Today, as I write, is George Washington’s birthday, the real one, as opposed to yesterday’s official observance. Today, the best story in the newspaper describes the return of a young, local soldier and the arrival of the cat who inspired him during his tour of Iraq. To which I say: Thank you, happy homecoming, and may you be together ‘til the end of your days and beyond.
Today is also my daughter’s birthday. My first child and Bicentennial baby is twenty-nine. A University of Illinois-Urbana graduate, she now attends law school in Chicago where she lives downtown, lets her brother, my son (another U of I graduate) camp out on her couch, and has a delightful boyfriend, no slouch in a profession of his own. To them I say: Here’s to flourishing careers but don’t forget my eventual grandchildren.
Today is also my daughter’s birthday. My first child and Bicentennial baby is twenty-nine. A University of Illinois-Urbana graduate, she now attends law school in Chicago where she lives downtown, lets her brother, my son (another U of I graduate) camp out on her couch, and has a delightful boyfriend, no slouch in a profession of his own. To them I say: Here’s to flourishing careers but don’t forget my eventual grandchildren.
Our children’s father and I also attended the U of I where, among other things, I majored in Rhetoric. College Rhetoric is not synonymous with college English. Whereas English is the study of literature, Rhetoric emphasizes the student’s own writing. Both are distinct from grade school English, where before books can be analyzed and writing skills developed, children must learn spelling, grammar, punctuation, and the proper construction of sentences. Did I say “must”? I meant “should.” For various reasons some never do, later to pay the price of their ignorance.
In seventh grade, my school taught diagramming, the assignment of every word in a sentence to a part of speech as well as in relation to every other word. The “hangman” structure on the blackboard looked silly, but it was tedious work, and invariably some kids chose to ignore the lessons, passing ironically incoherent notes instead. Because I was a “nerd,” and because I was being held captive in class, I figured I may as well pay attention, so I learned how to do it. I was also fortunate to live in an affluent neighborhood where my peers, if not capable of diagramming sentences, for the most part spoke correctly. Only when removed from that environment did I realize that “He don’t” and “You was” were not the exclusive domain of cowboy movies.
Illiteracy concerns me. Those who are particularly illiterate seldom read or write. The moderately illiterate are handicapped by their inability to comprehend and communicate effectively. I recently read a eulogy for a journalist who once remarked, “Only those who know the rules [of grammar] are allowed to break them.” One breaks that journalist’s rule at one’s own peril.
Illiteracy irritates me, so much so that I tend to lump in the borderline cases with the hard core ones. To me, if you don’t know the difference between “its” and “it’s,” or “your” and “you’re,” you’re illiterate. If you say or write “between you and I,” you’re not only illiterate but pretentious as well. If you designed your restaurant’s “Soup’s of the Day” sign, you’re illiterate, though the radius of your illiteracy extends not as far as had you advertised the same enticement in the State Journal-Register for the entire community to behold.
Quotation marks are abused in this very publication, where “ ‘Thank you’ “ and “ ‘For one day only!’ “ are far too common. If you don’t know that this form of punctuation is reserved for some titles (not all of them), verbatim transcripts, and someone else’s term, not yours; that it confers a so-called status, not acknowledged legitimacy, on the term; if it eludes you that when Ted Rall refers to “President” Bush you may hate him for it only if the message is clear, go back to 7th grade and this time pay attention.
I’ve lived in Springfield many years, many more than I spent in Chicago. This ain’t Chicago and I’m used to being a member of the political minority. While I’m grateful for the freedom to express my “wrong” views, I would point out that it was George Washington and his cohorts, not George Bush and his, who secured our liberty. Furthermore, I would argue, it was Washington who attempted to ensure that future generations would not callously dismantle our cherished freedoms.
Disagreeing with assertions is one thing; misunderstanding them is another. When I submit a letter or article, I like to feel confident that it is at least literate. Readers are then free to disregard or dismiss the parody, satire, or sarcasm (high school English) within. If, because such literary devices escape their notice, they actually believe that I, or anyone who writes to this newspaper, supports a more brutal regime in Iraq than the one preceding it, it might behoove them to learn the difference between terrorist sympathizer and “terrorist sympathizer.”
Were you waiting for the punch line? That was it.
In seventh grade, my school taught diagramming, the assignment of every word in a sentence to a part of speech as well as in relation to every other word. The “hangman” structure on the blackboard looked silly, but it was tedious work, and invariably some kids chose to ignore the lessons, passing ironically incoherent notes instead. Because I was a “nerd,” and because I was being held captive in class, I figured I may as well pay attention, so I learned how to do it. I was also fortunate to live in an affluent neighborhood where my peers, if not capable of diagramming sentences, for the most part spoke correctly. Only when removed from that environment did I realize that “He don’t” and “You was” were not the exclusive domain of cowboy movies.
Illiteracy concerns me. Those who are particularly illiterate seldom read or write. The moderately illiterate are handicapped by their inability to comprehend and communicate effectively. I recently read a eulogy for a journalist who once remarked, “Only those who know the rules [of grammar] are allowed to break them.” One breaks that journalist’s rule at one’s own peril.
Illiteracy irritates me, so much so that I tend to lump in the borderline cases with the hard core ones. To me, if you don’t know the difference between “its” and “it’s,” or “your” and “you’re,” you’re illiterate. If you say or write “between you and I,” you’re not only illiterate but pretentious as well. If you designed your restaurant’s “Soup’s of the Day” sign, you’re illiterate, though the radius of your illiteracy extends not as far as had you advertised the same enticement in the State Journal-Register for the entire community to behold.
Quotation marks are abused in this very publication, where “ ‘Thank you’ “ and “ ‘For one day only!’ “ are far too common. If you don’t know that this form of punctuation is reserved for some titles (not all of them), verbatim transcripts, and someone else’s term, not yours; that it confers a so-called status, not acknowledged legitimacy, on the term; if it eludes you that when Ted Rall refers to “President” Bush you may hate him for it only if the message is clear, go back to 7th grade and this time pay attention.
I’ve lived in Springfield many years, many more than I spent in Chicago. This ain’t Chicago and I’m used to being a member of the political minority. While I’m grateful for the freedom to express my “wrong” views, I would point out that it was George Washington and his cohorts, not George Bush and his, who secured our liberty. Furthermore, I would argue, it was Washington who attempted to ensure that future generations would not callously dismantle our cherished freedoms.
Disagreeing with assertions is one thing; misunderstanding them is another. When I submit a letter or article, I like to feel confident that it is at least literate. Readers are then free to disregard or dismiss the parody, satire, or sarcasm (high school English) within. If, because such literary devices escape their notice, they actually believe that I, or anyone who writes to this newspaper, supports a more brutal regime in Iraq than the one preceding it, it might behoove them to learn the difference between terrorist sympathizer and “terrorist sympathizer.”
Were you waiting for the punch line? That was it.