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So we are reading aloud in Philosophy and the two reading the B.F. Skinner section are just butchering English. Like I know I don't always spell perfectly or have perfect grammar but I can fucking read.

Some examples of what they butchered.

program as problem
absurd as observe
hops capriciously as hopes capa...skip that word.
assumption as absurdtion?
untenable as unattainable


Those are just a few, and some I could see, if you are reading quick but they were going slow and struggling with lots of words.

How is it that in 2009 people can't read well?

I weap for humanity.

You're reading aloud in what I assume is a college class.

I too weep for humanity.

I weap for humanity.

Covar said:

You're reading aloud in what I assume is a college class.

I too weep for humanity.

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Yes a college class, but it is community college so its basically high school.

I know it is weep, weap was part of the joke... right... obviously... of course. I said I didn't always spell right, and spellchecker doesn't work in the thread title area for some reason.

I weap for humanity.

I was wondering.

I have students in my Freshman class who don't capitalize anything or use punctuation in the emails they send me.

Fear the future.

I weap for humanity.

HoboNinja;304025][quote=Covar said:

You're reading aloud in what I assume is a college class.

I too weep for humanity.

Click to expand...

Yes a college class, but it is community college so its basically high school.

I know it is weep, weap was part of the joke... [/QUOTE]

I didn't even notice that.

To be fair to the students, reading aloud is more difficult than reading to yourself. I always hated having to read aloud since I could read so much faster if I didn't have to say every word I read.

All I can say is English is hard - and I would be considered quite good at it.

some people should not have been allowed to breed but they did anyway. Their their offspring did and so on.

now, 5 centuries later, we have today's teenagers. The end of the world cannot come soon enough

I don't think yesterday's teenagers were any better.

This is a college class?

How the fuck did they get in to begin with.. some of those words, we learned ya know back in like the 2nd or 3rd grade

Mav said:

This is a college class?

How the fuck did they get in to begin with.. some of those words, we learned ya know back in like the 2nd or 3rd grade

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I have freshman who have, and I kid you not, asked me how you take notes on "this thing".
It should be noted "this thing" is a computer.

NAPALM

Math242 said:

NAPALM

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SMELLS WONDERFUL IN THE MORNING

You weep for humanity because some people have trouble reading some of the less common words in the English language aloud?

Allen said:

You weep for humanity because some people have trouble reading some of the less common words in the English language aloud?

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More like these are fairly basic words that most of us learned in grade school and these students are college level students. I mean, even if you gave them a slight benefit of the doubt for reading aloud, they shouldn't have mangled as many words as they did.

Some people get nervous when they have to read out loud to a group of people.

Wildsoul said:

Some people get nervous when they have to read out loud to a group of people.

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This.

There's a fair distance between reading words to yourself and reading words in public.

Also, were these men or women reading?

Also, if you don't really care about what you are reading you can garble words. The examples given seem like words that sound or look similar so maybe the people were just reading to get it over with. I don't think it is a damning condemnation of teenagers in general.

Man, you have no idea the crap that was given to me by my group members last semester for Ethics. Thank christ in a bucket I have no more general education classes left. Somewhere I have the most atrocious grammar sins saved. I just may have to dig it up to show just how mild your experience was.

Reading aloud fucks me up. I'm not like intimidated or jittery about public speaking, but when I'm reading something aloud for the first time, I fuck up words when my internal monologue and actual talking get criss crossed.

You should practice by making more videos.

Reading outloud is a stupid method of learning. People fuck up because they're nervous about fucking up, or some of them just aren't as good at it.

Plus reading by yourself is more effective anyway. I don't weep as much for humanity reading outloud as I would if they just couldn't read. Or write.

This is why I do Toastmasters. Not only because it's an opportunity to hang out with nerds, but the "Grammarian" brings words-of-the-day in to boost one's vocabulary.

Cajungal said:

You should practice by making more videos.

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ACTUALLY we talked about doing it this weekend. Our next door neighbor that we're good friends wish has a decent video camera.

Charlie Dont Surf said:

Our next door neighbor that we're good friends wish has a decent video camera.

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OMFG wish?!?!?! I weep for this board!


Yes, this is hyperbowl

ElJuski said:

Reading outloud is a stupid method of learning. People fuck up because they're nervous about fucking up, or some of them just aren't as good at it.

Plus reading by yourself is more effective anyway. I don't weep as much for humanity reading outloud as I would if they just couldn't read. Or write.

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I agree with this. I was an English Lit major and not a single day of class was wasted on "reading allowed." I haven't done that shit since 6th grade; it's a waste of class time except for the people who don't read for homework like they're supposed to. You're supposed to be learning from the professor during class and having discussion.

escushion;304275][quote=ElJuski said:

Reading outloud is a stupid method of learning. People fuck up because they're nervous about fucking up, or some of them just aren't as good at it.

Plus reading by yourself is more effective anyway. I don't weep as much for humanity reading outloud as I would if they just couldn't read. Or write.

Click to expand...

I agree with this. I was an English Lit major and not a single day of class was wasted on "reading allowed." I haven't done that shit since 6th grade; it's a waste of class time except for the people who don't read for homework like they're supposed to. You're supposed to be learning from the professor during class and having discussion.[/QUOTE]

I assuming you spelled aloud allowed for the dramatic effect?

Mav said:

More like these are fairly basic words that most of us learned in grade school and these students are college level students. I mean, even if you gave them a slight benefit of the doubt for reading aloud, they shouldn't have mangled as many words as they did.

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a) "Untenable" and "Capricious" aren't day-to-day words.
b) That leaves three slip-ups. Between two people. Who apparently aren't strong readers.

If you find that to be weeping material, everything must make you cry.

Mav;304053][quote=Allen said:

You weep for humanity because some people have trouble reading some of the less common words in the English language aloud?

Click to expand...

More like these are fairly basic words that most of us learned in grade school and these students are college level students. I mean, even if you gave them a slight benefit of the doubt for reading aloud, they shouldn't have mangled as many words as they did.[/QUOTE]

Been said already, but the ability to get into college is not indicative of intelligence. I'm having a similar experience in my English 1002 class (finishing up the GE I didn't take), and it's ridiculous.

The best (well, worst) was intro-level plant biology. One of our 'fun' assignments was to plant some seeds, keep them alive for a few weeks, then plant them in the university's greenhouse. This one guy kept coming back and getting new seeds, because he said his would mold and die. Finally, after the third time, the professor sat down with him. I caught this part of their chat:

"...so you're just watering it, right? No additives? Only soil, sun, and water?"
"Soil, sun, air...wait, no food?"
"...food?"

Turns out he'd taken 'feed the plant' literally and had been blending up food and pouring it into the pot with the plant...

that's kind of adorable.

crono1224;304279][quote=escushion;304275][quote=ElJuski said:

Reading outloud is a stupid method of learning. People fuck up because they're nervous about fucking up, or some of them just aren't as good at it.

Plus reading by yourself is more effective anyway. I don't weep as much for humanity reading outloud as I would if they just couldn't read. Or write.

Click to expand...

I agree with this. I was an English Lit major and not a single day of class was wasted on "reading allowed." I haven't done that shit since 6th grade; it's a waste of class time except for the people who don't read for homework like they're supposed to. You're supposed to be learning from the professor during class and having discussion.[/QUOTE]

I assuming you spelled aloud allowed for the dramatic effect?[/QUOTE]

The funny part is, I thought "aloud" in forming the sentence, with that spelling, and then typed "allowed" anyway, and didn't even glance at the text again before posting. :|

makare1 said:

that's kind of adorable.

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I have this image of the Princess Bride's Fezzek as the student.

D'AWWWW

Ravenpoe;304266][quote=Charlie Dont Surf said:

Our next door neighbor that we're good friends wish has a decent video camera.

Click to expand...

OMFG wish?!?!?! I weep for this board!


Yes, this is hyperbowl[/QUOTE]

escushion said:

I was an English Lit major and not a single day of class was wasted on "reading allowed." I haven't done that shit since 6th grade; it's a waste of class time except for the people who don't read for homework like they're supposed to. You're supposed to be learning from the professor during class and having discussion.

Click to expand...

Ugh, for me it was either all or nothing. There were plenty of teachers who didn't force us to read aloud, but the ones that did wanted EVERYTHING READ ALOUD. I hated going to classes like that. So frustrating!

Allen said:

More like these are fairly basic words that most of us learned in grade school and these students are college level students. I mean, even if you gave them a slight benefit of the doubt for reading aloud, they shouldn't have mangled as many words as they did.

Click to expand...

a) "Untenable" and "Capricious" aren't day-to-day words.
b) That leaves three slip-ups. Between two people. Who apparently aren't strong readers.

If you find that to be weeping material, everything must make you cry.[/QUOTE]

Capricious is insanely easy to sound out though.

Also I only put the words I could remember off the top of my head, out of the 2 paragraphs read I would say 10% of it they struggled on.

It was mostly just the one guy, the girl messed up a couple words but not nearly as many as him.

Also yeah I didn't take into account the possibility of being a nervous reader, I don't like public speaking or reading aloud but I still do it just fine in class when I have to.

As for reading aloud in a college class, well the teacher is a bit umm different? He is from Nigeria and is very difficult to understand but really even if he was easy to understand it would make no difference, he pretty much doesn't teach at all. Sure we go over a few things in class but rarely, most of the time he just goes off on random tangents. All of our test material is from the book, not from lecture.

HoboNinja said:

Capricious is insanely easy to sound out though.

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Yeah, but if you combine not much reading confidence with having to read for an audience that might think you dumb for not knowing a word (hard to imagine ), a lot of words that you don't know begin to look intimidating, even if they are rather easy.

Here's some tissues. It'll be okay.

Also: have you considered the possibility of dyslexia?

I've just got to say: it was interesting doing the first read-through for the play Caucasian Chalk Circle when one of the actors was dyslexic.

You think that's bad? I used to think this essay was fake... until I became a TA and started grading undergraduate papers.