One thing significantly different about DU this Primary Season:

The accidental misspellings and strange syntax are weirder...mosre like the RW websites.

Before you start getting excited, we ALL made spelling errors, many in the Subject line, but some of the illiteracy I'm experiencing here is, shall we say, unusual for DU.

Maybe it's just me...anyone else feel this way?

.. are basically victims of the sorry
state of American education and who
lack critical thinking skills.

I remember drilling on spelling and grammar back in the bad old pre-computer days. I look at what passes for education among my nieces and nephews nowadays and it's like "new math" gone rampant. "No, Billy, that is not how we spell 'cat,' but your meaning is clear so it is good enough." And that is on their homework, don't get me started about emails (God forbid they should pick up a pencil and paper. :eyes: Sheesh!)

Son just finished his finals for freshman in high school. Even HE said it was so dumbed down he was embarrassed by it. This was for english lit class in a fairly well to do red state school.

And THESE are the kids who will be taking care of the country in later years? :wow: :wow: :wow:

My great-gran attended a one-room school house in Monterey, California, in the 1890s. The papers showed vocabulary, spelling and reading lists for the third and fourth grade, as well as several papers written by my great-gran -- in ink, using a fountain pen. My grandfather was shocked, as this was stuff he didn't see until fifth and six. When I saw the papers I was shocked; this was material I did not see until jr. high, and I never had these kinds of "penmanship" excercises.

Among the documents were newspaper clippings from the same period. Back then, students who wrote good essays got them published in the paper. Summer reading lists were also published, as were the questions and answers to final exams (after the exams had been given, of course.) The idea, stated in the articles giving this information, was to provide an educational service for the betterment of the community (ie, help educate people who did not get the chance to attend school.)

My grandfather was working on a documentary book showing how public education has radically changed over the last hundred years and NOT for the better. When he died, the papers went to his nephew who has plans to continue this book.

All I can say is, the dumbing down of America is not a recent phenomenon.

I'd hate to be working in a human resources office. I'd be hard put to hire anyone just out of school. :shrug:

would be my guess.

older does not always = smarter


yes, sure, with age comes some degree of understanding, but i am not under the impression that the youth/obama vote is exactly the h.s. dropout pothead headbanger crowd... (no offense to the potheads or headbangers!)


most of the really big and young obama crowds i am hearing about are from pretty damn good colleges.


plus, there are plenty of us overeducated older obama supporters.

and PS spell check your OP. ;)

:evilgrin:

I think the homorable thing is to let it stand. :rofl:

anxious to get their position posted. In the primaries people get in a fever-pitch. No surprise that typos increase. When blood pressures return to normal the typos will become less frequent, I imagine.

continually edits because he forgits to push the spell check button or REREAD what sounded good before the fingers translated, please write this off as passion and fattigue. I know better. I am too lazy even to correct the journal where I still wince at the rushed flaws.

We know better and end up freeping the English anyway.

Hope this makes one and all appreciate the candidates who must SPEAK under extreme duress every single day. Cast no stones.

I can think of many names who posted here in that election that are no longer around. Also there were a different attitude/feel around here and on Democratic websites.

How soon some of us forget the dark times...when we didn't have a Keith Olbermann or Air America and a beltway press corpse still enraptured by boooshie's codpiece. The discussions at that time wasn't who would be our leader as much as who would have the guts to stand up. The McCarthyite attitude of the country and the corporate media limited the debate except for places like DU.

'04 was also a unique as the netroot were just getting organized. The Dean campaign was the first it flexed its muscles is nowhere near the force or voice in both the Democratic party and the corporate media than it is now.

I still see some very good discussions going on here...you just have to wade through the astroturfing, ranting and vanity posts.

:hi:

This site and a select few others were the ONLY places to get real news, and a non-corporate viewpoint.

Yeah, I'm a smartass; I know you meant "more."

I hadn't really noticed a new decline. Frankly, I've always been dismayed at what a large contingent here are marginal. I had expected better, somehow. Generally, I let it all slide, because I know I'm just as guilty of bashing something off in a hurry and wailing over its imperfections too late.

If what you're suggesting is that we have an influx of Neanderthals...who cares?

more and more people calling this place "the DU" instead of just "DU," and "Democrat Party" instead of Democratic Party."

I occasionally see people with 1000 posts use those, and it makes me suspicious every time I see it.

Makes more typoes. :bounce:

mos·re < mosree >

adverb

Definishun:

1. mainely: almose intireree
The audience wuz mosree made up of yunger fans.

2. usually: on mose occasuns, or for the mose part