Sunday, September 17, 2006

Do schools still teach reading? Not reading and writing, reading . . .
I've been debating with myself whether I needed to talk about this or not, because in a way some anonymous people are gonna get very uptight with me about such nitpicks. But y'know, the past few months have proven time and again to me that something is definitely wrong in the world . . . let's take a look back at my last post for a second, shall we?

"Yesterday, there was a new incident. It wasn't at my school - hell, it was on the other side of the country - but it's still scary as hell."

Now, from the above passage, I'm gonna test you all: did the new incident occur at my school or did it not?


In the unofficial test, someone answered wrong. On one hand, I wasn't completely taken by surprise. On the other, I think it says something about how it didn't take me by surprise.

Are people just losing the ability to read? What is it about the internet that suddenly makes reading comprehension completely alien to so many people? Believe me, I wouldn't make a fuss about this if it was only happening around my neck of the woods . . . it's happening everywhere.

A mutual friend of ours posted about a murder/suicide at her old campus; almost everyone who commented on her post tended to focus more on her extra bit about Steve Irwin's death and completely ignore half of her initial blog. In this case it's just a matter of selective reading, but it's a little heartbreaking nevertheless.

Last week on theOtaku's front page, there was a news article about an interview with the new leading English dub actors for "Bleach". Now, it's granted that there was a news mistake with a name (something to which the reporter corrected and apologised about very eloquently, might I add), and Michelle Ruff was accidentally mentioned as "Hilary Ruff". Of the seventeen comments prior to the addendum, two - maybe three depending on whether the commentor got it or not - commentors read the name as "Hilary Duff" and made fairly powerful responses to the news of the teen actor/musician working in anime. Well, several other members were quick to correct them (one of which was quite put off by the understandable yet blatant reading error). In this instance, people just aren't reading hard enough.

Also last week on my page, a member made a fairly lighthearted comment on my page. The jokes did not bother me, nor did they offend me in any way and I hold no ill will towards this commentor regardless of how it may have seemed afterwards. The thing was, this member made two jokes referring to me as a twenty-four year old man in this comment . . . . . this was a little much, I felt. If said-member was doing the math from my posted birthday, then it was a simple mistake and it would be understandable . . . however, it explicitly states my age under my avatar in my intro, and I feel that I had to correct said-member.


Again, these could all have just been honest mistakes. But these honest mistakes are really piling up . . .


Two months back, another friend wrote an ironic humour article; that so many people did not initially get the joke was one thing: to see another commenter say, "A real eye catcher... Well I guess it was good? I didn't really read it..." is quite another.

A few months ago, someone signed my guestbook referring to my amusing list of "nicknames". This member read "persistent" as "president".

A few years back, I wrote a sort of analysis into the nature of "chicken burgers". My first paragraph essentially laid out the origins of the word "hamburger" and how obviously they are not made of ham. The second comment I got on this post:
"do you know why they call hambergurs HAMburgers?its not ham,y'know."


This doesn't even get into the nature of internet writing, either. Now, I'm not gonna say too much right now since I know many of you reading this are probably in this boat . . . but I really don't like it. The emotes and the acronyms I can handle - I don't use them, but I can handle them. It's the other bits I can't handle . . . "u" or "ur" to say "you" and "your"? Is it really such a hassle to not type out the whole three or four letter word? Is it just the cool thing to do these days to intentionally spell things wrong?

Yeah, maybe it is because I was an English Major and that I had a grammar-heavy teacher in my senior years of high school. I know, I am a little stricter about writing than others. Some people figure it's not a formal thing so it doesn't matter how poorly you do these things, and to be upset about them is wasting breath . . .

But you know what? It does matter. My friend the software engineer is a brilliant guy, really smart and really good at what he knows. When he needs to write formally, though, he turns into a monkey. He comes up with really strange sentence structures that are overly complex and just trip over themselves. It's true for all skills that if you don't practice 'em, you do lose the meat of 'em. This friend still can't write completely well, but at least he sees the use for it . . . heh, he also knows I'll be there to cover his ass when the times come . . .


Guys, reading is an important skill. Writing is also an important skill. Yes, this website isn't school and no one's gonna grade you on how well you type or understand what it is you've just read (or not read, as the case may be). But there is nothing productive that comes from that. It's not a good thing. Seriously, it needs to stop.
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