Usually my "can't make this stuff up posts" are all about folks saying or doing something silly, that screams of missing common sense, but then I run across something/someone that makes me realize that we are in a Literacy State of Emergency! In this day and age, with all the resources available for folks to learn a new language and even learn how to read, I am saddened, befuddled and angered when I read things that indicate we are in a shambles with regards to literacy.
On facebook, I have a "friend" who is a young man of 24 years old, I've known him since he was a young tot, his family and mine are good friends- in fact we consider each other family. I remember his aunt telling me about him being in high school and the school just allowing him to graduate even with him failing EVERY YEAR. His grandmother (who lives in another state) would get him books, tapes, and begged his parents to get him some help.
He lives down south and although folks consider southern folks to be uneducated, I know that's not the truth, folks not being educated is a nation wide epidemic. And essentially it comes down to the parents, who, when even approached about their kid being below reading level, did nothing to improve the situation. They just shrugged their shoulders and said "well he don't wanna learn" nice, way to go for Parent of the Year award, I guess he's just following the crowd...
Anyway, this young man posts a status update that read,
"win you thougth you had me in the box it wasn't even close keep trying and see if you can stop me of what im doing in lif. win you have alot on your plant and you feel like things ant going your way just take a walk to cool down becoues life don't have a heart and it don't share love what it can give you is mine graine headink"...
now at first I thought "perhaps he's on his phone and mistyped" and then after my trying to re-read because I thought I might be having a stroke and shit is gettin' real bad for me...but then I had to do a flashback to other status updates- which include:
"be happy about what you have and don't were about what you don't got becoues the same why you got it you can lose it so thank god you have something something is batter then nothing" He says "...don't were..." he meant don't worry but I guess if you write like you speak then this makes perfect sense.... say it to yourself, "don't were about it"...smh.... And "batter"? cake batter? no! He meant "better"...
and my all time favorite:
"sometime win you thank you doing bad you really n't maybe its just u felling that way about your seft some time you can always thank about what going wrong in your life pick your seft up and take one day at a time and just live baby."
The repeated use of the word "win" when he means WHEN is even more frustrating and let's not forget about "seft" aka SELF... I've told him about these posts, after the first one I said "you need spell check, grammar check and a remedial course, you need to read and seriously stop posting because you sound stupid and no one can understand what you are writing." He writes back- "LOL"...
So you mean to tell me that you know what "LOL" means but you don't know how to spell SELF and WHEN ? He'd make Dr. Seuss upset! And at 24 years old with no desire to change and seemingly no viable resources to improve himself this is it for him! And sadly, he's one of thousands of folks just like him... and the number is growing even larger with increased internet usage and "abbreviations". I remember feeling like a dork for having so many books as a child, now I'm eternally grateful that my mama made me read and to this day I've got books galore!
My mom has me grading her college students' papers where they are using "ROFLMAO" or "LOL" or "U" instead of "you"... in a college paper?!!!?? That deserves a "c'mon son!"–
Parents with children – get some books, read to your kids, curb their usage of internet lingo – it's killing us, no ROFLMAO about it...
No comments:
Post a Comment