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conulyI just went through and marked all 28 illiterate "reviews" of this book - a book that does not come out until October! - as "inappropriate".
It's the total inability to write that bugs me, but the rank inflation doesn't help either. Anybody want to do the same? It might seem petty, but when you're done there's a nice sense of satisfaction from accomplishing something relatively easy.
It's the total inability to write that bugs me, but the rank inflation doesn't help either. Anybody want to do the same? It might seem petty, but when you're done there's a nice sense of satisfaction from accomplishing something relatively easy.
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Date: 2012-06-05 04:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-05 05:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-04 08:20 pm (UTC)I agree that it's inappropriate to post an alleged 'review' of a book that hasn't come out yet - if one must post childish squeeing about how great the author's other books are, the place to do it is in the review-sections for THOSE books. One can't be certain of loving a book one hasn't read; later books in a series frequently suck - viz. Jean Auel's The Plains Of Passage.
I, however, have not read any of that author's books, nor am I likely to, so it would be inappropriate for me to go in and review its' reviewers. TThe fact that they're rather illiterate doesn't surprise me - the books are teen/young adult fantasy; the 'reviewers' are obviously very young - hey, good on them for reading books, eh? Not only reading them, but loving books enough to be "sooooooo excited!!!" about one that's coming out soon, and saying so right there on Amazon.
I don't hold with the whole Spelling Police thing. I know far too much about how English spelling evolved to have any respect for those who would set it in concrete, and I don't think it accomplishes anything good, to smack people down for not writing by school rules in a non-school context. Spelling is getting to be a Lost Art in the computer age, just like arithmetic became when inexpensive calculators first came out: no one has to remember that stuff any more, because if's all right there if one needs it.
Well, so? Why shouldn't we store such information outside of our heads? That's what writing was for in the first place.. Unlike any generation before them, the Millenial kids have grown up communicating with each other in writing, daily, sometimes hourly, often obsessively. Their communication with one another works just fine - THEY understand their writing, and if older people do not, well, they weren't talking to US anyway. So unless one is in a position to grade, recommend or hire them, one's opinion of their literacy isn't going to matter. It's like back in the 60's, when old people were always fussing about young peoples' hair: what good did that ever accomplish?
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Date: 2012-06-04 08:27 pm (UTC)That book does not exist.
It's like back in the 60's, when old people were always fussing about young peoples' hair: what good did that ever accomplish?
Let's go back and ask them!
But really, I have more concerns with their inability to form coherent sentences than their lack of ability to utilize spellcheck. Why people who can presumably speak fluently refuse to at least write the way they speak I simply cannot grasp.
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Date: 2012-06-04 09:35 pm (UTC)My one housemate is 78 - he's got long hair now, but in the 60's he was a respectable husband, father and public-school teacher, and he fussed his eldest son rather a lot about his hair. Reportedly, none of his fussing at his kids ever did any good, but they turned out more or less okay anyhow..
"Why people who can presumably speak fluently refuse to at least write the way they speak I simply cannot grasp"
..... several hypotheses spring to mind:
1. The presumption that they can speak fluently may be erroneous. Lots of people can't, y'know - they stammer, repeat, mispronounce, drop consonants, confuse tenses and number, mix up their pronouns and their subject/verb agreement - it's just that verbal speech goes fast and leaves no trail, so people can more easily 'pass'. for fluent speakers even if they really aren't.
2. If they do speak fluently, the presumption that they refuse to write the way they speak may be erroneous. They may not realize that they don't write the way they speak, because their reading skills are no better than their writing skills, and since they know what they meant to say, when they look at the page, that's what they see,even though that's not what it actually says. Verbal and written speech are apples-and-oranges; receptive language and expressive language are not the same program. Lots of people 'know' they write poorly, and want to write better, but it's difficult to get them started because they can't see their mistakes - which makes perfect sense, because if they knew they were mistakes, they wouldn't have made them.
3. Whether or not they speak fluently, the presumption that they care enough about coherent writing to either strive for it or refuse it may be erroneous. It seems more likely that they pay no attention to such things, slam out the wrds however they fall, and never look back to see what they wrote.
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Date: 2012-06-04 10:03 pm (UTC)It'd be all right if the sex were at least interesting. How somebody can write so much tedious, tedious, tedious sex just boggles the imagination.
As for the rest, you may be right, but it's still frustrating and annoying. You may disagree, but all I really want to do is print it out and mail it to their various parents with a note in red to get them to a tutor, stat.
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Date: 2012-06-06 12:28 am (UTC)I know, right? It's the epitome of Vanilla Mary Sue new-age 'erotica', which always sounds like it's been written by someone who never actually had any sex, but knows that it's supposed to be Beautiful and Spiritual, and also that the man is spoze to be Superbly Endowed. It's just embarrassing, like watching someone trying to masturbate but failing at it.
Alas, if the parents of these reviewers were the sort to get them tutors, doubtless they'd have tutors already. Or maybe they do have tutors, but it ain't working - it doesn't always work; I had more math tutors than you can shake a stick at, from second grade right through my senior year of college, and was still mediocre at it.
I too find it irritating when I have to decipher sloppy writing, but not as irritating as I once did. It's like you said once, "Oh noes! Someone is Wrong on the Internet!" - these are clearly kids; they probably do write better than that when it's for a grade, but even if they don't, what is that to me? They're not my kids; their ignorance is not my responsibility to correct, and nothing makes the face freeze 'that way' faster than fretting over other peoples' annoying but harmless behaviors.
Therefore, if only for the sake of sheer vanity, I must say "meh", and thine eternal summer shall not fade so fast if thou learnest to say it too, preferably while smiling slightly like the Mona Lisa. The ignorant we shall have with us always, and nothing can be done for most of them: one simply has to accept that, and concentrate on teaching the teachable few.
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Date: 2012-06-06 12:32 am (UTC)The ignorant we shall have with us always, and nothing can be done for most of them
I don't know. I'm still holding out hope of being a hermit. Then the ignorant will always be with everybody else and I'll be miles away.
...
Can you be a hermit with an internet connection?
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Date: 2012-06-06 12:35 am (UTC)I just looked it up, she has five kids! Five! After you have sex five times (minimum) shouldn't you be able to write something more creative about it?
But the simple solution is just to carefully edit those pages out of the book. Makes it easier to carry around as well :)
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Date: 2012-06-04 08:48 pm (UTC)I haven't read any of the author's books, and probably won't ever read them, so it would be imappropriate for me to go smack down his or her young fans. It does sound petty, and it also sounds unlikely to accomplish anything useful.
Some very poor writing there, true, but that's irrelevant. Amazon.com is not a classroom; it is not inappropriate to spell poorly there, nor to be ridiculously lavish in squeeing hyperbole... just, one ought to read the book first.
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Date: 2012-06-04 08:50 pm (UTC)