[AJD] Being really tacky today

[Louis Spiegelberg]

Dean,

My son is in 1st grade.  They tell him to sound out words when he spells
them.  I see this as being a problem in the future.  As we all know, words
in the English language aren't always spelled like they sound.  I asked the
teacher why don't they just make the kids memorize the why words are
spelled.  She said that discourages the kids.  That's funny, it worked for a
couple hundred years before this new way of spelling.  Are we going to go
back to the way of spelling, before Webster wrote the dictionary?

I have a comments page for my website.  A high school teacher once contacted
me through that method.  The grammar and spelling was so poor, it took me
about 15 minutes to try to figure out what he was trying to say.  I am in no
way trying to say my grammar is perfect.  I know it isn't.  But it is a sad
state when the teacher teaching our kids can't even use proper grammar.  How
are our kids suppose to learn it then?

Lou



-----Original Message-----
From: antique-johndeere-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
[mailto:antique-johndeere-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of
Dean VP
Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2006 4:04 PM
To: AT JD
Subject: [AJD] Being really tacky today


I'll apologize for being tacky up front on this one. But here goes! I know
that I misspell words here on ATIS occasionally (maybe often) but sometimes
it is due to my poor typing skills.  And I don't worry about it a whole lot
due to a bit of feeling that an occasionally misspelled word isn't going to
offend too many list members. But I just read an eBay listing for a JD 40 T
that really struck me as being indicative of what we are graduating from
high school these days. The person originating the listing admits to
attending college at the present time. I counted at least 10 obvious
spelling errors in the listing. He is from Ohio, it appears, but is
attending college in NY supposedly. 

I guess maybe I noticed this more due to an experience we had with our
oldest daughter when she was in junior high school. She just had a heck of a
time with spelling and after much extra work she ended up in the high school
honors program and did off-campus accelerated school work. But it took some
extra focus to get her there. She attended college at the University of
Washington and graduated with honors with a degree in Education with a
business minor (Dad caused that minor :-)). She has taught school for over
18 years and now is a High School English teacher, has also picked up a
Masters degree and has enough credits that would qualify her for a Doctorate
degree but hasn't pursued it. But it just shows that spelling issues don't
have to be a lifetime handicap.

BTW, my daughter, to this day, blames Max Raferty who was the head guy in
the California State School system at the time my daughter was in Elementary
school. She had a year or two of elementary instruction where the only thing
that was taught was the phonetic way of spelling. She says it handicapped
her for life!  :-) 

But anyway, this particular eBay listing just struck me as being a bit over
the edge. I'm sure it was triggered by the fact the seller mentions he is in
college but... what really set me off was he spelled it as "colledge".  :-)

See eBay auction #  7581656930

Ok, how many spelling errors did I make in this message?  :-) I know, I have
it coming. Do it to me! And yes, I know my sentences are too long!  :-)

Dean A. Van Peursem
Snohomish, WA 98290

Forbidden fruits create many jams!

www.deerelegacy.com

http://members.cox.net/classicweb/email.htm






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