is a big shot at a publication about publishing; but, no, a few minutes later she did the same thing.

Ya know, the last time this subject came up, I ranted a while, and then said, Now I have to go lay down. And nobody said a word.

Tsk tsk

I guess that NPR thing put me in a curmudgeonly mood. Sorry.

[Redlass]

Maybe their investment was really ill?

Ouch! Just goes to show that even the word mavens are not immune from the abuse of our language. Sadly, they're winning. So many truly horrendous words have crept into business lingo that you're looked upon as a rube if you don't similarly abuse the lingo.

[juliette]

This reminds me of the story of poor David Howard who was forced to resign because some ignoramus thought that the word "niggardly" was a racial slur.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...district27.htm

[pluckyduck]

Originally posted by juliette
This reminds me of the story of poor David Howard who was forced to resign because some ignoramus thought that the word "niggardly" was a racial slur.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...district27.htm

ROFL!! ( I mean, it wasn't funny to him, but it's still funny.)

As far as the rest of the subject matter here goes, I support the concept that language is constantly evolving. I like the word "like", for instance.

'I was like: "No way!" and she was like: "Way!" '

Those words strung together may not be officially acceptable, but they communicate....and communicate the proper emotion/meaning more precisely than:

'So, I said to her, "I can't believe that happened to you." And she said to me, "Yes, it did."'

The key, especially for the vocabulary deprived, is to be able to communicate with all kinds of people on all different levels. You can get through the mall with "like", but it's hard to have an intelligent debate or deep conversation without having a few more words in your arsenal.

Andrea
who has Reader's Digest's: Increase Your Word Power to thank for most of her verbal SAT score

[Trebor1415]

This is a touchy subject with me right at the moment because one of my editors recently changed a line in my lead about a hotel from "...combines the energy of Miami with the mystique of the Orient." to "...combines the energy of Miami with the mystique of the far east." because she thought the word "Orient" was somehow offensive. Granted, "Mystique of the Orient" is a bit of a cliche, but I was playing off that cliche both for the image it conveys at to play off the hotel's name. It was also a paraphrase from the hotel's architect.

BTW, the name of the hotel is the Mandarin Oriental, Miami. At least she can't change the name in the story.

The same editor also once changed a direct quote about a university dorm from "We built this in an attempt to keep our seniors on campus because keeping upperclassmen on the campus is important to student culture," to "...because keeping upper class [students] is important..."

I don't think "Upperclassmen" in this context is sexist. Then again, I suppose if you find "freshmen" sexist (she changed it to 'fist year students') upperclassmen is right out. It kinda hurts our credibility though when we're writing for a specific audience and can't use the language they use when describing the projects.

Rob

[juliette]

Originally posted by Trebor1415
if you find "freshmen" sexist (she changed it to 'fist year students') upperclassmen is right out.

Ha! Wait until I tell my smart-aleck, going-off-to-college daughter that she is now a fresh-person!

oh wait, I've been telling her that for years...
:p