Rant - I'm Sure I'm Not Alone

[cosmicfolklore]

Reading and writing has always seemed like magic to me... I open a book and run my eyes across these picto-symbols that represent sounds, formed into words that represent ideas, that come together to form worlds, people, actions, events, ideas... and as my eyes quickly scan pages faster and faster, the process becomes like being transported into other places, times, people... I've tried to listen to audiobooks, but nothing puts you in the active process of mind-melding with the author like actually reading. Listening is passive, while reading is active.
Writing is like the same. When in the first phases of writing, just putting the ideas down and building a world brick by brick, spelling, rules, and everything fades away, and your brain is connected to the paper in the typewriter, or the scratches of a #2 on paper, or :::sigh::: the screen of a monitor. Then I am always amazed at how close to following all of the rules of spelling and grammar I have followed in writing the story. But, of course, the art is in the editing.
Magic! Art, music, movies, all have their own sort of magic, but reading and writing always strikes me as the closest to classical wizardry that one can come to... symbols with power, spells, incantations, the faster you read the more real the illusion becomes, and then the author is actually whispering in your ear, you are actually in the room... on a different world... with real people, some you trust more than others, and... well... it's magic!

 

[lostandfound]

Trivial? Hardly! The inability to present a thought is sad. A reflection on the poster, his teachers and his parents.

An unwillingness to take the time to post a literate message, to me, exhibits a disdain for the other members which also reflects poorly on the writer, parents and educators. There is also the image a self-centered individual who over values his importance and his message, expecting the readers to spend time decoding the message. My time is too valuable for that.

We're all born with varying degrees of capability, Warren. Some are profoundly capable. Everything they touch turns to gold. Some are vastly incapable, everything they touch turns to, well... Shit. Most of us fall somewhere in between. Some of us have great literary skills, and some of us excel in maths. Some of us, try as we might, just can't figure 2 + 2, and others will never understand the difference between there, they're, and their. I can hardly judge a man based on his abilities and inabilities. Willingness, and unwillingness- suggest maybe a more deeply rooted psychological or emotional "issue". Again, not something I'm willing to base another human beings merits on. I've seldom walked in another man's shoes, after all.
If you want to talk about exhibitions, and images, and presuppositions about others' expectations- it's in my opinion that those are all self-created images, and have nothing to do with actual reality, more than likely.
Back to my original point: I too, value my time, as does every other living being. I value it so much in fact, that after realizing- at the tender age of twenty-seven, I too was turning into a curmudgeon, I decided that (for myself, anyway)- spending the rest of my years in a miserly state would be a waste, and a grievance upon the life I'm so fortunate to be able to experience.
I now choose to not pick out the faults in others, experience joy as my default state, and give thanks for every single micro and macroscopic blessing, that has been bestowed upon me.

 

[northernneil]

@ lostandfound. Very well said! I could not agree with you more
:clap:

 

[toobfreak]

I took ceon in a class they had no trouble decoding the human mind, proved sentences where words are the letters in the jumbled but for the lack of difficult people makes it read the key to shift??? Damn.
Sheesh... Good thing my auto things capitalizes phone.

Spelling, syntax and grammar may not be an absolute necessity in every occurrence, but as tools of convention, they sure do make it a lot easier to get our points across more clearly, and more basically, show as equal a respect to the reader that the writer no doubt hopes for himself.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Do you guys know why we call upper-case, "upper-case" and lower-case, "lower-case"?
When the printing press was invented, they had no rules of punctuation, nor capitalization. The only rule was the first letter had to be BIG, the rest of the letters were small. That was it, no other grammar, spelling, nor capitalization. But, there were less Big letters for the printing press, so they were all in a smaller box, because you only need one per page. So, they stored those letters on the shelf above the press. Thus, it became known as the Upper-case letters.

There had to be multiple letters of the smaller ones, so the box for them was huge, and could only be stored beneath the press. Thus, lower-case. ::

No lie

 

[toobfreak]

I just looked that up and damn, Cosmic, you are absolutely correct. Much of our language is replete with all kinds of carry-overs from an earlier time. The time will come when books, magazines and printing presses will be largely a thing of the past, more of a historical thing rather than viable business anymore, and like so many other things like drive-ins, that will make me sad to see another part of my world pass on into history.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Oh, and the letters are arranged on a keyboard in the manner that it is, so that salesmen could easily type out the word "typewriter" on the first line with one-hand. Think of that. In stead of using alphabetical order, that hodge-podge of letters is arranged that way to better sell something that is no longer even used. ::

 

[kane]

My preferred method is to use my manual typewriter. Used to be all long hand, but years ago went to the typewriter. It's heavy and slow, requires me to sit still, and lets me see the page better than long hand does. I like the sensory experience of typing on a typewriter. Any other typewriter fans here? Text and email for practicality, word processing for final draft. But for writing, it's typewriter or long hand. I think a legal pad and pencil or pen has got to be the most liberating and freest way to go. I think people who have grown up only using computers and phones should acclimate themselves to paper and pencil to see how it will change their writing if they care about these things.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I still have a typewriter, but I've always hated it. I'm a yellow legal pad and #2 pencil kinda guy. But, my handwriting is aweful. I've broken my hand six times while boxing, and I think of my handwriting as a sort of secret code that only I can read. ::

 

[downinit]

claims that the qwerty layout was made to let salesmen impress customers by pecking out the brand name "TYPE WRITER QUOTE" from one keyboard row are not formally substantiated.

Koichi and Motoko Yasuoka: On the Prehistory of QWERTY

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Hmmm, it was in my history of typography textbook from college. But, whatever, ha ha. Like I'm going to fight about something that inane. Ha ha.

 

[warren]

The qwerty keyboard was based on much more than a sales pitch assist. Letter pairs and the alternation of hands to add speed, one hand typing, the other preparing for the next letter, were integral to the position of letter assignments on the keyboard.
lostandfound: You pretty much hit it on the head. When I approach a job for which I have, apparently, less capability/knowledge/dexterity than the next guy, I have to work harder than he is willing to. Or, I can simply accept being second best and not try. I might still come in second but, I'll be the better for the attempt.
You and I obviously measure people by different standards. Not a thing wrong with that of course. I simply prefer to be around people who are always stretching their boundaries. I enjoy the company of people who explore their limits and refuse to accept the reality of some limitations. I was fifty when I finally decided that algebra was not going to beat me. The answer was community college, Algebra 101 and 102. That "D" in the eighth grade just gnawed at me for thirty plus years.
Working only to one's self-determined capabilities and not trying to improve is what I find sad. My hockey coach never accepted that. My bosses never accepted that. My parents never accepted that. And, my teachers never, ever let me determine what my capabilities were. They determined what my capabilities were and made me strive to reach them. I was taught not to set limits on myself, that to do so was lazy and limiting. I am eternally grateful to those people. Reaching one goal meant nothing except it was time to set a new goal.
I never attained every goal but, I certainly learned a lot in the trying. Arnold Palmer knew a perfect round was an impossibility. Still, he made that a goal. I was never the best shot on the department. Wasn't for lack of trying though. Never mastered the guitar either. Still picking. "The great American novel" is still a work in progress, has been for thirty years.
One of the measures I use when judging a person is whether or not they are self-starters and self-sustaining. I have little time for person who does not strive to continually improve. If a poor welder is satisfied with his sloppy work I won't hire him. A person who knows he has poor math skills and strives to improve is worthy of admiration. A person who acknowledges poor skills in communication and refuses to try to improve is not even worth acknowledging. If that person doesn't care, why should I? But, I do. I enjoying prodding someone now and then, hoping to stimulate them to push just a bit. Maybe they will surprise themselves.

 

[prndl]

Good one, downinit.
Good one. :rofl:

 

[mcitinner1]

Do you guys know why we call upper-case, "upper-case" and lower-case, "lower-case"?

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@ Cosmic---Now that was something interesting I had never heard before. Thanks Michael.

 

[cynicismandsugar]

Do you guys know why we call upper-case, "upper-case" and lower-case, "lower-case"?

I'm not sure if this question was rhetorical... but, didn't it have something to do with the type set tiles of the printing press, and how the smaller cased letters were normally stored, by the master printer, in the "lower-cases," while the capital letters were stored in the "upper-cases?"
Then again, I have this strange feeling that I'm making this up.

 

[jpmcwjr]

If you guys had read Cosmic's post a tad earlier in this thread.....

 

[mackeson]

I've turned off my brain as much as possible to being bothered by typos, spelling, and grammatical mistakes. When it bothers me, as it too often does, I just remind myself that while I'm fairly well spoken and well written, I'm a mental midget in math. We all have our strengths and shortcomings.

 

[woodsroad]

"We all have our strengths and shortcomings"
Indeed, we do. But as Warren was positing, how we deal with those limitations are the true measure of a person. Too many of those limitations are self-imposed, or imposed by others but accepted by the individual. And much of what people accept as their own limitations are, in fact, entirely baseless.

 

[ophiuchus]

My preferred method is to use my manual typewriter. Used to be all long hand, but years ago went to the typewriter. It's heavy and slow, requires me to sit still, and lets me see the page better than long hand does. I like the sensory experience of typing on a typewriter. Any other typewriter fans here?

Yes, sir, I keep a couple of them in working shape. ::
I'm hyperlexic with the laptop, but I still like to handwrite a lot of my drafts, then read them to voice recognition software to create the appropriate file. There's still one thing the manual typewriter can do better than pens or printer ... envelopes! To this day, I still type my mailing envelopes on a manual typewriter (this fact also betraying that I still use the mail service for communication). I still compose the occasional personal letter on the Remington Quiet-Riter, though this duty is also usually saved for a fountain pen.

 

[toobfreak]

I've turned off my brain as much as possible to being bothered by typos, spelling, and grammatical mistakes. When it bothers me, as it too often does, I just remind myself that while I'm fairly well spoken and well written, I'm a mental midget in math. We all have our strengths and shortcomings.

Two things though: before the current era of the smartphone, people didn't need to turn anything off because being able to spell and punctuate properly was one of the most important and required things you went to school for to learn! In other words, you just didn't get away with it and it was not tolerated. The other thing is that proficiency in math is an /aptitude/ but proper spelling and punctuation is /literacy./
Some people will never be great at math because they just were not born with the aptitude, but most anyone can learn to spell, write and type reasonably properly and passably unless there's something wrong with them. To do less is just mostly laziness and indifference. Problem is today, it is becoming increasingly accepted in a country (USA) that (2012) ranked 24th in the world in Reading skills, 36th in Math skills, and 28th in Science, yet we spend more per capita on education than any other country.
Source: World Rankings by Nation