[Vision2020] Degeneration of Literacy

Rob Keenan benjamin_barker@hotmail.com
Wed, 12 Nov 2003 08:08:25 -0800


Actually, Sr. Jerry, my wonderful fifth-grade Catholic school teacher, would
have been aghast to see even Tim's sentence. Something about pairing "it"
with personal pronouns -- oh, those nuns. ;)

In the interest of Dominican readability:

"I'm not the only one who is for school choice."

Although Sr. Esther, who taught me in seventh grade, would have lobbied for
a return of the ruler had I turned in that particular sentence. She taught
me to avoid all instances of "to be" verbs. She also taught me to eschew
negatives, contractions and internal contradictions within sentences. (I
would lose one-third of a grade point for every comma fault, but that
requires another post.)

One more time, just for her:

"Others here favor school choice."

I suppose anything is wrong if you stare at it hard enough. *shrug*

ROB

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Hillebrand" <chief@synergetics.org>
To: "'Vision2020'" <vision2020@moscow.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2003 7:11 AM
Subject: [Vision2020] Degeneration of Literacy



Hmmm...I wonder what school system was responsible for a graduate
penning this sentence containing two egregious errors:
It's not just me that's for school choice.
My government school teacher would have been horrified. The correct
redaction of this sentence should be, "It's not just I who is for school
choice.
Viva literacy,