Let's try this again

[Grgranny]

Re: Let's try this again

Cynic, It's funny, but when I first saw your name posting, I thought "Uh oh, this one is going to be trouble". :rollin:
Turns out you're not as cynical as all that.
I really don't know how they are teaching reading, etc. now. I know my children were taught phonics. I think they are not teaching it as much now and that is sad. My grammar formerly was so bad. I didn't realize it. My oldest daughter is an english teacher and she always was so good with grammar that when she was in high school I asked her to correct me. It really helped me a lot. I was brought up saying have went instead of have gone. All kinds of things like that. (She teaches english, second language in Wichita, so all her students are foreigners.)

 

[sk8cynic]

Re: Let's try this again

Grgranny,

I don't think I'm cynical so much as I am warped. :rollin:

Being from the Deep South, I've grown up with a vernacular that, in my book, is part of the English language. I hold these near and dear to my heart.

Examples include "fixin' to," as in "I'm fixin' to go to the store. Y'all need anything?" and "Yon't to" as in Yon't to go out Saturday night?"

OT: Anyone have any geographic lingo they want to share?

 

[Grgranny]

Re: Let's try this again

And I don't even know how to spell this.
Reddin up the table. (Clearing off)
It's Pennsyvania Dutch.

 

[heyang]

Re: Let's try this again

I already explained a bit about my profession in the other thread. So, I'll just explain the rest here.

I'm a single female of Chinese descent. Born in NYC, raised in Peekskill, NY, majored in Computer Science with a minor in business at Rochester Institute of Technology, and moved to New Jersey 11 years ago. I have 1 brother who is married with 2 kids whom I love to play with. Nephew is almost 3 1/2 and niece is about 18 months. My mother is still alive, but my father passed away just before I turned 19.

I'm haven't decided if I'm dreading turning 40 NEXT year. I guess it depends on how comfortable and happy I am with my life at that time.

Besides watching figure skating, I enjoy reading and golfing. I always seem to have the TV on, but more for noise than actually watching - too busy posting on Golden Skate to pay attention to everything on the TV screen.

I consider myself to be a good speller and writer, although I work in a technology field. My SAT scores were pretty even. That's very unusual since most people are stronger at either reading or mathematics - not both. I give credit for my writing skills to Sister Carol Ann, my 7th grade English teacher at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton school; she taught us how to diagram a sentence. This gave me a strong understandingof sentence structure. I also credit Mrs. Collins who was my 10th grade English teacher for drilling us for SAT's - 20 words/week learned via proper usage in sentences and weekly quizzes. Reading also developed my knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. It doesn't matter what is read - I learned the definition of 'fungible' from a Harlequin romance. :rollin:

I think that the increased use of technology in the classroom will be the detriment of basic writing and mathematics. Many people do not realize that spell check and grammar check do not capture the idiosycracies of writing. Reliance upon calculators has supplanted mental arithmetic. People rely upon their veracity and do not 'double check'. Spell check won't distinguish between 'red' and 'read'.

When I read a resume that is poorly written and/or contains spelling errors, I question the thoroughness of a person's work. If he/she cannot spend the time to properly present themselves, I have doubts about his/her work ethic. It never ceases to amaze me when I see a resume from an agency that has been re-typed and still contains errors. This has me questioning the skills of their representatives. I am utterly dumbfounded when someone does not use spell check at work. I receive many work-related e-mails that contain obvious mis-spellings.

Sorry, if I got a bit 'preachy'. Someone who reports to me does not understand why it is important to read what she has written. This has caused some contention with the recipients which I have had to manage. Also, I cannot rely upon her written skills to produce a comprehendable functional specification - which means more work for me.

BTW, apologies for any mis-spellings. I'm not perfect and don't use spell check on message boards.

 

[sk8cynic]

Re: Let's try this again

Heyang, you stated all of that perfectly. Hats off!!

When I was working last (two years ago - quit to stay at home with LittleCyn), a co-worker from the Accounts Receivables department came to me with a form letter to send to delinquent accounts. She was ready to load the paper and start printing these off, but wanted me to check if there were any spelling errors.

Not only were there numerous spelling errors of all kinds, there were also serious grammatical errors, poor choirces of words, run-on sentences, and sentence fragments. After reading it, I tried to point out that she might want to rework some of the letter and correct the spelling. This co-worker got mad at me and huffed off to our supervisor to have her look it over. I don't know how that affected my boss' opinion of her, but I can say that the chick walked out and quit the day she was to be fired.

How she got to the position she worked leaves me bumfuzzled to this day. *shakes head*

 

[Dee4707]

Re: Let's try this again

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I give credit for my writing skills to Sister Carol Ann, my 7th grade English teacher at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton school; she taught us how to diagram a sentence.[/quote]
Heyang, I give so much credit to the nuns that taught me too. Matter of fact there was a person who had many degrees and asked me how many I had. At the time, I didn't and said so; he said my God you handle yourself quite well for not having any education whatsoever. I call that a backas*ward compliment.

One of my job duties includes taking minutes for various committee meetings. I actually suffer over transcribing the minutes because first of all they reflect who I am and the company. I have noticed some of the younger people I work with have very poor writing skills.

Dee

 

[skaterskickbutt]

Re: Let's try this again

If you look at any of my posts on other forum's I always say I can't spell, and my typing skills are WAY off! Luckily, I was smarter in most other things!lol!:lol:

 

[mathman444]

Re: Let's try this again

Hey, Ang! The only misspelling I noticed in your post was "mis-spelling" (no hyphen :lol: ).

Count me among the "if you're so smart in math, why can't you spell?" crowd. Even as I type I have a little Word Perfect window open to type in any words that I'm not sure about (I like Word Perfect's spellchecker better than ezboard's). Also, when I don't know how to spell somebody's name, I go to Google and type in all possible ways to see which one gets the most hits. This doesn't always work, however, since all it shows is how many other people don't know how to spell these names either.

Mathman