All About Pocket Knives

Got this in today's email. Thought it was pretty funny.
J.D.

From a teacher -- short and to the point

In the world of hi-tech gadgetry, I've noticed that more and more
people who send text messages and emails have long forgotten the art
of capital letters.

For those of you who fall into this category, please take note of
the following statement:

"Capitalization is the difference between helping your Uncle Jack
off a horse and helping your uncle jack off a horse."

Is everybody clear on that?

John

Oh yeah! I love it.

IM

And I dig periods and commas, also!
Thanks, Jerry.

Ray

Good one, jerryd! Not sure they actually teach anything worthwhile in school these days. Almost like governmentally funded day care.

Reminds of this example on punctuation....

Let's eat, Grandmother.

Let's eat Grandmother.

Punctuation saves lives!!

As someone who learned to read and write at a very early age and who later made a secondary career of proper use of capital and lower case letters,what apalls me even more is the use of capital letters where they have no place being;such as in the middle of a word! That and the fact that these cretins have somehow decided that the letter Z hasn't been used enough so they take it upon themselves to insert it wherever an S is supposed to be.
I recently read where the schools are now saying that they will not be teaching cursive writing any more because it has become unnecessary in modern day life! WHAT!!!!
I also read of a kid going to a bank to apply for a loan and when he went to sign the papers he started to PRINT his name. The officer told him that he had to SIGN his name in cursive letters.He gave them a blank look and asked what cursive was!
Not surprising I guess considering that most of the people who,"graduate" from high school have trouble making change of a dollar unless they have a calculator. That and the fact that most of them couldn't put a coherent sentence together if their lives depended on it.
OK Rant is over!

Punctuation, capitalization and spelling are my major stumbling blocks. I should have paid more attention in english (or is it English) class but it's too late now.

They haven't taught cursive writing around here for years. When ever I ask someone in their 20s for their signature they just make a indecipherable mark and I have to ask them what their last name is. It's very rare, one time in one hundred that they sign their name in actual cursive and I can read it.

vikingdog wrote:They haven't taught cursive writing around here for years. When ever I ask someone in their 20s for their signature they just make a indecipherable mark and I have to ask them what their last name is. It's very rare, one time in one hundred that they sign their name in actual cursive and I can read it.

In addition to being unable to count change without the aid of an electronic device, that is just one more symptom of the dumbing down of America Those kinds of things, along with "social passing" have been a huge detriment to the future of America. I don't think the two class society with which we are on a collision course will be economical but intellectual.

This thread was started with a joke and was not intended as an indictment of the American educational system. Upon further reflection, it's not really that much of a joke.

Responding to vikingdog, some of us old guys call our indecipherable marks a signature ! Treefarmer

In the age of emails, texts, LOL's, and OMG's, the use of proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation is a dying art.

I made a special effort with my son as he was learning that stuff to make sure he knew how to spell and write a decent paragraph. He's going into college this fall, so I am confident he will be prepared. I stopped proofreading his papers a couple years ago.

BTW, the first post was hilarious.

Does anyone know if English Composition is any longer a part of the high school and college curricula?

Charlie Noyes

RobesonsRme.com wrote:Does anyone know if English Composition is any longer a part of the high school and college curricula?

Charlie Noyes

I think the only "English" Composition today is a song written by the Beatles or the Srones.

THERE'S ALSO THE ABUSE OF CAPITOL LETTERS, WHICH ALSO GET'S ON MY NERVES!

I however, tend to overuse the dreded comma,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

RobesonsRme.com wrote:Does anyone know if English Composition is any longer a part of the high school and college curricula?

Charlie Noyes

Pretty much only in homeschool, ask my kids, Momma is a stickler

Kids in school today need a Miss Edna Stieff teaching English Comp. She marked off for every single little mistake, regardless of the merit of the overall composition. After receiving a resounding "F" on several of those in a row, one figured out they'd better learn to structure and punctuate a sentence, use paragraphs and write coherent ideas if they wished to graduate.

Charlie

RobesonsRme.com wrote:Kids in school today need a Miss Edna Stieff teaching English Comp. She marked off for every single little mistake, regardless of the merit of the overall composition. After receiving a resounding "F" on several of those in a row, one figured out they'd better learn to structure and punctuate a sentence, use paragraphs and write coherent ideas if they wished to graduate.

Charlie

In my past position I was responsible for hiring young college grads. As a general rule, they were exceptionally poor report writers.

Ray

Little Miss Stieff, she was under five feet tall and very thin, was almost solely responsible for my having made straight A's in English Composition in college.

After the first paper I wrote, I was accused of plagiarism by my professor. Tool a bit to straighten that out.

Surely, there are still some dedicated teachers out there.

Charlie