Literacy

                                

lit·er·a·cy

ˈlidərəsē,ˈlitrəsē/

noun

the ability to read and write.

synonyms: ability to read and write, reading/writing proficiency; 

competence or knowledge in a specified area.

"wine literacy can't be taught in three hours"

     Something that irritates me, well, not so much anymore, but still gets me a bit, is when someone asks me, “How much MONEY have you made,” when finding out that I’m an author, and have several books out there. Now, I’ve addressed this many times, but Doc Greene mentioned something on www.ragingelephantsradio.com the other day that pinged the situation perfectly. Literacy! America has lost that! Back in the day when folks like Hemingway were tooling around people would actually go and buy a book. If they couldn’t afford the hard cover version they’d wait until the paperback came out and buy that, and if that was still beyond their budget they’d just wait a while longer and trip on down to the public library (remember them) and check the book out. 

Along came the internet. You would think that with so much communication going on people would be getting sharper and sharper, but Au Contraire! Maybe back when nerds staring at green screens that was so, but with the advent of the iPhone, iPad, and a host of other devices we began the great “Dumbing Down” of the race! If I were to put what I have just written here into an email or text about the best response I could expect from most of my contacts would be, “LOL” I’m not kidding. I know a girl, whom shall remain nameless, who has an iPhone. She has set up shorthand responses to texts so the doesn’t have to think when typing. If I were to send her a text such as, “I have realized that the universe is composed of plasma and within that is living matter which distributes itself evenly among the cosmos thereby allowing life to proliferate into every quadrants of space,” she would send back, “Crazy.”

THAT’S why you never ask an author how much money he/she has made. Because NOBODY can read anymore. You take a chick like that, and hand her a hardcover edition of any work, weighing somewhere between two an three pounds, and she’s going to look at it with that “deer in the headlights” stare and say, “Crazy!” Now please understand that I’m not saying girls like that don’t have a purpose in this life, but this is a family article so I won’t go there. The English language has been reduced to “LOL, SMH,”LMFAO”, and the ever popular, “OMG.” Oh, and oh yes, “Crazy!” 

You have the blockbuster writers who pen something that makes news. They all eventually end up in a movie, which is about the speed of the general public now, and the writer gets a little something off of that, but by and large most of us will write a book, put it up on Amazon and it will sit there and grow a beard. Oh, and by the way, when the book hits the silver screen the through lines have been rewritten in such a way that no matter how intellectual the original was it is homogenized  to the point that the modern mind can digest it easily. So why do we do it? We do it because SOMEONE has to. The value of a work is not measured by money but by spirit. A writer is a writer is a writer. Once a writer develops some kind of style they will sharpen their skills, and the very act of composition is reward enough. I use correct punctuation and spelling even in a small text and I abhor internet shorthand. I actually makes me mad! If I’d have put that stuff on paper back in 1967 Miss Hornbuckle would have hit me in the back of the head with her ever present yardstick she carried around specifically for dummies. 

We have a whole generation of these people now. They live on Facebook, can’t spell, can barely read, smoke pot and ALL vote for Obama! You see, THIS is why we simply MUST have a Republic of Texas, right there. You want to know why the second amendment, indeed the entire Constitution is being scrapped? Because it’s written in proper English! If written in todays vernacular the the Second would read, “PPL nd GNS . .  .SMH.” These Neanderthals could reduce the entire Constitution to within one hundred and sixty characters so it would fit in a single text. The Sermon on the Mount would be reduced to “OMG,” and “SMH!” And music? Forget it! Rap! Oh, don’t get me started. It’s a good thing the “N” word rhymes with the “N” word or Rap be hard! Ultimate shorthand: “Woman” is transformed to “Ho.” If I had the audacity to  call my grandmother a “Ho” on her DEATHBED the police would be called, and the caller would say, “Uh, we got this dead old lady in a bed down here, and there’s some guy on the floor with his head bashed in.”

To summarize, most writers will NEVER make a lot of money. It just goes with the territory. If you are going to write you simply must accept that. Literacy died with the Martini. In spite of this there are many out there who will continue to try, and that’s good. Perhaps some day Kindle will replace the hardcover book, and just the ease of the use of it will cause at least SOME kids to read beyond the twenty-fifth letter, and realize that human interaction is important if you want to go beyond hanging out at the mall texting to the person sitting right next to you. SMH!