There used to be a word for it

[Goatboy]

I think there are stilk plenty of kids out there who read. I still give books as prezzies thougb that may be something of an "auntie" thing to do for a bloke.
Loved getting books as a child and still do. Though I have a Kindle I still buy lots of books. In fact every room in the house is lined with book-shelves and I'm a member of the library. The local library though small has a good kids section and is very busy.
There are some schools of thought that more folk read now due to the internet, but there seems to be a problem with retention of information. With the likes of Google being so prevalent folk are used to being able to have information at their fingertips and so don't tend to retain it.


Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[juttle]

Anyone remember this?


Kids, I don't know what's wrong with these kids today
Kids, who can understand anything they say?
Kids, they are disobedient, disrespectful oafs
Noisy, crazy, sloppy, lazy, loafers
And while we're on the subject

Kids, you can talk and talk till your face is blue
Kids, but they still do just what they want to do
Why can't they be like we were, perfect in every way?
What's the matter with kids today?


I've removed the rest of the lyrics to save anybody at the back falling asleep!

This came from a film in 1963 and was, presumably, referring to the kids of the day. As I'm one of them, I would also guess that a good many forum members are also of that generation being spoken about.

Isn't this just an argument that comes around every 50 years or so and merely proves that we are all part of a continuous social evolution that, like it or not, will continue to evolve until the text speak generation of today are decrying the OED for removing the word "iPad" from its kids edition as it is no longer relevant?

OK, OK, I'm looking for my coat right now...

 

[Goatboy]

I'm not having a go at kids, just exploring the differences in point of view and experience. Reminds me of a couple of years back I was chatting to one of the young lads who works for me about Egypt. Was talking about how the hieroglyphs had been translated with the Rosseta stone. He was looking at me strangely (not an uncommon thing) and said, "But they didn't have computers then?" This confused me a bit 'till I realised he was talking about Rosseta Stone the computer software. He didn't know that the program was named after the stone itself. Made me smile but realise that we were coming from two distantly related cultures. We forget that the 'net is only about 30 years old and it's made a huge change to all our lives. I didn't see a computer at school, though a mates dad had one at home which I got to use once or twice. But he'd never known a world without one. Though I dislike phones now I was an early relatively early adopter and I felt quite self consious using it as they weren't so common then. Now we don't bat an eyelid over them and it's maybe gone the other way to us older ones and folk feel they must use them where maybe they shouldn't. Back on books things like mobiles have changed how plotlines progress as usually folk are contactable and information is available. But I suppose Sherlock Holmes creator knew that with the relatively new telegrams.
It's a constant shift and culturally we don't always keep up with the new toys.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[Swallow]

Aye but the well known dictionary I was looking through was saying horse chestnuts were edible. Not good advice for folks reading it.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

Was it a horse's dictionary?

I'm sure Fergus Drennan has used them, though heavily processed IIRC.

I usually find that when my kids fall short of my expecatations I am comparing what they can do now to what I can do now.

When I get more realistic about it and compare what they can do now, to what I could really do at their age it's usuaully me that falls short.

A historian mate once told me that he found something written in Roman times that complained about youth in the same terms as we often do today. That suggests to me that something like I describe above is going on.

 

[Goatboy]

What's someones strapline on here; "The older I get the better I was."
It was an Oxford dictionary that just was saying that horse chestnuts were edible. No talk of processing, worried me a bit.
Talking of history there was a document that talked about how extraordinary it was that there was a chap (cant remember who but in 12th century Italy I think) who could read without moving his lips. This was percieved as very odd. So it's constantly changing. English is so lucky due to how much early written stuff survives. Mainly due to church and state but things like the Anglo Saxon chronicles and the fact that we fell out with Catholic Rome qnd allowed the bible to be written in the common mans tounge helped us so much. Would love to visit Iceland though their literacy levels are through the roof with a huge proportion of the people being published writers. Stems from the saga tradition (and long dark winters like the UK I reckon).

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[boatman]

Saint Ambrose read silently, according to Augustine's Confessions.

 

[boatman]

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles are interesting because up to and for a time after the Norman Conquest the Chronicle was written in what we call Anglo-Saxon but from something like 1120 although in Anglo-Saxon form it is written in what we can recognise as English. One explanation is that the elite courtly and church literary language of Anglo-Saxon ceased to be taught in monasteries and court schools in 1066 so those trained thus were dead or retired by the 12th century meaning that native English speakers were writing in their own tongue which had been overlaid by the AS. See the Peterborough Chronicle. Claimed that it morphs into Middle English but it might well be reverting to, simply, English.

 

[Goatboy]

What brings me worry and call me a tin foil hatter if you please is that.we can't yet decide hoq to teach a human wirh an in built moral compass how to be. Who's teachinh the.next.gen of AI? Computers and machines with potential power to do extraordinary things are here but without a moral compass. Skynet isn't here but the concept worries me.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[Tengu]

If I saw a robot I would give him a gun and tell him meatheads want him dead.

He can work it out for himself.

 

[Ed the Ted]

Are you also championing the resurrection of Cornish? Do you make sure to learn your Welsh when you go to Wales, Gaelic the highlands and islands, or any of the many diverse and complex regional dialects up and down the whole of the UK found outside the homogenising world of Received Pronunciation?

Or are some shifts in language fine, so long as its not your language that's being forgotten?

Or shall I be quiet and let us go back to pretending that everyone on these isles always spoke the same dialect of the same language so that we can all be smugly outraged at finding out that some names of some kinds of trees are being muscled out of a single book which most kids will probably never even encounter due to the proliferation of this here internet and all the knowledge it contains (including lots of information on regional and national languages and dialects that they might otherwise never even realise have been stamped out by a particular form of standardised language)?

 

[boatman]

Resurrecting Cornish presents a problem because of the controversy of what Cornish is be revived. This will give you a flavour http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernewek_Kemmyn. We enjoy picking up words and phrases when we visit different places but I am not a polyglot and you have to stop at some point.

I am all for people learning and using different dialects and languages providing that when they need to communicate outside their immediate sphere they have a more standard language available to them. Is there some reason that researching the history and present use of English is somehow wrong, alone amongst other languages that have their enthusiasts?

Has anyone in this discussion pretended "that everyone on these isles always spoke the same dialect of the same language"? Don't think that anyone has. Has anyone criticised the Internet for the information it makes available? Again, nobody has.

 

[Goatboy]

Are you also championing the resurrection of Cornish? Do you make sure to learn your Welsh when you go to Wales, Gaelic the highlands and islands, or any of the many diverse and complex regional dialects up and down the whole of the UK found outside the homogenising world of Received Pronunciation?

Or are some shifts in language fine, so long as its not your language that's being forgotten?

Or shall I be quiet and let us go back to pretending that everyone on these isles always spoke the same dialect of the same language so that we can all be smugly outraged at finding out that some names of some kinds of trees are being muscled out of a single book which most kids will probably never even encounter due to the proliferation of this here internet and all the knowledge it contains (including lots of information on regional and national languages and dialects that they might otherwise never even realise have been stamped out by a particular form of standardised language)?

I was brought up in a fairly strict East coast household. As kids we weren't replied to unless we spoke with an RP accent. This caused some problems at school but has been good to me in interviews and the likes. We were given some downtime and allowed to conversre with grandparents and the like in a Doric type mix. I don't know if this was for historical learning or just fun. My brother and I joked from an early age about our different "voices". Our proper voices and the playground ones. I enjoy conversing with the likes of Toddy in what I refer to as my couthy voice. Dropping back into auld Scots. This is similar to a lot of the Nordic voices off of our east coast. Many words and phrases are very similar. As I've often quoted in the likes of Fife Nordic tounges were as commonly spoken as English in the 18th century. Not only do different languages give bigger scope for detail, but its thought that they allow different ways to think of things.
A great thing to look at is how the language shifts over distance. Look at the regional variation over a small land mass like the British Isles. Not just in English. A Gaelic speaker from Stonehaven might not have a clue as to what one from Harris is on about at first. In remote villages in some mountainous regions of Europe this becomes more pronounced. And the likes of some Basque dialects defy linguists as to their origin. Just enjoy words and learn as many as you can is my credo.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[Ed the Ted]

Resurrecting Cornish presents a problem because of the controversy of what Cornish is be revived. This will give you a flavour http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernewek_Kemmyn. We enjoy picking up words and phrases when we visit different places but I am not a polyglot and you have to stop at some point.

I am all for people learning and using different dialects and languages providing that when they need to communicate outside their immediate sphere they have a more standard language available to them. Is there some reason that researching the history and present use of English is somehow wrong, alone amongst other languages that have their enthusiasts?

Has anyone in this discussion pretended "that everyone on these isles always spoke the same dialect of the same language"? Don't think that anyone has. Has anyone criticised the Internet for the information it makes available? Again, nobody has.

No they haven't, I was being a little provocative I'll admit. I think that the oh so common (perhaps not in these parts) domination of 'standard' English, RP and all that over regional languages and dialects for me jars with complaints about language deviations and mutations of younger people primarily in urban areas being not 'proper' which often seem to be swiftly followed by rose tinted lamentations of a time when everyone knew and spoke 'properly', when in fact 'back then' (whenever that is or was) there was probably far more language diversity than between RP and technology-inspired language mutations.

It's just a contradiction (for me) of logic between not wanting language to change, and forgetting that in much of the UK the language and dialect that most people speak or are expected to speak are, for that area, themselves mutations and changes from what has come before (which was itself a mutation and so on ad nauseum).

 

[Stew]

Removed due to post gone

 

[Goatboy]

That's two politocally overt posts. Mod hat on.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[sandbender]

What does that have to do with the subject?

Nothing and he/she is away.

 

[boatman]

No they haven't, I was being a little provocative I'll admit. I think that the oh so common (perhaps not in these parts) domination of 'standard' English, RP and all that over regional languages and dialects for me jars with complaints about language deviations and mutations of younger people primarily in urban areas being not 'proper' which often seem to be swiftly followed by rose tinted lamentations of a time when everyone knew and spoke 'properly', when in fact 'back then' (whenever that is or was) there was probably far more language diversity than between RP and technology-inspired language mutations.

It's just a contradiction (for me) of logic between not wanting language to change, and forgetting that in much of the UK the language and dialect that most people speak or are expected to speak are, for that area, themselves mutations and changes from what has come before (which was itself a mutation and so on ad nauseum).

Regretting that certain words are replaced in a dictionary is different from not wanting a language to change. All the words in English that ever were should be available to us. Some will be obsolete, some obscure but all are capable of revival. Adding should not mean disposal.

 

[santaman2000]

Regretting that certain words are replaced in a dictionary is different from not wanting a language to change. All the words in English that ever were should be available to us. Some will be obsolete, some obscure but all are capable of revival. Adding should not mean disposal.

You're absolutely correct, but there's only so much room in a printed version. How would you solve that problem?

 

[boatman]

Recognising that words are not in use is different from promoting their disuse because of some desire to get down with the Youf. In fact it is probably more important that a word such as stamen be in a junior dictionary than a name of a species of a well-known tree. Perhaps, by the same reasoning a definition of a more technical word related to computing is needed rather than ones in common use.

 

[santaman2000]

Maybe. I'm still trying to work out just what the intended use is for the dictionary in question (the junior dictionary) Exactly what age group is considered "junior?" I expect it's a younger age group than the collegiate dictionary would be aimed at? Perhaps the middle school grades? (6th, 7th, and 8th grades here or their equivalent there?) If so, shouldn't the words included be the ones they're most likely to need to complete homework assignments at their grade level? Whatever those words may be.