The bigotry of low expectations

A few years ago at TrekBBS, a guy wrote a very thoughtful essay on prejudice, which was quite well done and moving. Only he didn't say prejudice, he said "prejudism." Which is not a word. I was of course moved to mention this (at first jokingly suggesting it meant a time before Jewish people), and he got royally pissed, telling me it was just my opinion that the non-word was not a word . I googled prejudism, and the definition was "a misnomer often used incorrectly for prejudice."

It was really odd, I thought, that such a good and thoughtful writer could get the main word in his subject wrong.

Lindsey Graham must think low expectations enable him to whine about HIS grade from the NAACP during what was SUPPOSED to be a hearing on the next AG...

Maybe try and NOT support policies that disenfranchise minority voters?

Is this a good place to point out "irregardless" isnt a word either?

That said, I think the Germans have the right idea about how they can conjugate a word for a specific meaning as needed and not have to wait till the 1980s to make "prioritize" a thing, or for Bush to stumble into making the word "normalcy " (which is easily in the top three best thing he ever did in office, to be sure).

I thought it was President Harding that came up with the word "normalcy"?

If you don't understand the "mechanical aspects" of language, you won't understand them with anything else. Most fields of human endeavor require knowledge of and adherence to rules, laws, customs, principles, guidelines, etc. Even where creativity might entail breaking a rule, one must first understand that there is a rule.

I wouldn't say a career in writing or expressing ideas is foreclosed to someone who's unsure of how to use an Oxford comma, but I would not expect much innovation from those who cannot master the basics.

Yes, but those are stories of people who triumph despite a lack of ability, not because of it. Not being able to spell is not in any way a prerequisite for physics greatness.

Nope, definitely remember laughing at how stupid Bush was for making up fake words in a pre-covfefe world

But all the greatness inthe world means nothing when you don't have a way to get the point across. Obviously his grasp on German (the native language I'm sure he initially received instruction in) was well enough that his peers got the point across.

Which, I'm sure, it the point spot is making. A generation ago, we used to write off dyslexics as morons and say sucks to be you. Which I'm aware is your mantra for the world, but some people kinda want a little bit better than that.

Yes, but spelling is not so important to a physicist. If Einstein had not have been able to master the "mechanical aspects" of, say, arithmetic or algebra or Newtonian mechanics, he would not have been able to even comprehend the theories he later invented, much less imagine them in the first place.

I'm not saying we should write off dyslexics, only that we should not lower the bar for others because dyslexics exist. Dyslexics face great challenges in becoming great writers, but that does not change what is and should be expected of non-dyslexics with the same aspirations.

Education resources--like all resources--are limited. If you have 60 students interested in writing, and 30 slots available in an advanced class, shouldn't those who have a better mastery of the basics get the seats? Yes, one of the ones who doesn't know how to punctuate correctly may be a potential future Nobel Prize in Literature winner, but so may be any of the 30 who have better mastery of the basics.

I beg to differ.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_normalcy

I hope you Americans complaining about shortening of words are going to put all the U's back into your words.

I send my extra ones to Canada under the LettersNorth campaign.

"Is this a good place to point out "irregardless" isn't a word either? " - Shirogayne

I had a First Sergeant in Korea who pointed that out. We were all flabbergasted (which is a real word) when we found out. Who knew?

I can't take this seriously from someone who can't spell defense properly.

And I thought you LIKED that Trump was putting the fence back in defence?

My point isn't that examples of great intellects who lack basic literary skills should be used as predictors, or that we should "lower the bar" per se, but rather to acknowledge that two natively equal intellects can present very differently in their literary output depending on the history, backgrounds and the impediments placed in their way.

Access to academic resources is already very biased as it is, far more so than this seminar could ever possibly threaten, let's not pretend that university admissions and demographics are based entirely on academic ability.

Financial background is a major factor, with vastly more graduates coming from middle class upbringing than those with more deprived backgrounds. This applies everywhere in the world and already represents a conflicting bias when viewed alongside this proposal.

Similarly allowing for potential failings in prior education which likely do not reflect that students ability doesn't seem unfair provided the leeway is applied consistently. The content of and insights within the work should tell you more about the person than their spelling, which could just as easily speak more about their educational experiences.

However, something that really springs out for me in terms of the US is the scholarship program which specifically provides academic places on the basis of athletic ability. Here we have a massive group of students who are offered and supported in education despite potentially massive shortcomings in suitability when compared to other, non athletic, candidates. They may in any given case meet the minimum requirements for a particular course or exceed them by any margin, but the fact places are guaranteed for those whose main qualifying criteria is their contribution to sporting life reduces the number of places available purely on academic merit.

Here's a graph of the frequency of "normalcy" and "normality" in books from 1800 to present:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/gra...irect_url=t1;,normalcy;,c0;.t1;,normality;,c0

Harding probably did the most to make the use of "normalcy" common, but it's been around for a long time.

This is true, academic modules outside your discipline can sometimes be taken as optional extras but by and large it's either a single honours or a double where one minors in a secondary discipline, at least at BSc level.

I consider them synonyms, though I use them differently sometimes...

I use normalcy to mean "the usual or customary state of affairs." For example: "The election of a pro-business mayor signaled a return to normalcy for the town's merchants." "Normality" would work just fine here, though.

I use normality to indicate how close to orthogonal (oriented 90 degrees) a vector is to a plane, or the concentration by weight of a solute in a solution (e.g., "5% NaCl"). "Normalcy" does not work for these.

Hmmm......good call! Normalcy as a behavior, normality as a quantifiable state/position...if I am correct in my assumption.

No u

I think this makes the point very clearly that intelligence is not measured by ones grammar or vocabulary.

Yet every time Trump doesn't spell or speak accurately half of wordforge (or the country) is all over that shit like white on rice. Any thoughts?

He could speak as eloquently as Obama about the wall and about hating Muslims and Mexicans and hed still be disgusting trash.

Trump also says nothing to indicate underlying intelligence, sensitivity or thoughtfulness, despite having the best education money could buy and being in the single most prominent public speaking role in the world.

The basic linguistic failings are just a bonus

Which just goes to show how much of a difference there is between "the best that money could buy" and "the best that effort could earn".

I'm putting this in the quotes thread, BTW