|
|
|
|
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 4/21/2008 9:33:20 PM | regarding Autism there's a very interesting theory proposed (or perhaps just developed) by Simon Baron-Cohen, a professor of developmental psychopathology and director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge. So.... not Jeff from down the pub.
His theory states that human "minds" lie on a line, between "empathising" on one end, and "systematising" on the other. Males tend to cluster towards systematising, whereas women tend to cluster towards empathising. Naturally this isn't to say either gender can't be in the middle or even in "enemy territory". I'm probably closer to the middle than the average man, for example.
The autistic mind, however, is so far down towards systematising that it makes it hard for them to communicate. Autistics systematise everything, they see the patterns within things and are drawn to them, and away from the "normal". Conditions such as Asberger Syndrome and other highly functioning Autistics sit on the edge of the "normal bubble". Able to interact with people, but their empathising is poor, and they struggle to manage the chaos of interaction with people, though they excel at interaction with logical systems (computers, mathematics, etc).
This line, between systematising and empathising, and the clustering of men towards one end and women towards the other, is why male autistics outnumber females by more than 4:1. Because basically all males are kind of a bit autistic anyway. :)
Though thought that arises from that is an interesting one. Is there a logical "other end"? If you can be "too systematised", outside of the normal range at the male end, is it possible to be the same at the other end? Is there a behaviour pattern that would essentially be "female autism"? Overly empathic? Possibly prone to uncontrollable emotion?
My guess is that the "normal" range extends much further down that end than it does at the systematic end. People who are far down that end would not come across as odd, or difficult, and they would probably just be considered... highly strung, emotional, etc.
People with Dyslexia tend to be able to better read, arabic, chinese and other languages they are written backwards or like in mirrors, .... also make better workers at Telstra, for example, as they don`t have the trouble with coloured wires others have.
Sorry, but I don't think this is right. Colour vision and dyslexia are utterly unrelated. | |
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 4/21/2008 11:31:18 PM | yes i missed that too.. agreed.
No Dyslexic People definately cant read arabic etc.. and colour blindness is unrelated . and now were off topic | |
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 4/22/2008 12:54:13 AM | Not really to question one but,
it got me thinking of how important first impressions are,
I have a problem when a person emulates Americanisms into their writings. Such as,
Are we, or I'm, done here.
I got a bad feeling.
You go girlfriend.
From the get go.
You want some of this?
Bring it on.
It ain't nothing, suck it in.... or is it up?
There's a lot more and all of it copied from the TV or movies.
When I read something someone has posted I just stop and exit when I hit an Americanism, we have our own vernacular without copying Americans. | |
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 4/22/2008 2:09:34 AM | | I learned to spell the name of my town in grade 1!! I don't think it's shallow. | |
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 4/22/2008 2:16:31 AM | | there are 8 kinds of intelligences.... the verbal/written, only being one of them... some ppl aren't focused on such things and may communicate very effectively verbally... so in answer am i a snob.. no... but i would be frightened off a little if they couldn't formulate some kind of sentence/profile.... | |
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 4/22/2008 2:51:03 AM | Hey chiny! 
Hard not to emulate something that is just a part of our way of modern life .. but it got me thinking. Im a closet geek when it comes to language and urban language/poetry LOVE it.
Even much of the american language is adopted from different cultures which influence it.
Unfortunately english is a barstardised language. A mongrel language made up of a hotchpotch of slangs and sayings from another country and moulded into what is is now by circumstance, location and enviroment.
Im no scholar so its a bit of a guess . but the point is.
bangers and mash.. english
ballet and cigarette .. french
Ciao... italian
from acronyms like the F word which comes from Fornication Under Consent of the King. Its things like this which form our language our modern day language
Take the word bling many think its been around for the most of the recent few years. But it was coined from a jamican word . Used in a song by the Silver Tones called Bling Bling Christmas back in the good old days as it were!!!.
I love the way our language flows and evolves imagine if one only spoke as one should. How staid it would be.
I get that its really not correct use of the language we speak and while not all words are appropriate it wasnt that long ago damn was considered really bad word.
Just for you parents of teens lol bit of fun!
Shawty got a great booty, she no ditch pig. Shes blindin .
Shawty.. a young girl or sexy girl
booty.. butt..ass usually big.
ditch pig.. ugly girl.. similar to bush pig.
blindin ... someone who looks sh!t hot.
Indo smokin conrgress go hard, but do nulips go soft.
Indo.... weed, dope
congress... large group of stupid people.
nulips.... testicles.
as i said i am a bit of a geek but I like the way language evolves. Id hate not to understand something just because i dont know what it means. I dont have to use it but i would like to find a way to accept it.. but thats just me.
And it messes with the kids when i know the language they speak and understand. Its a great trump card! | |
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 4/22/2008 3:19:14 AM |
Does "being educated" mean you're a better person?
At the risk of stating the obvious, being educated makes you a better person if you define a person as a creature who is better off in life by being educated. Ask yourself the opposite question to understand what I'm talking about. "Does being uneducated mean you're a better person?" If the answer was YES then why would anybody bother to get an education? So then being educated must mean that you're a better person than an uneducated person. I feel like I'm explaining all this to a five year old. | |
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 4/22/2008 3:35:56 AM | | NO...I'm not a literacy snob. Some of the most valuable things/lessons that I have learnt in life were from people with very poor literacy skills. | |
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 4/22/2008 3:48:54 AM | English as a second Language...how could that make me a snob???.....
I am not a snob unless you do pop offs and burps ...make ridiculous sounds when eating and drinking then I am the biggest snob or should I say it would drive me nuts........... 
I always think of snobs as shallow....
I am so down to earth, earth cuddles me .....
By the way I had to spell check ridiculous | |
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 4/25/2008 7:02:54 PM |
When you read someone's profile, do you instantly dismiss them because of spelling/grammatical errors? I definitely notice, and I'll dismiss it if they show a blatant disregard for the language.
Does it make you think less of them? Yes. In direct proportion to the amount of time they spent trying to make it right. If you're bad at spelling, you know it. You could have at least asked a friend to proofread it.
Does "being educated" mean you're a better person? No. My best friend went to college, and now she looks down her nose at me, because she knows trivia about wars that happened 100 years ago. She also hates her job and makes less money than I do. So who really wins?
If someone had a great pic, cool interests, but didn't use punctuation or spellcheck, would you still contact them? I've never seen it... But theoretically, I suppose it would depend on my mood.
I cringed when I read a profile where the guy spelt the name of his town wrong. Personally, I cringed when I noticed that not one, but SEVERAL replies used 'spelt' instead of 'spelled'. Pot, meet kettle. I think you should cut the guy a little slack. | |
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 4/25/2008 9:02:16 PM | For sure.
I try so hard to weather the typos but I'm attracted to literacy, damn it! | |
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 4/26/2008 1:04:21 AM |
Conditions such as Asberger Syndrome and other highly functioning Autistics sit on the edge of the "normal bubble". Able to interact with people, but their empathising is poor, and they struggle to manage the chaos of interaction with people, though they excel at interaction with logical systems (computers, mathematics, etc).
Austism (and Aspergers) are 'spectrum' disorders and diagnosed across a variety of different criteria so empathy vs systematising (is that really a word?) would only be part of the story.
In fact people with autism feel all the normal range of emotions but its hard for them to understand the expression of these things. Where empathy is the capacity to imagine other people's feelings, my teenage autistic son is very empathetic but you had to TELL him when he was younger that you were angry (or whatever) since he couldn't recognise the signs of emotion from the look on your face, or body language. Teeth gritted and steam coming out your ears wouldn't do it for him.
Just the same as for any of us, he has learnt as he's got older. Partly through experience.
People who are far down that end would not come across as odd, or difficult, and they would probably just be considered... highly strung, emotional, etc. Isn't this 'hysterical'? Which would explain why women coping with hormonal fluctuations find it so amusing.
More on topic, the one thing that sticks out to me on profiles and in posts is where the person has stated that they are intellegent or want an intelegent woman, or worse, they think intellegence matters. In general an occasional spelling mistake isn't going to tell the whole story. | |
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 4/26/2008 3:33:44 AM | Obviously I'm!!!!
And I make no apologies for it.
For those of you ready to jump at me and slice my throat, there is a bit of a surprise. I'm a wog.
My native language, the one I learned from the time I was about two years old until I was fully grown up (Or so I have been told) is Spanish. So, to learn English took me quite a bit of effort and I try to speak it properly. OK, sometimes I do not, but I still try. As a consequence, if someone that has had the benefit of learning English as their first language, speaks it in a sloppy way disappoints me greatly. Call me a snob if you want. I do not care.
The fact remains, language is a tool for communication and if we do not use it properly, how on earth are we going to know what we are saying to each other? | |
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 4/28/2008 12:16:51 AM | I wouldn't call myself that; just well read from my perspective. I like to think that i can communicate with most people at some stage, but i don't jump right in. I like to see what the people i'm around like & have to say before i contribute anything. Though i have learned that this in itself can be taken as shyness, or even snobbery....! Work that out.
Having said that, the ability to communicate via the written word correctly when necessary is something that i do view highly in a potential partner, and even just potential friends either male or female. It's one thing to mangle languauge simply for the sake of space in a text message or in spoken conversations, but to use that same stilted & jumbled version of grammar (When it matters & needs to be done correctly) in an everyday written communique? No thanks!
A better impression is made with me if you can spell past a year 7 level than any amount of money or beauty.
When it comes to dyslexia & autism, who cares? As long as the people affected by these disorders make the effort to try, then they are making better progress; and they in turn earn my respect more than other individuals who simply cant be bothered to write things as has been laid down in our education systems for the last hundred plus years (with the exception of the last 25 or so years, when "competency" based education replaced the previous "competitive" & graded systems).
Does that make me a snob? Perhaps, but i'm willing to wear it, & i'll say something else; my kids aren't growing up with bad manners or language either, & i believe that will make them richer than anything else in the world, regardless of what their eventual profession becomes. | |
|
| |
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 4/28/2008 11:41:35 PM | I think twice when I see bad spelling/grammar trying to work out if there's a reason why it is not so good, eg if English is not their first language etc. Combine it then with the rest of the profile. I may be able to spell and use a few commas and full stops but I'm certainly no intellectual giant. Vice versa could the case.
What is annoying in profiles is when someone writes a long long self-description and does not use paragraphs, just a whole heap of ..........'s!!
............... ................... (oops) | |
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 5/1/2008 6:50:31 AM | Some interesting ideas here. A lot of people confusing 'education' with 'schooling'. Victorian schools originally worked to feed the offices of the industrial revolution (among other things) with people who could write a fair hand and spell and figure accurately. It worked for a lot of the students, but most left school at 12 and went to work having been more or less well 'schooled'.
Yes, I was a spelling snob until I became an Adult Literacy tutor and met people who had been marginalised at school for having low skills in reading/writing and/or math. So they developed oral skills, took manual jobs, made good marriages and raised lovely children. They had more commonsense than I had for all my tertiary 'education'. My 'tutoring' was mainly removing old hurtful labels and I learned much more than I ever taught. | |
|
Hagars
|
Joined: 4/20/2008
Msg: 43 | |
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 8/10/2008 9:56:29 AM | | I cdnuolt blveiee that I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd what I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch sdtuy at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in what oerdr the ltteres in a word are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is that the frsit and last ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it whotuit a pboerlm. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt | |
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 8/10/2008 8:43:37 PM | Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 4/26/2008 1:04:21 AM
Conditions such as Asberger Syndrome and other highly functioning Autistics sit on the edge of the "normal bubble". Able to interact with people, but their empathising is poor, and they struggle to manage the chaos of interaction with people, though they excel at interaction with logical systems (computers, mathematics, etc).
Austism (and Aspergers) are 'spectrum' disorders and diagnosed across a variety of different criteria so empathy vs systematising (is that really a word?) would only be part of the story.
In fact people with autism feel all the normal range of emotions but its hard for them to understand the expression of these things.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>well put dimeadozen and i really dont like to hear of all people with autism categorised into boxes-i have worked with hundreds of kids with autism and they are all different-certainly they all have autism-but they are individuals....also most people who ive spoken to who are directly affected-parents or individuals with autism-prefer to be referred to that way-people with autism - not "autistics"-its kind of like saying they are just their autism- and they are so much more....back on topic-id better not be a snob about spelling as i never punctuate lol my typing is slow enough without slowing down even more for that | |
|
diak
|
Joined: 7/5/2008
Msg: 45 | |
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 8/11/2008 3:12:44 AM | As someone who, I confess, spent a weekend driving around Brisbane with friends looking for egregious examples of apostrophe abuse, I am a literacy "snob"; I reject the title of course, I prefer the Robert Hughes nomenclature of "unashamedly elitist".
The sad thing was we found apostrophe abuse on a sign in the University of Queensland. And yes, I have noticed that the state name of Queensland also should have an apostrophe! | |
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 8/11/2008 3:44:04 AM | I was brought up to be an intellectual snob, probably because our family at some stage had fallen out of the upper classes (long, long before my time) and had to feel superior about something. But I found that some of the loveliest or cleverest or kindest or... you get the idea... people couldn't spell, used incorrect grammatical terms in and didn't crack open a book from one year to the next. By my own values, some of these people were far more, well, good than me, and I felt hypocritical looking down my nose at them.
On the other hand, and there is always another hand, if you flog your friends at Scrabble too much, it's not a big challenge.
Lastly, about the autism thing, I read somewhere the engineers (of all varieties) are for more likely to father (yes, I know women can be engineers) children with autism. And that brings the whole story full circle, because when I was at James Cook Uni 20 years ago, majoring in boys and booze (I failed), they used to say things like "I didn't use to be able to spell enginear, now I are one." | |
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 8/11/2008 4:27:16 AM | | Wlel tahnk God I dnot hvae to witre my pstos lkie tihs. I gesus rsecrah and sitdeus are wroht it. Pploee jdgue bkoos by tiher cvroers ... end of the day its a jedmugnt clal we all hvae to mkae,,, Let me konw if I got tihs rhigt | |
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 8/12/2008 3:39:14 AM | Hi mystarispurple,
This is me! I don't think it makes me a better person...........but , I love someone well spoken!!!
I don't care about photos. If someone can spell and has good grammar............. I'm smitten.
If you can't spell, there is always "spell check".
I'm a "word whore." Someone who speaks well & is proud of that..................... Ohhh!!!
What more could a girl ask for????
It's nice to know ,others place importance on being able to speak the Queens English!!!! | |
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 8/12/2008 4:25:27 AM | Umm, I myself float somewhere between literacy snob and literacy slob.
Honestly I like to read a post or profile that's well constructed, makes sense, makes me smile and gives an insight as to what's important to the writer. I don't need to agree with what I read to be impressed by it.
Smart is sexy in my book, and some girls should come with a warning sign: "Smart chic approaching, prepare to drool..."
On the other hand I often get a bit loose and lazy with my own ramblings, but such is life... | |
|
| Are you a literacy snob?
Posted: 8/12/2008 5:02:29 AM | I'll always try and choose my words carefully. I love words ...., and really apreciate precise words from others.
Of course, we should never judge someone because their vocab is less than we would prefer....,
and then there's the other extreme where a person is deliberately too wordy and is just an 'ego masseuse'.
......, but we are human...., and humans do judge...., and if your smart you'll keep quiet....,
...., and at least be polite and tactfull if another persons communication skills are less than you would prefer.....,
....., because it's important to allow other people their own choices.
Of course 'being educated' does not make you a better person....,
but being 'snobbish' about being better educated is of course just plain stupid.
Having spouted that....., if someone's profile has way too much in the way of bad spelling, punctuation and shortened hybrid words...., well I glaze over and lose interest very quickly.
First impressions are paramount and if someone is too lazy in their communications well it gives me a big negative picture. | |
|
|
|
Home
login 
