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increased usage by media; acceptable?
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No.
In anything even remotely formal, I'd be horrified. Maybe in play scripts or other forms that are trying to approximate speech, but sheesh...you gotta (!) draw the line somewhere...gs
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Dear Kingfisher: I am also fed up with "wannabe".wwh
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Unfortunately, what the media decides to allow as "acceptable" becomes so. Yuck. 
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I'm gonna hafta stratein yew ot here...ya gotta no dat if it's sompin you feel strong nuf about yer gonna wanna make yer voice herd 'n stop that it's too late to change or my vote don't count crap....Yern'Merican aintcha?
Disclaimer - although I have no accent (not actually possible) there are plenty of people I know that speak as I have typed and arranged those words. There is no other way to get the whole picture (as I told the story) and "no other way" for them to communicate...
Claimer - I wrode the "L" into the Loop yesterday, and the recorded announcement clearly stated that we were approaching the Harold Washington LIBARY)! I'll bet money I could get them to change that!
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When has modern written English (post Samuel J) ever resembled its spoken counterpart? I mean, when a "knight" really was a "kn-icht" things were ducky. Even Pepys must have been doing alright. But, nowa daiz? Hey, who cares as long as the spell-checker (saving Aenigma), works and I can add my own idiosyncratic spellings to the list!
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I truly believe that these three words are approaching the designation of "contractions", which is exactly where "modern" American language seeks to "re-assemble" it's spoken counterpart, and should be allowed to continue to develop as American, not as English. (don't make me say it again) When lines are drawn, quite often it is viewed as a challenge to cross (as I know someone will to my using the word "exactly"  ). It may be more accurate to say, "draw all the lines you want, we ain't payin attention." The "media" is notorious for that.
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In reply to:
should be allowed to continue to develop as American, not as English
The French, at least, already do consider American and English (British) two different languages (dialects?). Books translated into French are noted on the title page as having been "translated from the English (anglais)" or "from the American."
I don't think it has to do with "drawing lines," only with the normal development of languages.
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At the risk of horrifying the onlookers, isn't attempting to establishing a normal process of language development "drawing lines" or "establishing roads to follow"?(eg. limiting the development of language to that which passes (through channels) to become part of a dictionary (certainly not limited to this example)). Possibly a change in formal syntactical theory is in order to go with the new words (perhaps not), however, the masses of people will drive, the few will read tire tracks...
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I'd normally (writing colloquial dialogue) write 'going to' and say 'gonna' (actually [g@n@] with schwa), so there's no reason to make the spelling fit the pronunciation.
I'd use an alternative spelling where it was something I didn't normally contract: I use 'isn't it?' as a tag, so if I made a character say 'innit?' I'd have to write it that way.
I'm quite tempted to write 'hafta' because 'have to' just doesn't look right, and I've come across genuine cases where they contrast. Making up an example: 'the next thing I have to do'.
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'innit' seems to have taken over my household at the moment.
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Everybody seems to be a "wannabe" these days. There is some comfort, at least "Zig-A-Zig Ah" got left behind in the last century.
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In reply to:
There is some comfort, at least "Zig-A-Zig Ah" got left behind in the last century.
Really? Really? Really?
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Seems many of us feel that gonna/gotta/wanna are okay spoken but not so okay when written. How does this apply to "gotten?" As in "I haven't gotten sick in a long time, but now I don't feel so good."
It strikes me as a little different from the "going to" vs. "gonna" distinction, as the tense it suggests is a bit different from simply "got." But I could just say "I haven't been sick..." Anyway - whatcha think?
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I was under the impression that "gotten" was a perfectly good word (long after being steered away from using it in school). A quick check on Webster's online lists it as "obsolescent". Hmm. I still hear it (and use it in everyday speech) a lot.
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"Gotten" is perfectly normal usage in the U.S. for some purposes, as in "I've gotten a bit heavy lately." British usage, which I suppose heavily influences Canadian usage, would use "got" in such a sentence. However, we would not say, "I've gotten a little list." That would be "got", same as British.
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Just speculating on very little evidence because I don't use gotten at all, but for those who do use both would "I've gotten" refer to the result of a process that takes time while "I've got" would be used where the obtaining could be viewed as instantaneous?
Bingley
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Just speculating on very little evidence because I don't use gotten at all, but for those who do use both
would "I've gotten" refer to the result of a process that takes time while "I've got" would be used where
the obtaining could be viewed as instantaneous?
I would use them thusly:
"I've gotten a bit heavy" - does imply it's taken some time, but also that I ain't done fattening up
"I got a bit heavy" - could imply a sudden heaviness (after falling in the pool and soaking all my clothes, I got heavier - awkward example, but one doesn't often get heavy suddenly), but could also suggest something like "While living in Italy and eating lots of pasta and drinking lots of Chianti, I got pretty heavy, but have since slimmed down" (Note: true story)
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Equally unsure of source right now, Bingley, but I thought 'gotten' was the Elizabethan form, exported to Amerikay and remaining one of those distinctive time-warped features of the USA tongue.
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It may be only my impression, but here is what I think: "I've got" would normally be used in Britain both for the "becoming" meaning ("I've got a bit heavier lately"), and the plain "possession" meaning ("I've got a little list"). In the States, "I've gotten" would normally be used for the continuing meaning ("I've gotten a bit heavier lately"), but the possession meaning would be expressed without "got", simply as "I have a list" or "I don't have a list". This is what I have surmised from listening to Brits and USns, have I got it approximately right? No idea about Canadians or other species... 
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In the States, "I've gotten" would normally be used for the continuing meaning ("I've gotten a bit heavier
lately"), but the possession meaning would be expressed without "got", simply as "I have a list" or "I don't
have a list".
US'ns also use the possessive form "I've got," which brings us full circle on this thread, as it's used in "I gotta go."
Gotta go,
Hyla
p.s. Was tickled to notice that Ænigma reads gotta as gotten - maybe it's paying more attention than I thought.
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Perhaps I misunderstood Bobyoungbait's post, but I thought he was saying that some USians (v. themians?) use both I've got and I've gotten.
There's no problem about the difference between I've gotten heavier and I got heavier,as cited by Hyla. That's just the normal difference between past simple and present perfect. The past signifies that we're talking solely about the past and the present is not a concern while the present perfect signifies a present effect.
For those USians who do use both forms (I've gotten and I've got), what's the difference?
Bingley
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I've looked at three different dictionaries - Websters, Merriam Websters and the COD - and they all simply describe "gotten" as one of two possible past participles of "get", the other being "got". They also all agree about the etymology, from Middle English from German. If anything, "gotten" is closer to its source than "got". Usage seems to be regional as suggested above, but the use of "gotten" is neither obsolete nor incorrect. In NZ, the use of "gotten" would be seen as unusual, but only the tuppenny linguistic police would even comment.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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distinctive time-warped features of the USA tongue. I am just returned from an increasingly desperate and, of course, unsuccessful search for Bill Bryson's Made In America which I was hoping I would be correct in referring people to as an interesting and readable account of some of the "Americanisms" which many of my countrypersons profess to despise, but which are in fact quite pure English as she was once spoke, if a little outdated in some quarters. I hope this is the book I am thinking of. ( sic) A couple of the early chapters are relevant, I think. If not, someone will enlighten us. Really, looking for a particular book in this house is like looking for ... anybody care to provide a suitable simile from their own experience? lusy 
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neither obsolete nor incorrectYes, I agree with you CapK - I was trying to make a non-judgmental observation that I had believed this to be an Americanism that falls into the class of traditional UK usage that had been left intact whereas in the UK (subject to less isolation for a 100 years of crucial development?) that now is definitely on the verge of being archaic or regional dialect. But it is merely an attractive difference - no slur intended.
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Bingley, Hyla and Marianne have all pretty much gotten the idea of how the two are used. With not infrequent exceptions, we in the US do not generally use "got" to mean "have". Notwithstanding some pretty obvious usages, like, "I've got music, I've got rhythm", "I've got a loverly bunch of coconuts", "He's got the whole world in His hands", which is the possessive use, or "I've got you under my skin" which is not. On the other hand, if/when we do use "got" for the possessive, it tends to be as an emphatic expression. One would generally say, "I have two apples" rather than "I've got two apples"; but I think we would tend more to "He's got a gun pointed at you!" but "He has a gun stored in the garage." Then there's the fact that the exceptions that come to my mind are from songs; I would agree that "gotten" is unmusical and "have" is a problem for musical purposes.
So to sum up, Americans tend on the whole not to use "got" for "have" as the normal verb of possession. They use "got" as the past tense, or preterite, of "get", but generally use "gotten" as the past participle to form the perfect tense, rather than "got", which is British usage. To the preference for "have" over "got", there are exceptions, notably for emphasis, for euphony. I'm sure there will be more that will occur to you out there.
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More from the U.S., Bingley--
I've gotten a list--implies that I have made a bit of an effort to obtain it.
I've got a list--it's in my possession, no connotations.
I've gotten fond of blueberry pie = I've become fond...
I've got fond of...we don't say this, not ever, never.
==========================================================
looking for a particular book in this house is like looking for ... anybody care to provide a suitable simile from their own experience?
a bit in a bucket. (Hi, Ted.)
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looking for a particular book in this house is like looking for..
.. a plum in a pigpen.
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From "Scoop" (1938) by Evelyn Waugh:
"From the moment of her entrance the luncheon party was transformed for Lord Copper; he had gotten a new angle on it."
I think this is the first time I've encountered 'gotten' in a book published in Britain.
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>Bill Bryson's Made In America
I'm pretty sure that the book you need is called (here) "Mother Tongue" by Bill Bryson. I re-discovered it recently after a year or so of its absence, when I moved a bookcase and found it down the back. Slippery chap that Bryson, you can never find him when you need him.
In the book he puts forward a quite convincing argument about words like "gotten".
I quote from p164 of the UK Penguin edition:
"It is certainly true that America in general preserved many dozens of words that would otherwise almost certainly have been lost to English. The best noted, perhaps, is gotten which to most Britons is the quaintest of Americanisms. It is now so unused in Britain that many Brtons have to have the distinction between got and gotten explained to them even though they make the same distinction between forgot and forgotten ...."
Imagine that!
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>I think this is the first time I've encountered 'gotten' in a book published in Britain. Either Evelyn Waugh was showing off how well travelled he was or it was a gremlin.
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Really, looking for a particular book in this house is like looking for ... anybody care to provide a suitable simile from their own experience? Yes I'd love to. "...is like looking for a needle in a haystack." or "....is like looking for fly poop in black pepper!"
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Seems many of us feel that gonna/gotta/wanna are okay spoken but not so okay when written. How does this apply to "gotten?" As in "I haven't gotten sick in a long time, but now I don't feel so good."
"I haven't been sick..." Anyway - whatcha think?
Yes, Hyla, you are so correct. This is really the way I was taught to say it and write it, in grammar school 40 years ago. I was almost believing that "gotten" was OK. But really it is not, just like saying "ain't". No one notices that or even corrects it anymore, such as "I ain't gonna go." Should be "I am not going to go." Basically, we are all in a super hurry to go nowhere, we all want to relax and slow down, but our only sitting is at the computer or in the car. And then we are impatient with slow drivers and slow servers!!!! I would rather have today's cars and computers, than Amish buggies and typewriters. But most under 30 never used a typewriter.
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I'm gonna go = I'm going to go.
Gotta go. = I've got to go.
I wanna go. = I want to go. Thinking about this as I type, I think perhaps in addition to being lazy when talking, if one types with a few fingers, it is easier to type gonna, gotta, wanna than the correct form. But I find typing on the computer so incredibly easy compared to the old elec IBM I learned typing on in '71. And I used to think that was soooo fast compared to the non-electric ones they replaced. Perhaps it should be mandatory to learn typing skills in grade school and high school on manual typewriters and then everyone will really appreciate the cyber age and all that it has to offer. "Whatcha think?"(informal) or "What do you think? (polite and formal)
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I'm gonna hafta stratein yew ot here...ya gotta no dat if it's sompin you feel strong nuf about yer gonna wanna make yer voice herd 'n stop that it's too late to change or my vote don't count crap....Yern'Merican aintcha?
My son, age 18, in 1989 (1st grade) learned to write and spell correctly, if not, points were taken off for spelling mistakes. My son, age 11,in 1996 (1st grade) was taught "inventive" spelling. Meaning that to get kids to write and to express their thoughts, and to put down an answer---as long as it looked close--was perfectly aceptable---For example "I fnd a rk."= "I found a rock." No one corrected the kids. Now they are trying to teach phonics and wondering why no one can sound out the words correctly or try to read a big word by sounding it out. Phonics teaches that every syllable has a vowel----inventive spelling teaches only consonant sounds in a word. Any comments?
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spelling teaches only consonant sounds in a word.They should be naturals for learning written Hebrew, then! 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Phonics teaches that every syllable has a vowel----inventive spelling teaches only consonant sounds in a word. Any comments? So does that mean Hebrew uses many consonants and few vowel sounds? I do know that if I remember to use my phonics when reading German, it is easier and not so overwhelming!! And the English pronunciation rules have more exceptions than do German. But German has more gender grammar rules such as "die das der" etc
I would love to hear comments from others on how they learned to read and spell correctly!!!
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bikermon wrote: would love to hear comments from others on how they learned to read and spell correctly!!!
As to reading : my mother read to me then my first grade teacher Sister Rose Ignatius SND was a believer in phonics way back then in the mid-1930s, despite pressures to do otherwise.
As to spelling : It was drummed into my dear little ear during elementary grades by the good Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur via spelling memorization, spelling tests, quizzes, (I will never forget how to spell bicycle after mangling it in a quizz) instruction in how to use a dictionary, and deductions in overall score for anything written if words mis-spelled. It worked.
wow
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I would love to hear comments from others on how they learned to read and spell correctly!!!My mother got some phonics books from her sister (a teacher) and taught me to read, starting when I was 3 or 4. I was probably helped by a two-year interlude in Italy where reading = phonics, and then I returned to Canada in grade three. By this time I knew lots of (English) words and could read pretty fast, so I wasn't really resorting to phonics although it was in the name of the workbook used in school. It was still a good method when encountering a new word. I also can relate to the spelling tests, and good spelling in general on all assignments - all this was required of us up to grade six. Then I went into French Immersion, and things got confusing. Besides, I have since concluded that no one really learns anything in junior high school! Somewhere in the years between my brother and me (only four years) this phonics thing was lost. Or else he is genetically a terrible speller; I'm not really sure. And judging by the terrible lab reports I am forced to mark every couple of weeks, the people younger than him didn't get much better instruction. I wish I could take off marks for poor grammar and bad spelling - but I am constrained by a marking scheme handed down from above - besides, then they would have no marks left! ARGHHHHHHHHH! 
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well- I am one of those chronicly bad spellers-- no amount of phonics seems to help.
but it's ashame about no penalty for it. (i always lost points-- i still made honors classes, but never top honors.) One chemisty teach i know "failed" Lab reports in HS chemistry classes. when student objected, "This is English class, spelling shouldn't count" His response was "the only reason you take English classes is to be able to write clear lab reports!" We teased him a bit--"What Shakespeare is training for better lab reports?"-- but he countered that if we could write as wonderfully as shakespeare, it might not matter that we failed chemistry, but he suspected old Will would do better than most on at a lab report.-- Started with writing in full sentences, etc...
I don't remember learning to read--and I don't remember my mother ever reading to me (or my siblings)-- but she loved to read, and read when ever she could-- so i always thought of reading as something "Grown up" I know that i was reading before i started kindergarden-- simple stuff, like sunday comics, and "golden books".
and I also think gonna, wanna, etc, will creep into language-- at one time Good bye was God be with thee-- and it got contracted to Goodbye-- I am sure some scholar of olden days lamented the "slang"-- and wouldn't brook such slang as acceptable. now we have almost forgotten goodbye once meant something else-- and was spelt differently.
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He couldn't spell his name the same twice in a row!
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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.
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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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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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veteran
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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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journeyman
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Carpal Tunnel
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And the misplaced decimal turned into genius.
-----------------------------------------------
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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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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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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