We cannot drill our way out of this oil crisis. Since 2000, oil companies working in the U.S. have doubled the number of wells drilled per year.
Although increased drilling has added new oil to the nation's supply, it has not done so fast enough to offset the terminal decline of existing fields.
We are going to have to import more of our oil. Period.
Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 7:36 pm Post subject: Re: It's Losing, not Loosing!!
Heineken wrote:
Would anyone care to speculate on WHY English has gone to hell?
Umm, ain't it, like, ya know, er, like, totally obvius dude? _________________ "Who knows what the Second Law of Thermodynamics will be like in a hundred years?" - Economist speaking during planning for World Population Conference in early 1970s
Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 7:56 pm Post subject: Re: It's Losing, not Loosing!!
Actually, Heineken, I think it's due to a combination of influences - including the postmodern notion that absolute standards are to be regarded with suspicion, so inaccuracies are allowed to creep in. Recently, where I live, it was proposed that "text/SMS" language should be permitted in answering school examination questions.
But I think a large part must be just that people don't seem to read as much - there are so many competing demands for our leisure time these days. Anyone who reads a lot and has a reasonable visual memory should never spell "losing" as "loosing". Good readers tend to be good spellers, in my experience. _________________ "Who knows what the Second Law of Thermodynamics will be like in a hundred years?" - Economist speaking during planning for World Population Conference in early 1970s
Joined: Sep 14, 2004 Posts: 5698 Location: Rural Virginia
Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 8:56 pm Post subject: Re: It's Losing, not Loosing!!
This would be my short list of the reasons why "English has gone to hell"; they start off with the ones already mentioned by SpringCreekFarm and CrudeAwakening:
1. Educational systems and methods are deteriorating.
2. People are reading less (and spending more time on I-Phones, I-Pods, computer games, and the idiot box).
3. New communication technology (e.g., text messaging, chat rooms, and Blackberries) has caused people to treat English as infinitely plastic and endlessly customizable.
4. English has become the language of globalism. It's an easy language to learn poorly but a hard one to learn well; as a result, billions speak bad English, and thus bad English has become the norm.
5. We've become taxed for time (for a whole separate list of reasons, but information overload is a key one), and constantly look for shortcuts. This affects the care we put not only into writing things but also into reading.
6. English has been hijacked by politicians, interest groups, entertainers, and advertisers, who twist and torture it mercilessly to serve their own ends. (Yes, the "womyn's" movement is an example.)
7. Growing specialization of occupations (fueled in large part by the Oil Age) has led to severe deficits in writing skills even among otherwise well-educated people, who can't afford to spend time on anything other than their narrow fields. (This factor overlaps some of the others.)
8. The printed word, increasingly, is being replaced by the electronic word, which seems more impermanent and therefore less important as an object of care and deliberation.
I'm sure this list can be added to! _________________ "Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog
"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother
Joined: Apr 06, 2006 Posts: 2532 Location: 3 miles NW of Champoeg
Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 10:54 pm Post subject: Re: It's Losing, not Loosing!!
Heineken wrote:
Would anyone care to speculate on WHY English has gone to hell?
Yes. _________________ Cogito, ergo non satis bibivi
Rug-peers did not do this.
"We can find a needle in a haystack, but it is still a needle." - Colin Campbell on oil exploration.
Joined: Apr 06, 2006 Posts: 2532 Location: 3 miles NW of Champoeg
Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 11:34 pm Post subject: Re: It's Losing, not Loosing!!
Heineken wrote:
7. Growing specialization of occupations (fueled in large part by the Oil Age) has led to severe deficits in writing skills even among otherwise well-educated people, who can't afford to spend time on anything other than their narrow fields. (This factor overlaps some of the others.)
Most people used to be illiterate so whether we've advanced is open to discussion. I'm looking at everything nowadays in the light of growing energy in society to provide more spare time for people, leading to universal public education, women's suffrage, genuine racial equality, affordable and widely available books and newspapers, and so forth.
We've always had people who were supremely knowledgeable about their profession, indeed in a way these people who can work the crap out of their Blackberries etc. are certainly sharp at that, no matter how contemptuous we are of their accomplishment.
The universal horror at grime and smoke you can chalk up to people being able to live in these antiseptic push button domiciles. No more wood stoves. _________________ Cogito, ergo non satis bibivi
Rug-peers did not do this.
"We can find a needle in a haystack, but it is still a needle." - Colin Campbell on oil exploration.
Joined: Oct 16, 2004 Posts: 1185 Location: Brisbane, Australia
Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 12:30 am Post subject: Re: It's Losing, not Loosing!!
mekrob wrote:
....We've shifted away from reading Dickens and the like for fun to reading Harry Potter and Steven King.....
It's worse than that mate. Collectively, we've shifted away from reading Dickens and the like for TV and computer games. The kids reading Harry Potter and Steven King aren't doing too badly. At least they are reading. _________________ Kind regards, Katkinkate
"The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops,
but the cultivation and perfection of human beings."
Masanobu Fukuoka
Joined: Oct 23, 2005 Posts: 1438 Location: East of Eden
Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 1:45 pm Post subject: Re: It's Losing, not Loosing!!
Heineken wrote:
1. Educational systems and methods are deteriorating.
2. People are reading less (and spending more time on I-Phones, I-Pods, computer games, and the idiot box).
These are the two biggies, for me, topping your list. This degradation is a long-term process that has simply become more noticeable lately (probably picking up speed, as so many other things are). The television is the piece of home entertainment technology that's been around for enough decades to be the prime culprit. What did folks do before we sat around staring at a box? Read, perhaps? Talk?
Sure, there was radio before that; but we're hard wired as binocular visual creatures, and television has that hypnotic *must keep watching this* effect on us. We stare, tune everything else out, shut off the faculties, and soak it all up.
When I was a kid, I read quite a lot -- probably because my mother, wisely, took away the television when we were quite young. The result is that I was pretty well read at an early age, and now I don't miss TV at all when it's not around. I literally haven't turned it on for months. There's never any need to be bored. I owe Mom a lot for that alone, and I plan to do the same for my kids if I have them, even if energy depletion isn't forcing it on us by then.
Education, as well: we're forcing kids to stay in school longer and longer, and yet somehow they're learning less and less useful or enlightening material. Is George Carlin right? Was it deliberate?
Joined: Sep 14, 2004 Posts: 5698 Location: Rural Virginia
Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 7:42 am Post subject: Re: It's Losing, not Loosing!!
Although it is certainly more "interactive," I think the Internet has some TV-like qualities. Like TV, it involves sitting and being entertained by staring at a screen and fiddling with various keys and knobs. Without great personal discretion and control, it can be a monumental time-waster. I'm not sure whether it contributes to better writing or has just been another feed into the general decline. _________________ "Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog
"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother
Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 6:53 am Post subject: Re: It's Losing, not Loosing!!
Aimrehtopyh wrote:
What drives me up the wall is when people say "different than" when they should say "different from". Spelling and grammar crimes are bad enough, but this error is such a glaring logical inconsistency it makes my scalp twitch.
"The lighting in here is different than the other room." Sounds okay to most people but makes me want to commit felony assault.
Haha, I'm definitely one of those people
The one that really rubs me the wrong way is using "are" instead of "our"...
Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 1:27 am Post subject: Re: It's Losing, not Loosing!!
"separate" not "seperate"
using the wrong principal/principle
"your" for "you're"
and "their" for "they're" or even "there" _________________ "Who knows what the Second Law of Thermodynamics will be like in a hundred years?" - Economist speaking during planning for World Population Conference in early 1970s
Joined: Oct 23, 2005 Posts: 1438 Location: East of Eden
Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 2:06 am Post subject: Re: It's Losing, not Loosing!!
Here's a relevant article: the No Child Left Behind policy is expanding on reading and math, to the detriment of other studies:
Quote:
The report, being released Wednesday, says that of the districts reporting an increase, elementary schools are spending on average 37 minutes more per day on reading, math or both since the law was passed.
Nearly half of the districts said they have cut time in elementary schools for non-tested subjects such as social studies, science, art, music and gym. The cuts across these various subjects totaled about 30 minutes a day, according to the report.
And yet the decline in comprehension and critical thinking continues.
I suppose the real question is this: How are children going to (be forced to) learn to read and write coherently, when the desire to learn has been boot-camped right out of them?
It all boils down to a test? Whose subject has been determined by morons in Washington?
We're producing drones here, whose only outlashing of expression is within the world of shopping malls, iPods, myspace and television.
Take a look again at the studies listed above as receiving cuts. Art and music are no surprise, though bad enough on their own. But history? Science?
Roman Empire. Last days. _________________ "If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst." — Thomas Hardy
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