Tag Archives: language

On Limited Literacy

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Is it wrong to be prejudiced against people who don’t even try to be literate?

I mentioned in my blog that I sometimes allow rated helicopter pilots to fly my aircraft on ferry flights for my flight cost. This is a substantial savings over what they’d pay to rent an aircraft to build time. In addition, they get the chance to fly a long cross-country flight (usually around 10 hours over two days) with an experienced pilot.

I get e-mails from people who are interested in this opportunity. The most recent arrived yesterday:

Yes sir i was intrested in biulding some time i am a commercial rated pilot with 250hr most in a robinson 22 i really need this chance to fly thank you for your time.

Although he managed to capitalize the first letter of the first word and put a period after the last word everything in between is a mess. Spelling? Punctuation? Is this what our schools are churning out?

Keep in mind that he sent me this message using the contact form on my Web site. A Web site that displays my name in the browser’s address bar when viewed. A web site that includes my name, bio, and other information in all kinds of places. Yet he addressed me as “sir.” I figured he’d somehow missed that I was a woman.

Still, the whole message put me in a foul mood. My response got to the point:

Do you have an R44 endorsement?

Maria

Without an R44 endorsement and 10 hours of flight time in R44s, you cannot fly an R44 with a passenger (even me) aboard. No exceptions.

Note that I included my name, just in case he really did miss it the first time.

His reply:

no sir im afraid i do not have it i would be willing to get one if you could let me know what it would take to get one thanks for your time

He didn’t even bother trying to get capitalization or punctuation right this time. Perhaps his shift key broke.

And I wasn’t about to let him get away with “sir” again. I replied:

First of all, I’m not a “sir.” Maria is a woman’s name. You sent an e-mail message to the woman who owns and operates the company and flies the aircraft.

If you don’t have an R44 endorsement, you cannot fly the aircraft. I’m sorry. If you want to get an R44 endorsement, talk to a flight school that operates R44s.

Maria

I’m bugged by this exchange. I’m bugged that someone bordering on illiterate — or too damn lazy to even try to get his spelling, punctuation, or grammar right — has the nerve to ask if he can fly my aircraft. There’s no way in hell I’d let anyone who communicates like that at the controls.

Being a commercial pilot is more than just taking flight lessons and getting the appropriate ratings. If this guy can’t write, how do I know he can read? That he understands the training materials he was given? That he took the time to read the pilot operating manual?

You might argue that he must have because he passed a written and oral test — two of each, in fact — to get as far as he did. But how do I know the quality of his CFI or pilot examiner? Or in the case of sheer laziness, if he’s too lazy to create two short e-mail messages written in proper grammar, why should I do him any favors at all? Frankly, I think even responding to him was going beyond the call of duty here.

Am I wrong to believe that written communication should be created with some semblance to proper grammar? Am I wrong to thumb my nose at people who fail to meet even the lowest tests of their ability to communicate in writing by composing two or three complete sentences?

Is this what our schools are churning out?

Computer Gender

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Start the New Year with a laugh.

I got this from a relative of mine who occasionally sends funnies in e-mail. I thought I’d reproduce it here. I have no idea what the source is, but if you know or if it’s yours, let me know. I’ll either properly attribute it or remove it as required. (Unlike other Web site owners out there, I comply with copyright law.)

A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

House for instance, is feminine: la casa. Pencil, however, is masculine: el lapiz.

A student asked, “What gender is computer?”

Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether computer’ should be a masculine or a feminine noun.  Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men’s group decided that computer should definitely be of the feminine gender (la computadora), because:

  1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;
  2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;
  3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and
  4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

The women’s group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine (el computador), because:

  1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;
  2. They have a lot of data but still can’t think for themselves;  
  3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and
  4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

The women won.

Apologies to the men out there.

And to keep thing straight, I need to point out that my computer’s built-in translator claims computer, in Spanish, is el ordenador.

On Censoring Dictionaries

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Why?

This morning, one of my Twitter friends @mjvalente linked to an article on John Gruber’s Daring Fireball blog, “Ninjawords: iPhone Dictionary, Censored by Apple.”

As a writer, I’m bothered by most forms of censorship, so I read what Gruber had to say. He described Ninjawords, an iPhone dictionary application, and had all kinds of glowing praise for it, followed by the meat of the problem:

It’s a terrific app — pretty much exactly what I’ve always wanted in an iPhone dictionary, and, yes, with both a better user experience and better dictionary content than the other low-cost dictionaries in the App Store.

But Ninjawords for iPhone suffers one humiliating flaw: it omits all the words deemed “objectionable” by Apple’s App Store reviewers, despite the fact that Ninjawords carries a 17+ rating.

Apple censored an English dictionary.

Gruber goes on to point out just how idiotic this is and, frankly, I can’t disagree with anything he has to say. Dictionaries should include all words in common usage; the words that were removed — words like shit and fuck — can be heard daily on cable television and in schoolyards.

My question is this: By removing them, are they trying to pretend that these words don’t exist?

Whatever.

This morning, I used the Dictionary widget, that’s part of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard on my Mac. I use this tool often throughout my work day to make sure the words I’m using in my work are the right words or to look up words I’ve heard but am unclear on meaning. With Gruber’s post fresh in my mind, I decided to see what would happen if I looked up shit.

Shit in the Dictionary WidgetGuess what? As you can see in this screen shot, it was there.

So was fuck.

So Apple makes a dictionary with “objectionable content” available as part of its operating system, which can be used by anyone — including school children! — but will not allow an iPhone (and iPod Touch?) app with the same content?

You might argue that the Dictionary widget and application in Mac OS X are protected by Parental Controls. But how many kids who are unfamiliar with these words are likely to be buying dictionary apps? And with these words in common usage throughout the U.S., how many kids do you think have never heard them? And isn’t there some educational value to understanding the true meaning of a word and its usage? I don’t know about you, but I find the Dictionary Widget information shown here quite illuminating. I especially enjoy the “unobjectionable” explanations of the phrases.

This all goes back to George Carlin’s routine “The Seven Words.” The whole routine — not just the words. (If you follow that link and watch the clip on YouTube, watch the whole thing, including his reasoning. George Carlin was a genius.) They’re just words, people. They’re not going to bite you or make you immoral or cause you to want to kill someone. They’re individual words — not even used in sentences to communicate a message. Just plain words.

Sorry, but it just doesn’t make sense to cut them out of the dictionary.

And removing other words with perfectly acceptable meanings — words that even appear in the Bible! — just because they also have “objectionable” meanings only makes matters worse. A cock is a bird. An ass is a donkey. (Gruber’s post lists more of them.) Should kids be kept in the dark about these meanings, too?

Apple, you know I love you — I’ve been using Macs and writing about them since 1989 — but you’re being silly. Cut it out. You’re embarrassing us.