🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2970@tank.uchicago.edu> goer@sophist.UUCP (Richard Goerwitz) writes:
>In article <17158@mimsy.UUCP> folta@tove.umd.edu.UUCP (Wayne Folta) writes:
>>IMHO, a general rule is: one's knowledge, intelligence, and curiosity are
>>*usually* reflected in the breadth and depth of one's reading and the breadth
>>and depth of one's reading is usually reflected in one's grammar and
>>spelling.
>
>Interesting.  But am I the only one that gets impatient with this sort
>If we are to posit some correlation
>between ability to spell or concern for things like typos and ability to
>perform in a real, working environment, doing things that may or may not
>involve spelling and typing things correctly, we must offer something more
>than personal feelings.  Or else we gotta move to talk.lang....

I used to teach in an English Secondary School (11-18 year olds). I
taught many bright children with poor reading and writing skills.
These skills are very poor indicators of whole classes of performances
in 'non-academic' tasks.  Hence the well-read, academically successful
nerd and the illiterate, street-wise and ultra-sharp hussler.

I agree with both posters.  There is no conflict.

Wayne's "knowledge" is "school knowledge" - book knowledge presented in
a bookish way for regurgitation in a bookish manner.

Richards "knowledge" is "action knowledge" - common sense knowledge
gleaned from active interaction in a rich social and physical
environment.

It is possible to have one without the other.  However, as reading and
writing skills tend to go hand in hand, poor grammar and spelling can
be taken as a sign of limited reading abilities, and thus limited
contact with written culture.  Nerdhood is a similar indicator of zero
contact with the social contexts of common sense knowledge :-)

Moral: there is much more to knowledge than what is written down.
-- 
Gilbert Cockton, Department of Computing Science,  The University, Glasgow
	gilbert@uk.ac.glasgow.cs <europe>!ukc!glasgow!gilbert