 sj |
||
|
||
BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU!
|
|
|
|||||||
|
BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! |
Share Thread
|
||||||
|
Subject: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: Clinton Hammond Date: 29 May 03 - 01:05 PM From CNN News *singing* "Teach... your children well...." |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: Bill D Date: 29 May 03 - 01:44 PM ... oh, foo.... "yes, indeed"! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: Bill D Date: 29 May 03 - 01:47 PM can't be clever if I can't get it RIGHT, hmmm? ... oh, foo.... "yes, indeed"! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: Midchuck Date: 29 May 03 - 01:47 PM So you're saying that the language is being destroyed by the religious Right on one side and the politically correct Left on the other, in equal measures, and it took a news article to make you notice the fact? Meaning no offense, Clinton, but have you been out of town for thirty years? Peter. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: Clinton Hammond Date: 29 May 03 - 01:54 PM Not at all Midchuck... Just posted the article as a way of keeping the downward spiral fresh in everyones minds... YOUR GOVERNMENT -IS- CONTROLLING THE WAY YOU THINK FOLKS! :-) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: Clinton Hammond Date: 29 May 03 - 01:56 PM oops.. premature posting... I also figured that historians/folklorists/songwriters might be interested in the updated list of 'verboten' words... So maybe this thread does have a musical angle eh? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: artbrooks Date: 29 May 03 - 01:59 PM Doesn't seem to be the government...the article says textbook publishing is controlled by four main publishers and they aim to sell texts state by state, thus forcing them to dumb down the books and make the language as inoffensive as possible, so it appears that we are doing it to ourselves...not for the first time. Anybody out there involved in selecting school textbooks? Don't buy from these people! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: M.Ted Date: 29 May 03 - 04:25 PM It is true that this "dumbing down" is market driven, Art, but it is also true that the market are state and local boards of education. Textbooks have always presented things in a bland and overly general way. They tend to be blandly written, as well--good students generally don't get the depth that they need, and all the rest are turned off to the subject because the texts are so boring. For this reason, many teachers heavily supplement the official texts with other materials--which is much easier than it used to be, owing to the internet and destop publishing(but more expensive, because it consumes a lot of paper)--and there are more than a few teachers who never use the textbooks at all, in effect, publishing their own, and handing them out a few pages at a time. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: MMario Date: 29 May 03 - 04:30 PM and to some extent the paranoia of the text book publishers, and the education departments about this has been caused by the sue-happy public. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: Dave the Gnome Date: 29 May 03 - 04:41 PM Is this why you want to change the 22nd ammendment, Clinton? DtG |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: Joe Offer Date: 29 May 03 - 05:05 PM Hmmmm. Gotta think on that. Why would anybody want to change the 22nd amendment, and why Clinton, of all people? Clinton, aren't you Canadian? Or do you just live there? Well, if we'd repeal the 22nd, we could sing this song: (click). -Joe Offer- |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: GUEST Date: 29 May 03 - 05:08 PM maybe the wording of the 22nd amendment should be added to the bad writing thread.... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: Kim C Date: 29 May 03 - 05:22 PM Oh fer the love of Pete... when I was in high school in the 80s, Catcher in the Rye was required reading. I know, it ain't a textbook, but REALLY..... as if kids don't hear a bunch of poppycock on TV and at the movies and on the radio... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: artbrooks Date: 29 May 03 - 07:43 PM Kim C: when I was in high school in the 60s, Catcher in the Rye was banned from the school library...'course, that WAS in Salt Lake City.... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: Rapparee Date: 29 May 03 - 08:26 PM Heavenly days! Oops, sorry, Valhalla Days! When I was in high school we read Huck Finn, Macbeth, the Bible (and this was a Catholic high school!), Animal Farm, 1984, and a slew of others. These were the required reading books for English. For History classes, we read such things as The Prince, The Constitution, and I don't remember what all. Heck, the first ever term paper I was ever assigned was to be at least forty pages long -- double spaced and typed, with footnotes and bibliography. Part of the dumbing down and PC might be found in the teachers' teachers.... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: Joe Offer Date: 30 May 03 - 02:42 AM When he was 18, my son contended that he and his siblings had been brainwashed by their Catholic education. My ex and I sent them to Catholic schools because we thought they'd have more intellectual freedom (and challenge) there. They did, but I don't know if my kids have realized that yet. -Joe Offer- |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: M.Ted Date: 30 May 03 - 12:40 PM Tell them that if they were truly brainwashed, they would be the last ones to know it-- |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: katlaughing Date: 30 May 03 - 12:55 PM CNN is a little slow with this one, CH. Take a look at this earlier thread: Pre-sanitised education. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: Mr Happy Date: 30 May 03 - 10:33 PM 'elderly gentleman river, that elderly gentleman river, he does know something but he doesn't say anything, but elderly gentleman river, he just keeps meandering along' sound familiar? what goes around comes around! 'no man is an island' except the Isle of Person!! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: Joe Offer Date: 05 Jun 03 - 02:17 PM Oh...that was Bill Clinton who wanted to change the 22nd... (click). Hmmm. Maybe I can blame Bave the Gnome for leading me astray. Maybe I can confess that I pay very little attention to BS threads. Maybe I'm just dumb. DUH! -Joe Dummy- |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: Willie-O Date: 05 Jun 03 - 02:41 PM I guess this is satire (it's an excerpt from the article linked in the first post): "She says a lot of people are having fun finding new titles for Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" which presents problems with every word except "and" and "the." Ravitch said old is ageist, man is sexist and sea can't be used in case a student lives inland and doesn't grasp the concept of a large body of water." To which I would add, "and" is pluralistic and therefore unpatriotic, and "the" is both inflexible and "Caribbean-centric" because it implies there's only one sea. Mr Happy, you may think that you're making a satirical reference there, but a few years ago there was a huge kafuffle in Toronto, because an entertainment company decided to stage a production of "Showboat". All these folks got together and started "The Coalition to Stop Showboat", you'd have thought there were no real social justice issues they could be working on. Never mind that Showboat was obviously sympathetic to the oppressed black workers of the south and the music has been performed by leftwing icons like Paul Robeson. It got quite surreal when one of the coalition leaders, a Toronto city councillor, said in a public meeting that "these racist productions are usually put on by persons of Jewish extraction..." The show went ahead, but entrepeneur Garth Drabinsky, who staged it, is now facing about a zillion charges of fraud in both Canada and the U.S. for sleazy financial dealings with his staging company. So I don't know who got the last laugh... W-O |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: Gurney Date: 06 Jun 03 - 03:53 AM It is the same here, too. My lad gets school newsletters (written by teachers) that I have to read three or four times to assimilate the connotations of, contentwise. Soon we won't only be totally politically correct, we'll be doing it in flowery and very ornate double-speak. Hope it comes into full force long from now. Never mind 'the old man and the sea,' How about Dido, Bendigo!' From memory Dido is a deity, Bendigo a person and a place, Gentry is elitist, Traveller seems to be about landless people, Countess elitist again, Rover a Viking raider, Bonalass sounds like bonny lass, sexist, (I think it means good woman)and Jova, another deity. There won't be any music with pith in it, we'll have to take the 'pith' out of it. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: Pied Piper Date: 06 Jun 03 - 07:36 AM As a blind bookworm, who loves to play polo, and sail on my Yacht, with my girlfriend who has a boyish figure, I an appalled that some old biddy should attempt to prevent me from writing children's fiction in the way I want to. Good God Sir. The Hell I will. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: Wilfried Schaum Date: 06 Jun 03 - 08:02 AM Hard to believe. Is this the home of the free? 1984 again with its newspeak? By the way, when will you finally introduce the office of the Handicapper General? Wilfried |
|
Subject: RE: BS: The Language Police are coming for YOU! From: Wyrd Sister Date: 06 Jun 03 - 02:19 PM Apparently we are no longer allowed to "brainstorm" a topic, (possibly offensive to epileptics), we have to "thought shower" instead. |
