Community Chat

[hckynut]

I learned much of the English words through the 7th grade in a Catholic School. From there the few years in high school I learned nothing that applies to how I read/write, or spell.

I had a boss way back in the 1960's that liked to use "words" when talking with me that I didn't know, he probably just looked them up prior to our talk. Decided to 1 up him in his "game" of vocabulary.

Whenever he came to talk with me about the job, when he would throw in his "word", I would pop out my Pocket Dictionary, and say "hold on a minute". Then we continued our talk. Returned his game by using a word I knew he probably had never heard, usually that ended our talk.

Thanks to him I learned a very extensive vocabulary for a high school dropout, and he no longer tried playing "the word game" in our work related conversations.

As I learned more about real life, not by higher education, but by actually living it, everything in my world has been just fine. Do I wish I had gotten a higher education level? Don't feel I have ever needed it in my past, or present life.

@Annabellethecat66 , a nice dissertation about the English language, and more.  I'm not a critic of how anyone puts together words, as long as they make their point. Far be it for me to tell others how to compose and/or spell what they have to say.

Enjoyed reading this, and thank you,

hckynut(john)

[lovesrecess]

I went to a large department store and the first thing I saw was a huge sign on a wall that said “ men’s seperetes”. I immediately mentioned the spelling error it to a sales clerk who said the sign had been there for twenty years and I was the first person to mention it....smh.

[patbz]

I graduated from college in 1966 with a major in English and a minor in journalism.  Both of my parents were also college graduates (unusual for the farm families from which they came in the 1930s).  To say that spoken and written language were important in my family is an understatement (if either my brother or I made an error in grammar we were corrected immediately (I try to do the same for my grandkids).  The other teachers who helped with my language skills included my 12th grade English teacher (who required a thousand words essay weekly), my college Journalism teacher who literally took an entire grade away for each misspelled word in each class assignment (he had a Webster's unabridged dictionary on a pedestal in the front of the room-- we could use it prior to turning in an assignment) and lastly, my professor who taught History of the English Language (I wish I had this class as a freshman in H.S.; I'd have done much better in my H.S. and college French-- really helped when I took two semesters of German after college.  I feel fortunate, even at 75, to have had such a great educational foundation.  It drives DH and me nuts when almost every talking news head on T.V. consistently uses horrible syntax and grammar (almost every newscast; we scream corrections at the television).

[this is my nic]

@lovesrecess 

My maternal grandparents came to the USA from Italy. They obeyed our rules and regulations to enter our country, they worked hard and raised their three children to be Americans.  They refused to teach them Italian.  My mother and her brothers were Americans and they were expected to speak English, and they did.  They also were required to attend school and all of them graduated from high school. My Nonna and Nonno became American citizens and were very proud of their new country.  Just because people come here from other countries doesn't mean they can't learn English and raise their children to be Americans.  Today it seems that immigrants want to continue living as they did in their home countries.  Unfortunately, their children never truly are Americans even though they were born here.  If people don't want to assimilate why are they here?