Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 exptools 1/6/84; site ihuxq.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!floyd!harpo!ihnp4!ihuxq!ken From: ken@ihuxq.UUCP Newsgroups: net.flame,net.nlang Subject: Literacy Message-ID: <605@ihuxq.UUCP> Date: Tue, 7-Feb-84 14:49:21 EST Article-I.D.: ihuxq.605 Posted: Tue Feb 7 14:49:21 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 9-Feb-84 22:23:38 EST Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL Lines: 55 -- Oh, about a month ago, I plunged into the grammar debate with the battle cry, "If you can't write it right, you can't think it right." Our friend jj took this personally for some reason, and the two of us went a few rounds, which was fun. Soon thereafter, some twit posted something to the effect of "Ha-ha-ha, that's bad grammar--the proper statement is 'if you can't write it *correctly*...'" with some irrelevant ramblings about adjectives and adverbs. I didn't respond, since if said twit could not comprehend the not at all subtle difference in meaning between "do it right" and "do it correctly", there was little hope of any rational interchange. But it got me thinking about the relationships among spelling, grammar, and literacy. Lo and behold, yesterday I found a marvelous snippet on that very subject. So try this out for size: ---------------------------BEGIN QUOTE------------------------------ Indubitably, the literate person is familiar with the conventions of "correct" English and can use them or even or even fool around with them as he chooses. Knowing the difference between "who" and "whom" is like knowing how to finger scales; the one doesn't make you literate and the other doesn't make you a musician. The writer who *doesn't* know the difference between "who" and "whom", like the musician who doesn't know how to finger scales, had better have one hell of a lot of talent. There are such people. They are amazing, but are not produced by schooling. Such people, in fact, ought to stay away from schools and protect their talents. The ordinary student has little if any talent, and if he is to become literate he will need to know all the mechanical trivia we can teach him. That, however, will not make him literate. The literate person is in control of those techniques special to writing rather than speech. He can formulate sentences that make sense. He can choose the right word from an array of similar words. He can devise structures that show how things and statements about things are related to one another. He can generate strings of sentences that develop logically related thoughts, and arrange them in such a way as to make that logic clear to others. He can make analogies and define classes. He can, in writing, discover thought and make knowledge. Because he can do these things, he can, in reading, determine whether or not someone else can do these things. He is familiar with the technology of thinking. To accept anything less as our definition of literacy is to admit that hardly any of us will ever be able to think about anything. That may be true, but to admit it is to assure it. ------END QUOTE--(Richard Mitchell, "Less Than Words Can Say")------ -- *** *** JE MAINTIENDRAI ***** ***** ****** ****** 07 Feb 84 [18 Pluviose An CXCII] ken perlow ***** ***** (312)979-7261 ** ** ** ** ..ihnp4!ihuxq!ken *** ***