Cheating Boyfriends

And yet most of these people, if you listen to them talk, it's nowhere near that bad. So what happens differently when going from brain to mouth vs brain to pen (or keyboard)? It's more than just spelling. It must have something to do with lack of reading.

Dragon Naturally Speaking (voice to text software) is basing their entire current radio ad campaign on this phenomenon.

Quote: Chuck

And yet most of these people, if you listen to them talk, it's nowhere near that bad. So what happens differently when going from brain to mouth vs brain to pen (or keyboard)? It's more than just spelling. It must have something to do with lack of reading.

Dragon Naturally Speaking (voice to text software) is basing their entire current radio ad campaign on this phenomenon.

Reading is, and has been becoming, passe'. The last ten years have been especially bad. Nowadays, kids communicate in absurd little text messages: "OMG. Jst stpped in dog poop. Had pnut btr snwch 4 lunch." The only way anyone under 18 reads a book these days is if they are forced to by a teacher. Reading as recreation is a dead dodo of a concept among the young.

I think that Dragon and other crutches won't really solve the problem. It's a symptomatic cure at best, and narrowly focused at that. What happens when one of these maleducated people eventually has to sit down and write a letter? In many arenas, the ability to write is still a primary marker of intelligence and competence. It's a skill that no one can do without if they don't want to be marginalized.

One thing I do when I'm bored is go through the front section of the Oregonian to see how many grammatical, syntactical, and spelling errors I can find. I've never found less than a dozen, and that's kind of appalling when you consider that every inch of copy has been proofread by at least half a dozen people.

Dragon's not really trying to solve the problem, they're marketing their product as "Shitty writer? No problem.".

I suppose it is a band-aid of sorts, if the end written product is better than it would otherwise have been.

Quote: mkl654321

That post serves as yet another reminder of why I'm an English teacher.

If I could change the topic just a bit, for a moment, we're in need of an English teacher to translate gibberish into English in the craps investment opportunity thread.

Despite removing all the personal information, the person who sent the question begged me to remove everything. So I did. Again, sorry to step on your posts. For what it is worth, I've seen even worse letters than hers.

Quote: Wizard

If I could change the topic just a bit, for a moment, we're in need of an English teacher to translate gibberish into English in the craps investment opportunity thread.

If there's any way I can see it, then I'll fix it, presuming that it can be fixed.