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I'm not talking about people posting comments, or social media or other informal writing, I'm talking about headline writers and authors of mainstream news organizations who are being paid as professionals.
I just saw a headline talking about "Millenials and Hire Education" I don't see this kind of error every day but I see it often enough by professionals that I have to wonder what it portends.
I'm an elder now, and I remember when I was a teenager, the laments of the older crowd concerned that formal manner and education were being eroded, and I sneered at those comments. Now I feel my comuppance, as I make similar observations.
I feel like it goes along with lowering the standards of admission, and lowering the requirements for graduation - a part of the dumbing down of America.
On the other hand, this may be the inevitable result of expanding the student base. After WWII, the decision was gradually made over a few decades to deliberately expand the literacy rate in the US, and populations that traditionally were not educated became more educated. The percent of the population that could read increased, but the average reading level dropped.
I remember reading in the 70s and 80s that too much education made it more difficult to control the population, and so our leaders starting dumbing down the educational system. Charlotte Iserbyte, in the new Dept of Education int he Reagan administration talked a lot about that.
Maybe lower level of professionalism is just an expansion of that process - only instead of expanding the literacy rate in the US while lowering the average, they are expanding the literacy rate for global population, with a result lowering of the average.
It's a slow process, I don't know if I'll be around long enough to see how it ends.
I'm talking about headline writers and authors of mainstream news organizations
who are being paid as professionals.
It's mostly about the lack of editing. With no one there any longer to catch the errors; let alone an actual edit process.
(Newspaper writers have long been notorious for the rushed and garbled.)
As to 'handling' it I try to limit my news intake to sources that still have working editors.
Maybe you should too. Then we can both laugh with derision at the rest.
Last edited by MrRational; 05-11-2024 at 03:42 AM..
After living 66 yrs in Chicago, we retired to WI into the Madison TV market....The funniest show here is the evening news. Even ignoring the amateurish technical mistakes and silly editorial policies or the male news readers lisping their way wearing suit coats 2 sizes too small thru the headlines and the females with voices sounding like they're members of The Lollipop Clan, the grammatical and rhetorical errors are abundant and laughable.
Languages tend to dissipate in grammatical convention, spelling and pronunciation over time, and we see the same in dress style and behaviors. Eighty y/a one would always wear a coat & tie not only to church on Sunday, but even to a ball game. Now, wife beater shirts, shorts and sandals are more likely to be seen at those events.
OTOH-- n addition to the usual dissipation and trend to informality, I agree, there is more outright ignorance among those who are supposedly educated. It's been centuries since "He knows little Latin and less Greek" was an insult....Now, it's more like "He knows little Rap and can't text."
There has been a complete failure in our educational system. Educators are now too involved with installing Woke ideas instead of appreciation of knowledge, skills of critical thinking and accumulation of knowledge. In claiming to invoke equality, they are making everyone equal by bringing the top students down to the level of the lowest students. Guaranteed mediocrity for the masses is the goal of those who think themselves the elite.
As for journalists, it used to be taught to "write so a 12 y/o can understand it." Now they"'ve apparently changed that to "write like you are a 12 y/o."
Last edited by guidoLaMoto; 05-11-2024 at 04:37 AM..
It's mostly about the lack of editing. With no one there any longer to catch the errors; let alone an actual edit process.
(Newspaper writers have long been notorious for the rushed and garbled.)
As to 'handling' it I try to limit my news intake to sources that still have working editors.
Maybe you should too. Then we can both laugh with derision at the rest.
Woe now, just put on the breaks. This is really a mute point and your just looking for an escape goat.
I'm not talking about people posting comments, or social media or other informal writing, I'm talking about headline writers and authors of mainstream news organizations who are being paid as professionals.
I just saw a headline talking about "Millenials and Hire Education" I don't see this kind of error every day but I see it often enough by professionals that I have to wonder what it portends.
I'm an elder now, and I remember when I was a teenager, the laments of the older crowd concerned that formal manner and education were being eroded, and I sneered at those comments. Now I feel my comuppance, as I make similar observations.
I've mentioned before about new employees having to be taught basic writing skills that we expect a college graduate to already have.
Quote:
Originally Posted by margaretBartle
On the other hand, this may be the inevitable result of expanding the student base. After WWII, the decision was gradually made over a few decades to deliberately expand the literacy rate in the US, and populations that traditionally were not educated became more educated. The percent of the population that could read increased, but the average reading level dropped.
.
I don't believe it's an expansion of those being educated so much as a lowering of standards. My parents were from the Greatest Generation. Dad and many of his compatriots didn't even finish high school because they had to work in the mill or on the farm. Yet they were all highly literate and well read.
What I did see happening while I was in school and even more so with my kids, is a lowering of standards in order to get more kids to have a diploma. You can even see it in some of the discussions here on CD about not giving failing grades because then the kid would fail. Or about "equity" grading. Or delaying algebra because it's not "fair" to the kids who don't understand it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by margaretBartle
I remember reading in the 70s and 80s that too much education made it more difficult to control the population, and so our leaders starting dumbing down the educational system. Charlotte Iserbyte, in the new Dept of Education int he Reagan administration talked a lot about that.
.
I don't believe it's this. While I pretty much disagree with most of the educators on here, I don't doubt their sincerity about what they believe. I think they honestly believe they are being kind and helpful.
Even people who fancy themselves writers often cannot write without input from a fresh pair of eyes. I joined a writing group a few years ago when I moved to a new area and wanted to meet people with common interests.
The woman running the group had self-published, and I downloaded her non-fiction book. I could not get through the first two chapter because she used the term "Needless to say" on every other page. First of all, if it's needless to say, why are you saying it? Secondly, repeating the same trite phrase is in and of itself a problem. She needed an editor. This can happen. I've been in critique groups where it's been pointed out in my submission that I repeated myself or used the same word too frequently. Heck, I hate seeing my own errors in City-Data posts, but at least I have unlimited editing power!
Eventually, she did hire an editor and republished her book, and she sold about 8,000 copies. Subsequently, a small publisher picked her up for a second book.
There are no more proofreaders at news outlets, apparently, although there still must be at some of the higher-end publications like The Atlantic where I don't see egregious errors.
After living 66 yrs in Chicago, we retired to WI into the Madison TV market....The funniest show here is the evening news. Even ignoring the amateurish technical mistakes and silly editorial policies or the male news readers lisping their way wearing suit coats 2 sizes too small thru the headlines and the females with voices sounding like they're members of The Lollipop Clan, the grammatical and rhetorical errors are abundant and laughable.
Languages tend to dissipate in grammatical convention, spelling and pronunciation over time, and we see the same in dress style and behaviors. Eighty y/a one would always wear a coat & tie not only to church on Sunday, but even to a ball game. Now, wife beater shirts, shorts and sandals are more likely to be seen at those events.
OTOH-- n addition to the usual dissipation and trend to informality, I agree, there is more outright ignorance among those who are supposedly educated. It's been centuries since "He knows little Latin and less Greek" was an insult....Now, it's more like "He knows little Rap and can't text."
There has been a complete failure in our educational system. Educators are now too involved with installing Woke ideas instead of appreciation of knowledge, skills of critical thinking and accumulation of knowledge. In claiming to invoke equality, they are making everyone equal by bringing the top students down to the level of the lowest students. Guaranteed mediocrity for the masses is the goal of those who think themselves the elite.
As for journalists, it used to be taught to "write so a 12 y/o can understand it." Now they've apparently changed that to "write like you are a 12 y/o."
That's funny!! You can thank texting for a lot of this. Many young people also struggle with spelling as they're not corrected for MIS-spelling anymore. Then when it comes to writing something on the internet, whether personal or business related, they prove themselves to be totally inept.
When it comes to newspapers, barely edited copy has been common forever. The screwing up of the headlines made for a repetitive segment on Jay Leno showing these hilarious mistakes.
I remember one botched headline that our regional paper had that after reading it, I spit out my coffee. I SOOO regret not sending it to Leno because it would have easily made the show.
Big headlines in the agriculture section: "INCEST INFESTATION EXPECTED FROM THE NORTH". I showed this to my elderly mother at her kitchen table and she didn't get it so I had to explain the gaff. I still don't think she got it. Obviously the first word was supposed to be INSECT.
...although there still must be at some of the higher-end publications like The Atlantic
where I don't see egregious errors.
Nor do I or the NY Times.
It's a sad commentary though that even the most basic of pre-publishing efforts
commonly managed well by High School papers and the free weeklies of yore...
would alone elevate most of the trash being offered to the uninformed.
Some have said this has not happened by mistake.
I blame a declining education system, where "graduates" are not properly versed in English. Some then some go on to become poorly-qualified teachers and journalists. Then some get promoted such that the editors aren't any better qualified than those whose works they are editing.
I see so many examples of poor English and poorly-organized articles. Some are even more or less incoherent.
How to deal with it? What is there to do? If you don't know what they are trying to say, then just move on.
For me the bigger problem is credibility. When an author writes stuff that includes obvious and glaring errors ( factual and English ), then one cannot actually "believe" much of anything that is being read.
So. I read a lot of stuff and I don't accept anything as factual unless I know it to be true. If it is from a "credible" source, then I consider it possibly true.
And please don't get me started on unfounded assertions presented as "facts" on social media.
I blame a declining education system, where "graduates" are not properly versed in English. Some then some go on to become poorly-qualified teachers and journalists. Then some get promoted such that the editors aren't any better qualified than those whose works they are editing.
I see so many examples of poor English and poorly-organized articles. Some are even more or less incoherent.
How to deal with it? What is there to do? If you don't know what they are trying to say, then just move on.
For me the bigger problem is credibility. When an author writes stuff that includes obvious and glaring errors ( factual and English ), then one cannot actually "believe" much of anything that is being read.
So. I read a lot of stuff and I don't accept anything as factual unless I know it to be true. If it is from a "credible" source, then I consider it possibly true.
And please don't get me started on unfounded assertions presented as "facts" on social media.
When we started the Functional Writing Tests (passing was a graduation requirement and there were no "alternates" to do like today) in Maryland almost forty years ago we were told that the scoring would be "holistic" (which meant that the student followed the prompt and the Topic, Audience, Purpose and Format) and spelling, punctuation and grammar would not be taken into account.
We are now seeing those results in the third generation since.
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Obviously the first word was supposed to be INSECT.