Re: OT-ish: txt - Could it replace Standard Written English?

Tristan wrote:

>Mike Ellis wrote:
>> "We don't correct spelling. It hinders students' creativity."
  The sad thing is that the attitude I quoted above is actually catching
on. The result is that the kids, by not being forced to learn the right way
to spell, have more difficulty learning to *read* the language. That's why
they don't bother reading books for enjoyment anymore. We set them up for
illiteracy from the start.

>The written language is the tool of the people, not vice-versa.
  So anything the kids use between themselves is correct? Should the class
teach the teacher how to spell? They are after all, on the cutting edge of
what's current in the language. I don't think so. If correct use of the
language and spelling are not criteria for grading an English assignment,
what criteria are there at all? Remember we're talking about English class,
not Creative Writing.

>> "Next year we won't correct wrong answers in math either."
>
>Ah, but the method is more important than the answers! :P
Without the correct answers, you still fail the test. Try it.

>> "Let's face it, we're nothing anymore but babysitters. We've had your kid
>> six hours a day for twelve years and he still says 'with she and I'. We
>> give up."
>
>Highly unlikely that they'd ever do it. And if idiot (that's my opinion
>at least!) prescriptivists never told people to say 'no! It's not "me
>and him"! It's "he and I"!', that kind of thing would never happen in
>the first place, so it's the correction that's causing the error :P
  The problem is not correction alone, it's correction between people who
don't actually know what a subject or an object *is*. These things are not
taught anymore.
  When people do not know how thier language works, it is more difficult to
learn how other languages work. Back in grade ten (yes, that is what tenth
grade is called here, don't even *think* about that tangent) I had to give
up trying to explain Japanese word order to a fellow student who had been
asking me some questions about the language. He didn't know what subject
and object are. His *universe* was SVO, and English word order was to him
the correct chronological representation of events. "Well why don't they
just say it the right way around, so you don't have to remember all that
stuff?" Sigh.
  I remember my teacher tried to teach us the "he and I" vs. "him and me"
difference in grade twelve. So she had to introduce all the concepts of
subject, object, object of a preposition, etc. Which had been completely
left out of the curriculum up until that point. Get this: walking home, I
remember hearing one student tell the other "no, it's *always* 'he and I'.
We just learned that today."

  I graduated high school with a couple hundred people of my age, who have
been through the same school system as I have, but they do not know what
their own language is or how it works. They read -- when forced, since
nobody reads for pleasure -- at a level once considered appropriate for
elementary school.
  Yes, language is the "tool of the people". Even in the dark ages, when
only a few people were literate, people could talk just fine to each other.
You don't "need" to be able to read at all. And the kids will always find
*some* way of communicating, and don't need our help to do so. But that's
not the point. To bring a child up in a culture where everything is written
in a certain language and not teach him to read that language is cruel. You
set him up for failure. Can you imagine this kid's resume?

M

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