Hyperlexia - Literary Tool

[Boxlicker101]

Serious disease, no. A real learning handicap, definitely! We frequently run across this where a student sounds like they can read up a storm but haven't a clue as to what they just read means. It makes all those adds you see about learning to read with Phonics look like the complete sham that they are.

I will concede some of the ads may be rather bogus, but I am a strong believer in using phonics to teach reading and spelling of English. It isn't perfect, and some memorization is required, and there are rules to learn, but it works better than the alternatives.

 

[Huckleman2000]

Ha! I did this once in high school. It was a humorous radio-show piece about a fictional playwright, Samuel Chuckit. One sentence began, "Tired and beheaded, Chuckit returned to England...." I just thought it sounded funny when I wrote it, and sure enough, it got laughs (of the "...wait a minute. WTF did he just say?" variety). I'm a big believer in writing to the sound of the words, especially for humorous pieces. Sound and rhythm are really important to comedy.

eta: Now that I think of it, it wasn't a totally nonsensical choice of words. That part of the biography followed a period of critical failure on the Mainland, so I suppose there was a metaphorical component that made it sound just plausible enough that the listener was lulled into a false sense of rational elucidation before realizing that it was nonsense.

 

[Xelebes]

Do you mean it did a poor job of pissing your teachers off? I would have thought it would have done a good job of pissing them off, or would have pissed them off well.

Hm, it persists to this day.

 

[oggbashan]

At one stage in my career I was the preferred delegate to send to cover conferences and symposia about management practice.

Why?

Because my reports were written in standard English and didn't take at face value all the gobblygook presented at the events.

For example: I was sent to the launch of a new computerised customer service system that the organisation who had commissioned it hoped to sell to other organisations to help cover their development costs.

My report in summary:

They made a mess of their first system because they tried to be comprehensive. The new system is claimed to be idiot-proof and simple. It does not meet either of those claims because they couldn't demonstrate it reliably.

I can write gobblygook with the best but I was trained to start any report with a one-page summary. Very few managers will bother to read more than the summary.

Og

 

[voluptuary_manque]

At one stage in my career I was the preferred delegate to send to cover conferences and symposia about management practice.

Why?

Because my reports were written in standard English and didn't take at face value all the gobblygook presented at the events.

For example: I was sent to the launch of a new computerised customer service system that the organisation who had commissioned it hoped to sell to other organisations to help cover their development costs.

My report in summary:

They made a mess of their first system because they tried to be comprehensive. The new system is claimed to be idiot-proof and simple. It does not meet either of those claims because they couldn't demonstrate it reliably.

I can write gobblygook with the best but I was trained to start any report with a one-page summary. Very few managers will bother to read more than the summary.

Og

I believe that started in Harry Truman's administration. He wanted clear, concise information and tongue lashed his staff until they came up with the format now called "white paper" which was originally 'White House Paper' because if you didn't write like that the "White House" (Harry) would have your hide. Smart man, ol' Harry. They just don't make politicians like that any more.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I will concede some of the ads may be rather bogus, but I am a strong believer in using phonics to teach reading and spelling of English. It isn't perfect, and some memorization is required, and there are rules to learn, but it works better than the alternatives.

That's far too simple. Really adept readers use 'sign/symbol' reading, just like they were reading Chinese ideograms. They understand from childhood that 'c.a.t.=". For other children, phonics works until they run into tough, through, although, cough, thought, etc. Teaching children reading is a very technical business and it has to be accomplished before the end of the third grade because if they don't get it by then, they're already behind the eight-ball when it comes to expository text.

 

[john-the-author]

I believe that started in Harry Truman's administration. He wanted clear, concise information and tongue lashed his staff until they came up with the format now called "white paper" which was originally 'White House Paper' because if you didn't write like that the "White House" (Harry) would have your hide. Smart man, ol' Harry. They just don't make politicians like that any more.

Barry Goldwater was like that, too, as I recall. I didn't like a lot of his policies but the man was an incredible straight shooter.

 

[Handley_Page]

I believe that started in Harry Truman's administration. He wanted clear, concise information and tongue lashed his staff until they came up with the format now called "white paper" which was originally 'White House Paper' because if you didn't write like that the "White House" (Harry) would have your hide. Smart man, ol' Harry. They just don't make politicians like that any more.

Sorry, but I do not know the order of your presidents, but I read that FDR liked summaries like that.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Sorry, but I do not know the order of your presidents, but I read that FDR liked summaries like that.

Truman was FDR's VP and took over when Roosevelt died of stroke. He was reelected on his own in the following election in 1950

 

[trysail]

Why does this subject bring 'Finnegan's Wake' to mind? Reading that argle-bargle was like cleaning out a grease trap with a teaspoon.

It was never meant to be accessible.

I won't pretend to have read it; it IS a career. I've spent a fair amount of time whacking away at Ulysses [ Hell, come to think of it, I once owned a piece of one of the one thousand blue paper-covered first editions printed by Shakespeare & Co. and Sylvia Beach. It was far and away the most expensive book I ever owned! ] It is the work of a virtuoso and a genius. I haven't the slightest doubt that Joyce had an IQ rivaling any author in history.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Handley_Page
Sorry, but I do not know the order of your presidents, but I read that FDR liked summaries like that.

Truman was FDR's VP and took over when Roosevelt died of stroke. He was reelected on his own in the following election in 1950

Truman was electedVP in 1944 and inaugurated in 1945. He became pres. a few months later, when FDR died, and was the man who gave the final go ahead for dropping A bombs on Japan. Some people in the 60's and 70's criticized him for this, but I have always thought it needed to ber done.

He was elected on his own in 1948 and declined to run in 1952. He might have beaten Ike, because, I believe, most voters could identify with him, even though the smarty-pants pundits, who all thought Thomas Dewey would beat him in 1948, didn't like him. Possibly because he was such a straight shooter.

 

[Saucy_Sage]

Wasn't there a guy on the old Wayans Bros. show, "In Living Color," who used to get big laughs with a sketch like this?