Every time I begin to have hope for America, freecycle kills it.

[Rabrrrrrr]

Thankfully, my hope never gets a chance to get out of control, because I am constantly reminded, through freecycle emails, that most Americans continue to be subliterate morons who don't give a shit about knowing stuff, communicating clearly, having any kind of dialogue, or even knowing how to use their computers or email systems, let alone the Internet. Fuckers all probably think its tubes and shit.

Punctuation? God forbid!

Correct punctuation? No way!

Constant abbreviation of words like "u" for "you" and "4" for "four"? Absolutely!

Syntax? Fuck that!

Grammar? Ain't that a form of Nazis or old people or something?

Clarity of thought? Screw it! It's just email! (or a newspaper ad, or a rummage sale ad, or a sign at the store, or a ...)

Politeness? Why the hell would I do that! I want stuff! And it's just email! And we're all here for the same thing, so why do I need to be polite?

ARGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Someone spammed one of the lists I'm on yesterday with some detritus (and spammed it, of course, in full ignorant "forward" mode with all the headers from the last six forwards, and 50 people in the "to:" line including the freecycle list. And then, another jackoff from the list decided to forward that email to 50 of his friends, including the freecycle list from which he grabbed it, but now with all seven headers from the past forwardings... so I send a note asking people not spam the list with irrelevant stuff like that, and that, if they really have to, to clean them up. Now I'm getting nasty emails from people saying (except without the punctuation and proper spelling) "I never sent you that email, so stop yelling at me." :shrug: :wtf:

I've gotten illiterate notes telling me to just delete notes like that if I don't want to read them. And those notes, of course, seem somehow to not notice that I don't know if I don't want to read them until after I've actually, you know, read them.

And from the originator I received this lovely work of art, which I print verbatim: "crist didnt u see the sorry post it was an acent so befor u get your panties in a bunch its not like u didnt hit enter ever early on the key bord"

Yep - and we constantly sit here on DU and wonder "How did Shrubbie get into office?"

I think the evidence is pretty fucking clear how, even beyond the election tampering.

Americans are just goddamned stupid. And if the dems are smart, they'll play to the stupidity as well as the republicans do.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. It's discouraging, isn't it?

There are so many ignorant-and-proud-of-it types, intellectually lazy types, and types whose brains have been withered by over-exposure to reality TV that one does despair of the future of America.

It wasn't the people who came into college ignorant who bothered me so much as the people who actively resisted learning anything while cheating to get good grades and therefore remained ignorant.

[skygazer]

2. I get discouraged by the stuff I see and hear in advertising

The constant ads playing in the store where I work - "Shop at OurStore.com and get free perqs!" (As opposed to those perqs you pay for, of course. Right up there with "free gifts").

The cellphone commercial with the woman asking, "Where you at?" Very nice. Encourage lousy grammar. Thanks a bunch.

Then there are the semi-official notices that are sent down from the corporate office with spelling and grammar mistakes that I wouldn't have made in second grade - spelling "baler" as "bailer", for instance. Or placing apostrophes in the wrong place. Or the tortuous and convuluted grammar that goes into some of the customer service signs that are posted here and there - "Please do not flush paper towels down the toilet so as to not clog drains." :wtf: It's like they were written by the same people who translated the instructions for the VCR I bought in 1985 from a low-budget Korean company.

Bad enough when your average idiot on Freecycle can't spell or write a coherent sentence but institutionalized ignorance makes me wonder even more why we consider ourselves so intelligent.

[RebelOne]

10. There was a TV commerical on last week for a computer company.

And they said "for you and I." "For you and I"? My jaw dropped to the floor.

[Misunderestimator]

3. I gotta old tv wan it?

[Elidor]

4. You remind me of Gore Vidal sometimes

He once said something along the lines of, "Some people think that underneath my icy demeanor there lurks a warm, cuddly man. Those people are wrong. Beneath my icy demeanor is only more ice."

Just for you, I'll run the spell check before posting. :D

[pitohui]

5. get better moderators

spam doesn't appear on my freecycle group because the mods quite simply won't tolerate it

i've gotten many good items and had many impractically large nuisance items hauled away by happy new owners

as for spelling/grammar, sorry, it's not an english test, if you want free stuff then you need to tolerate people not having time to deal with your personal hang-ups, they just want trash hauled, okay, you are hauling my trash, you are not asked to grade my spelling

if one wants something free AND one wants butt kissed, well, i think life itself will turn out to be very disappointing for that type of person, sorry

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. So, expecting people to use language like an adult is a request

to have my butt kissed?

The attitude you show in your note is exactly the attitude I'm railing against - the attitude that says "Oh, it's just email, I don't need write like I have a brain" or "It's just for free stuff, I can write as piss-poorly as I want because it doesn't matter", and so on. That is, the attitude that says it's okay to be lazy in communicating if one is not being graded for it, or if it's for something "not important".

I call bullshit - language and our use of it is ALWAYS important; it is the only way we have to share ideas and spread information - there is no instance in which piss poor writing, spelling, and grammar are not appropriate. Where do you draw the line? Do we need to communicate clearly only when writing papers for school that are going to be graded, and the rest of the time grammar and spelling can just go fuck themselves? That's precisely the kind of dumbing down of America that is pissing me off; the attitude that says "Oh, it doesn't matter how we use the language, it's not like this is important, and rules and stuff are just for elitists who want their asses kissed".

It's not about my "hang-ups" or me wanting my ass-kissed - don't be so goddamned rude - it's about me wanting a society that has people who know how to use the fucking language and who know how to communicate at an adult level. It's about me wanting a society of educated people; not a society of lazy, willfully and cheefully ignorant bozos.

One of the largest issues facing this country, in my opinion, is the vast number of people who simply do not know how to communicate in helpful, proper, and intelligent ways. And the sad thing is, most of the English as a Second Language people that I know, while they make mistakes in their communication, do a better job of communicating ideas than a hell of a lot of Americans for whom English is their first and only language.

But maybe it is the nature of humanity that there is to be always a small minority who are in charge, who know how to use language, how to communicate properly, who will run the businesses and the be the professionals while the other 90 percent gleefully spend their time grunting and scratching their crotches and run the machinery, haul the trash, and do the shit work, forever proud of themselves that they have deliberately failed to learn and avoided the elitism of those who know how to think. Perhaps it's a good thing that so many have no desire to think clearly or be intelligent; that keeps all the good and exciting jobs and positions of power open for us to take.

Speaking personally, though, I would rather that more people would want to better themselves. I find it sad that they don't. Writing clearly and intelligently doesn't take any more effort than writing like a dipshit.

[pagerbear]

11. Please take this in the spirit in which it is intended

...but did you mean to type ...there is no instance in which piss poor writing, spelling, and grammar are not appropriate. ?

[Rabrrrrrr]

14. I meant "there is no instance" in the plural sense

:rofl:


It's a....uh... rare but acceptable grammatical holdover from the... uh.... original Latin.

D'OH!!!!!

:spank:

[pagerbear]

15. Mmm hmmmm......I see.......

[Rabrrrrrr]

16. you don't believe me?

You, sir, is the cad! The Cad!

:spank:

Me speak English good!

[pagerbear]

17. Of course I believe you!

Of course! You betcha! Uh-huh! I would never doubt you!

[Indy_Dem_Defender]

7. Is your town's freecycle full

of people constantly begging for a free vehicle as well? That's why I stopped using freecycle pages and pages of I want this or that or this, people wanting a hand out of stuff DVD players, computers, TVs, Digital cameras, X-boxes, high dollar items for nothing.

[Rabrrrrrr]

8. It's not full, but there is a fair amount of it

"Needed desperately, an SUV so I can haul my children around; my husbanmd lost his job and our car died, and we really need a larger vehicle" blah blah blah.

And requests for TVs ("We specifically need a large screen one") and washers/dryers. I've seen requests for digitial video cameras ("We really need one to take pictures of the kids at parties and we don't have the money because we're on disability" blah blah blah), DVD players, video games ("My son, who is disabled, really loves video games and we'd love to get him a playstation for his birthday but because we just both lost our jobs and our car died and the cat's sick and our house needs foundation work and my sister just moved back in with us with her family because she lost her job blah blah blah, we can't afford it" blah blah blah).

And, oddly enough, I've seen a lot of requests for full sets of tires. "Needed: for Goodyear 25/190 13" radials with chrome rims" or some such that will fit a Honda Accord...

I especially love how so many of the requests come with the big sob stories.

"Excuse for requesting diamond and gold jewelery, but I just lost my job, I'm disabled from a time I hit the vending machine at so hard I broke my wrist and haven't been able to work for 22 years and i'm on social security and i'm being evicted and my wife left me and i have to pay child support and my kids eat me out of house and home polus my brother and his family moved in because they booted out of their home because they're landlord is an evil jerk who doesn't like kids and my knees hurt and my car just died and needs a new transmissoin and if I could just get some gold and diamond jewelery (please, nothing less than 20 ct. gold or 1 ct. diamonds, I prefer double linked gold chains or white gold rings, preferably with sapphires and rubies, but I'm not picky LOL!) i would be so grateful and if you have a Mercedes 300SL I would take that, too, i could really use it."

[ScreamingMeemie]

9. Well...

We got the new kitten from freecycle. And that was a good thing. And the woman who rescued her was a Dem...so we discussed the merits of Sarah Roberts for County Commissioner. So that's a good thing.

Also, our site only allows freecycle related emails. We get a ton of... I want a treadmill--preferably the kind with the television connected, because I have three kids and no time (after spending four hours of it online) to lose weight, and we have no money (after paying the cable connection bill)...and you'll have to drop it off at my place. :hi:

[Dangerously Amused]

12. Jesus.

Some people are illiterate, okay? Some people are on the lower end of the intelligence scale. Some people have cognitive disabilities. Some people's families didn't value education enough to care whether they were going to school every day, or whether they were doing well. These people are certainly not proud of their English and grammar skills. In fact, it probably brings them some measure of shame, and has likely held them back from a great many opportunities in life. Yet they do the best they can with the skills they have to make it through the day. How about a little compassion instead of ridicule for once?

Not everyone has had the opportunities and advantages you have had in life. Deal with it.

[Deep13]

13. Shouldn't be the norm, though.

Most Americans have at least had the advantages and opportunities I did.

[Rabrrrrrr]

18. Some are legitimately so, yes. But I can't imagine that freecycle

somehow is vastly more attractive to the legimately illiterate demographic than to any other demographic.

And I can generally tell if someone's poor writing is because they are a foreigner with english as a second or more language; or a native speaker who simply has difficulties but is trying to be correct; and the vast majority of bad speakers who are just lazy fucks who don't give a shit.

In fact, I can often tell what a person's first language is based on the types of mistakes they make in written English (of course, those who don't make mistakes, I can't tell). Japanese people tend to make Japanese mistakes; Germans make German ones; French make French ones; etc.

So, no, the majority of the shitty communication on freecycle is, in my opinion, people who don't care that they are illiterate, and who, probably, are taking pride that they aren't some kind of learned elitist with their microbrewery beer and steamed vegetables.