#18104
02/12/2001 8:11 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 13,803 |
He couldn't spell his name the same twice in a row!
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#18105
02/13/2001 4:38 AM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to:
I would love to hear comments from others on how they learned to read and spell correctly
To be honest I don't really remember, but from what my parents have since told me, I must have been under the impression I was reading Chinese. Apparently, while all the other kids were spelling out words b-a-t = bat, c-a-t = cat, I was remembering the shape of each word as a whole and didn't catch on to the fact that the letters could help with new words for quite some time. For what it's worth apart from the occasional single word utterance I didn't talk until I was nearly three, when I started talking in whole sentences. I was not going to do it until I knew I could do it properly. I didn't come out with "Thank you madam, the agony has sensibly abated" but I'm sure it's only because the occasion never arose.
Bingley
Bingley
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#18106
02/13/2001 10:58 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 427
addict
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addict
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Bikermom wrote: So does that mean Hebrew uses many consonants and few vowel sounds?
I don't know about Hebrew, but in Literary Modern (standard) Arabic only the consonant sounds are normally written for any word. Of course there are three vowel sounds /a/, /i/, /u/, but they are only written into words when they are part of the "three-letter" word-root, or lengthened through grammatical changes. The regular vowel forms, which are part of any Arabic word, can be signalled by little written marks either above or beneath the consonant that they follow, but this is optional. To make matters more complicated, the vowel-structure of a word helps you determine its form and function, so it carries important grammatical and lexical information.
Needless to say, reading Arabic correctly with no vowels available requires a good amount of proficiency in the language. The extreme regularity of Arabic grammatical rules means that once you know them, you cannot mistake one word for another, and you know perfectly what vowels it contains along with the visible consonants. Until you reach that level of skill, it is all a rather hit-and-miss affair.
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#18107
02/13/2001 12:06 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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I would love to hear comments from others on how they learned to read and spell correctlyI learned initially "at my mother's knee", as the saying goes, back in the 1940s. She read aloud to me as often as she could, (as the bombs rained down on London, I'm tempted to say!  ) and I looked at the book as she read, absorbing what the words looked like -'whole word' technique. When I went to school, reading was taught by a mixture of "Ah for apple" (phonics) and reading aloud to the teacher at her desk on a one-to-one basis. By the time I was seven, there wasn't much that I couldn't attempt with a significantly high chance of getting it right. It was noticeable that the children from what we, euphemistically, called "poorer homes" where the chances of there being books or parents who would (could?) read aloud from them was very low, were the ones who lagged behind in learning to read. Of course, with a class of thirty-four and using one-to-one techniques, there is an almost irresistible temptation for the teacher to concentrate on those who perform well. Writing was also taught to me intially (how else?  ) by my Mother. She would write words out on a slate, which I would copy on to paper - usually as "thank-you" letters at Christmas and Birthday time. At school, we were required to copy out lists of words from the blackboard and learn how to write them properly in time for the weekly spelling test on Friday morning. There was intense competition to get them all right, as the teacher would give a reward of a sweet to those who succeeded (looking back on it, this was a remarkable devotion to the cause of learning, as sweets were on ration at that time - hence the great competition to win them!) In various forms, spelling lessons, quizzes and tests continued until I was about twleve. After that, like wow, I lost marks if I miss-spelt words (the only reason that this was effective for me, who got low marks anyway, was that it was a blow to my pride as a good speller - one of the few things I was good at, in secondary school!) It worked for me. I share with a colleague of similar vintage the joint honour of being the office dictionary, a post I have occupied in most of the places I have worked. But I am cautious of saying that the method used in school that worked for me are the best. They worked for me because I had massive support at home. If I couldn't spell a word and asked my other, she would tell me, but then make sure that I could spell it without having to ask her. Later, she insisted that I use the dictionary. There were books, magazines and newspapers all over our house and I was only restricted from looking at a few that my mother thought were not fit for young eyes (which made me read them surreptitiously, of course!) For children from homes where this back-up is not available, different techniques of teaching may well be more appropriate. In the end, one-to-one teaching of basic skills is usually the best foundation. But where will you find a government that is willing to commit tax-payers' money to such an expensive scheme?
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#18108
02/13/2001 4:20 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
learning reading/spelling
I learned to read the same way and in the same era, sans bombs. I sat on my grandmother's lap while she read to me and I can not remember a time when I could not read. In elementary school, reading was taught using the phonics method, so that was how you learned to spell. But the capstone of spelling instruction came in high school. I think I mentioned this in an earlier thread; in the high school I attended there was a list of the 100 most frequently misspelled words in English. This was divided up into 10 pieces and each week you had to study those 10 words and on Friday there was a test. They kept going over and over those 100 words, 10 at a time, for the 3 or 4 years you were there. Thanks to that, I could no more misspell judgment (the only word on the list I can recall off the top of my head) than I could misspell my own name.
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#18109
02/13/2001 5:29 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 96
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Jan 2001
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That list of 100 frequently misspelled words is still in the schools, but only a very few teachers do anything about it. I wonder if your school system still has that system activated? So many of our American schools have a system that works and then "wham" someone pulls it out and starts a new program. How can the kids know what going on if the teachers don't. All the time wasted and spent learning new ways. I really support new methods and ways, but spelling is one thing that really does not change. We have to imprint the words in our head somehow---and it sounds like you did! Thanks enthusiast
enthusiast
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#18110
02/13/2001 8:29 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 347
enthusiast
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enthusiast
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>...in the high school I attended there was a list of the 100 most frequently misspelled words in English...They kept going over and over those 100 words, 10 at a time, for the 3 or 4 years you were there. Thanks to that, I could no more misspell judgment...Oh, I would have thought English is a much more robust and devious langauge than you give it credit for, Bob. A concerted attack on the 100 most frequently misspelled (now there's a candidate!) words would just see 100 new ones pop up somewhere else!
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#18111
02/13/2001 8:39 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Bobyoungbalt wrote :
a list of the 100 most frequently misspelled words in English
Very interesting! My Editor had that list and he would choose the words most likely to come up in writing for a newspaper and quizz job applicants on them. Since we had a "Lifestyle" section which included The Cook Of The Week with concurrent recipes, mayonnaise was on the list. Amazing how many missed it.
Oh, when I applied I got 13 out of 15 and he gave up and hired me! Can't remember which two I missed but you can bet I learned how to spell them.
Nevertheless there seem to be a few words that I had to look up. Every election time it was that thing people cast ... one or two "L"s ? Once researched, though, I had it ... at least for that year.
wow
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#18112
02/13/2001 8:54 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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herbrew is very similar-- and the "vowel" notations, are "Jots and ..(tittles it think?) some biblical scholar will no doubt no the referece in the gospel, when some one is talking about record keeping, and states that god "keeps track of all our sins, and good deeds, like a text with every jot and t...."
I don't know herbrew, but i do remember learning that much about reading it--
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#18113
02/14/2001 3:33 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
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"Jot" comes from the Hebrew letter "yod", which is just a small squiggle and looks something like a comma; the Greek letter "iota" is related to it, and is only a single stroke. I did know once what "tittle" is from, but don't remember at the moment; no doubt someone will let us know.
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#18114
02/14/2001 4:01 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
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Hebrew vowels
I know a little bit about Hebrew, having studied it for one semester in college, just for fun (had to drop it because I couldn't afford the time it took). The Hebrew language does have vowels, of course, but there are no letters in the alphabet to write them with. You were supposed to know what vowels went where, and there are rules for what vowels can go with what combinations of consonants. The King James translators rendered the combination yod-he-vav-he (the Tetragrammaton, or name of God) as Jehovah , which is not correct -- those vowels can't go with that arrangement of consonants. We now know that it should be Yahway. Sometime after the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 and the diaspora of the Jews, the rabbis became worried that the correct formation of words might be lost, since the Jews were now dispersed among other peoples and languages, and Hebrew (and its close relative, Aramaic, the spoken language of Palestine in New Testament times) were no longer a common everyday language. For this reason, two things were done: a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Pentateuch) was produced so the content would not be forgotten even if the Hebrew language was; and to help in studying Hebrew, a set of markings, called the Masoretic points, was invented. You might suppose that the simple solution to this problem would be to invent, or borrow, letters to represent the vowels, but this was impossible, since it would be been considered blasphemous to add letters to the sacred text. Little marks, however, apparently didn't count. They are still used in Hebrew textbooks, and in some prayer books, for those who are not expert enough in the language to do without them.
If I remember correctly (this is coming off the top of my head -- my textbook is at home) there are six marks. They are written under the consonant which precedes them, except for a final consonant. "Short a" looks like a hyphen; "long A" is like a tiny letter T; "e" is two dots following each other like ".."; "i" is a single dot; three dots arranged in a triangle, two over one, is "short e" but is actually pronounced like schwa; finally, two dots vertical, like a colon, is no vowel, indicating no vowel goes with that consonant.
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#18115
02/14/2001 6:13 PM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to:
I would love to hear comments from others on how they learned to read and spell correctly
I learned initially "at my mother's knee",
Writing was also taught to me intially (how else? ) by my Mother.
"how else" you ask? In my case, by my doting Dad, and my maternal grandparents, who helped their ex-son-in-law teach his children how to love reading before they went to school.
Salaam from Max (who learned nothing at all "at his mother's knee" )
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#18116
02/15/2001 7:59 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Learning to read and write? I simply don't remember not being able to read and write. I do remember being very bored at school during English lessons for the first few years. And I do remember being rather annoyed by those looping exercises that we were run through to learn to write, since I already could. I'm sure that both my parents helped at various times, but the process escapes me.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#18117
02/15/2001 1:13 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
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It is interesting how many people on this board learned to read and write before they went to school quite a few people have stated they don't remember not knowing how. (This is true for me too since my learning-to-read stories only came down as family anecdotes later in life; I don't actually remember the phonics books.) I guess we all got hooked on language at an early age...or we wouldn't have ended up here!
About learning to write...to this day, my mother insists that my handwriting was ruined by my Canadian teacher when I came back from Italy. We learned cursive writing right from the get-go in Italy, starting in grade one, so I came back in grade three with great handwriting and all my classmates were just learning. My mother had to ask special permission from the teacher for me to use cursive in my assignments because that's what I was used to using. I got a lot of flack from the other kids "GASP! You're not ALLOWED to use cursive writing on your stories yet!" "Ummm...I am...because the teacher said I could...." This did not increase my popularity in the class. Anyway, the teacher still forced my to write my letters in the North American style, so I lost the great script I had learned in Italy. I still find Italian handwriting easier to read. For one thing, it isn't slanted way over to the right like the classic version is here.
Interestingly, my writing continued to deteriorate so that by grade ten I couldn't really read my own writing. I then taught myself to print just as quickly as I once wrote, and now everything I do (except my signature) is printed.
Anyone else prefer printing over writing (not counting using this beast of a computer to make your writing neat)?
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#18118
02/15/2001 2:36 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Bean: I remember spending hours learning Palmer Penmanship, filling pages with neat slants, neat coils of circles,etc. I think that the typewriter gets the blame for abandonment of penmanship efforts.When I want to be sure my something I write is legible, I use block printing, but it is slow enough I hate to do a whole letter with it. You must have seen the old story about Horace Greeley's clerks putting ink on a hen's foot to "write" a word. Greeley allegedly took one look and declared the word was "unconstitutional,you damned fool!" I await wow's correction of this. wwh
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#18119
02/15/2001 3:01 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771
old hand
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old hand
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I've adopted kind of a hybrid version of printing & cursive that works OK for me, and most people seem to find it legible. The only downside to my signature is that my "D" looks somewhat like an elongated cursive "S", and consequently I'm addressed as "Sagny" if I'm not careful! I'll do my best to accept the sagging gracefully when it comes, but I'd prefer not to be reminded of the inevitable! Dagny will do, thank you.
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#18120
02/15/2001 3:25 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
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Printing vs. cursive writing
My youngest sister (b. 1951) was just starting elementary school when they decided on one of those great new ideas, this time that cursive writing was a waste of time and all children should learn to print neatly and forget about the cursive writing. She still does it; it's quite legible and she can write almost as fast as someone using cursive writing.
When I learned to write, ca. 1946, we sat at the old-fashioned cast iron desks with wood benches and a slanting wood top (which opened to store your things) and an ink bottle set in a hole in the top right corner. Once you mastered writing with a pencil, you then began writing with a steel pen (the steel nib set in a pen-holder, if anyone remembers these terms) and the ink bottle. There were, of course, hours of practicing by the Palmer method to produce the standard hand, which was somewhat like the classic "copperplate" hand but not quite as elegant. Of course, as time went by, everyone abandoned that hand, as it was too slow. My handwriting was not too bad until I took an art history course in college. It consisted mostly of slides, which were shown, of course, in a dark room, with commentary and at a pretty stiff pace. Having to take notes furiously in the dark resulted in a condensed and greatly streamlined hand which is often illegible not only to others but occasionally to me.
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#18121
02/15/2001 3:36 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Taking notes in the dark. How I wish the tape recorder had been available when I was in college. wwh
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#18122
02/15/2001 6:48 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
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tidbits about penmanship:
-- Most people, including myself, use a mixture of print and cursive writing. Apparently, purely cursive writing indicates a female scribe.
-- I read once that textbook penmanship is very rare, and handwriting analysts find that the scribe of perfect penmanship is either retarded or a teacher.
-- My own theory: the more educated you are, the sloppier your handwriting tends to be. Every year, as one slogs though high school, then college, then grad school, one takes voluminous and frenzied class notes, and every year, one's writing becomes more cryptic. Hence, the old saw about physicians' handwriting. I say, the same is true of lawyers and others who have spent many years taking class notes.
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#18123
02/15/2001 8:26 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Hmmmmm! I had the wooden pen, nib and inkwell too when I learned a technique similar to Palmer method. My handwriting is easy to read and occasionaly when I write a check I get a compliment on my handwriting. Never been considered impaired in the brains department... However, an Editor could be considered a teacher. ????
My teachers used to say "Sloppy handwriting is the sign of a sloppy mind." Then I saw Shakespeare's signature! HA!
Sparteye's comment about taking notes sent me back to my reporter's notes, taken at high speed. Handwriting is clear and letters easily read but my "code" (for fast transcription) make it difficult for anyone but me to understand.
Handwriting sample will be submitted to any persons who care to provide me with their real-mail address!
(Going off to practice writing with my Mont Blanc Meisterstick, inherited from Dad)
wow
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#18124
02/15/2001 9:56 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 38
newbie
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newbie
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(B. 1960) I'm one of those messed up by one of the early rounds of schools using(not) phonics. I am dependant on spellcheck, at least partically because I spell phonetically. My handwriting is awful also, although having to read my own, has enable me to read the notorius Dr's writing. I wonder if there is a course in pharmacy school in how to read Drs' writing
My grade school generation were also the part new math experience/disaster.
CJ
CJ
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#18125
02/16/2001 10:11 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I wonder if there is a course in pharmacy school in how to read Drs' writing
Not in NZ there isn't - I just asked the guy next door who is a pharmacist. But I'm convinced that medical students attend a compulsory writing course in their first few years of study which concentrates on making sure that their handwriting is totally illegible!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#18126
02/16/2001 11:22 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
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I actually read somewhere that they're starting a pilot program in some med school to teach doctors how to write WELL because so many patients die each year from uninterpretable prescriptions. Apparently it's been a big hit. But my brain is full of holes so I can't tell you when it was, where it was, how many people... 
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#18127
02/16/2001 3:10 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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While I really succeeded fairly well in writing legibly, at times haste made waste. One oldtimer I was doing admission physical and history on told me the young doctor in his central Maine town, didn't know nothin', his medicine had no strength. I was covering for two interns out sick, and having to cut corners. I momentarily forgot usual name for most commonly used laxative, which (fifty years ago) in that hospital was equal parts of milk of magnesia and fluid extract of cascara. In my haste, I wrote Mag sulfate,which is epsom salt, terrible tasting and far stronger than magnesium citrate. Later when I went past his bed, he reached out and grabbed me and demanded to know what that terrible tasting medicine was. I went and looked at the order sheet, and was deeply chagrined. But I went back and reminded him that he had told me the young doctor in his home town didn't know anything because his medicine had no strength. Well, I said, you can't say that about me.wwh
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#18128
02/16/2001 4:01 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Well, not penmanship, exactly, but a great CYA story:
My father worked for a large electric and gas utility for many years, and enjoys telling the story of a coworker whose responsibility it was to order electrical supplies. One year in the early 1940s, in ordering the year's supply of copper wire, the friend misplaced a decimal point, and inadvertently ordered 10 times more than they needed. When all the copper arrived, and the friend was called on the carpet about his purchase, the friend blustered that he had intended the order, because, didn't they know there was a war coming. Well, within the year WWII had escalated, and copper was already running short, except for the utility, which had enough stock to last for the duration. And the misplaced decimal turned into genius.
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#18129
02/16/2001 7:36 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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And the misplaced decimal turned into genius.
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Great story Sparteye.
Somewhere I heard that the Chinese ideograph for catastrophe is the same as for opportunity.
Surely if I have messed that up someone will seize the opportunity to leap into the breach and save me from catastrophic wrong headedness!
wow
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#18130
02/16/2001 8:50 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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"that the Chinese ideograph for catastrophe is the same as for opportunity"
And, I believe, the ideograph for trouble is the same as for mother-in-law (or, is it two women under the same roof?).
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#18131
02/16/2001 8:57 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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and crossing thread, the ideograph for happiness, is a pig and woman under one roof!
it must be hard to learn all the ideographs, but they seem (from a foriegn perspective) to be very wise.
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