If you compare the writing, in the letters home,from the average Civil
war soldier, to the writing capability of the average J school graduate,
from the last 20 years, it's plain we have been raising a couple of
generations of illiterates. It's only gotten worse. Hell I had to look
up how to spell soldier, and my writing style on this list is especially
sloppy. I used to be regularly published by a newspaper, that just 10
years before I contributed to them, would have looked st a sample of my
writing, and laughed me out of their office. But, that's just me.
Most of the literate and I do mean literate in the 19th century had no
more than a 6th grand education, yet, they wrote and understood, at what
today would be College and post graduate levels. You don't need
research to know that, all you really need to do is read some historical
documents.
Besides which, you're wrong about how much writing people did until
quite recently, it wasn't until after the third quarter of the 20th
century that long distance telephone calls were inexpensive enough to be
the regular method of keeping in touch with distant friends and
relatives. Letter writing was the preferred method, the post office used
to make a great deal of money on first class mail.
On 8/31/2014 2:26 PM, Tim Bray wrote:
Actually, the research is waiting to be done, but a lot of people
(including me) think we are producing generations with better writing
skills than in the last few centuries. For many generations, the only
thing anyone wrote in a typical life was book reviews in school,
reports for their boss, and maybe some letters. Since some time in
the nineties, a high proportion of communication, in particular young
people’s communication, has been in writing. You may not think SMS
messages are good or careful writing, but they are writing. How do
you get good at ANYTHING? Practice practice practice.
On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 11:20 AM, P.J. Alling
<webstertwenty...@gmail.com> wrote:
Perhaps because, there are video cameras built into everything, and they no
longer teach writing in school. If all you have is a hammer, everything
looks like a nail.
On 8/28/2014 5:51 PM, Brian Walters wrote:
Quoting "Daniel J. Matyola" <danmaty...@gmail.com>:
http://twistedsifter.com/videos/smartphone-photography-hacks/
Flaming hell! Why does everything these days have to be a video? Doesn't
anyone actually write articles any more?
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