Help me understand something

[Oeditpus Rex]

I find myself rolling my eyes more and more at grammar and punctuation errors because language comes naturally to me. But I've started to wonder if I'm not jumping to a conclusion.

When I look at math problems laced with X's and Y's and whatnot, it's like I'm reading a Plutonian newspaper. I just don't get it, whereas others breeze through that stuff.

Is it the same thing in some cases with language?

Your input is appreciated. I don't want to assume people are stupid or undereducated. I want to understand.



Edited to fix typo in hed. How ironically embarrassing. :blush:

[KitchenWitch]

1. My brain is wired for math

and chemistry. Often I am not so good with grammar, punctuation and spelling.

[Not_Giving_Up]

2. I am horrible at Geometry

Algebra was a friend of mine though. I can write a five page paper overnight and get an A on it...I'm definitely more geared for writing than math.

[Redstone]

3. Different brain types, I think.

I, of course, happen to be good at both language and math, which, I suppose, might be indicative of schizophrenia, since most people are good at one but not the other...

...Schizophrenia? I told you not to tell anyone!

... Hey, we had a deal! You promised to stay away while I'm talking to these people!

...What? I'm not good enough for your hifalutin friends?

... Oh, Jesus, not that again. Look, just give me a couple of minutes, then you can...Ouch! Goddammit, now cut that out! We had a deal...
-------------------------------------------------------------
Hey, OR, I'll have to get back to you in a bit, after I get things settled down a bit around here.

Redstone

[Oeditpus Rex]

4. Have your people

call my people.

:rofl:

[Redstone]

22. Oh, sure.

You really think I'd let them anywhere near a telephone?

I'm not that crazy.

Redstone

[Oeditpus Rex]

24. C'mon, just for kicks

I'd like to see what it'd do to my caller ID.

:nuke:

[Redstone]

25. Sure, I bet they'd like that.

...No, we wouldn't. Shows how much you know.

...What, what? I do know what's going on here. And I can handle it.

...Yeah, you may think you know. But you don't. And you care even less. Handle this!

...Now, is there any reason to be so crude? And then you wonder why I won't let you near the phone...
------------------------------------
Sorry about that. You see what I have to go through?

Try to do some people a favor, and this is the thanks I get...

Redstone

[CaliforniaPeggy]

6. ROFLMAO!

Dammit, my dear Redstone....you are too too funny!

This is PERFECT.....

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Redstone]

14. I just couldn't resist...

...Oh, yes, you could! You're just too damn lazy!

...Yeah, well at least I'm not sneaky, like some people I could mention...

...Sneaky, my ass! I'll give you sneaky! Who's the one who thinks he's so much better than me, won't let me talk to any of his friends...Ouch! Now that was sneaky...
-----------------------------

The Natives are restless tonight, as you can see.

Redstone

[CaliforniaPeggy]

19. Yes, indeedy, they sure are!

And to incredibly comic effect as well!

:rofl:

[Whoa_Nelly]

5. You're more right-brained

than left-brained...so to speak, but it depends on your handedness, left or right.

Here.... read this:
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/split.html

And this:
http://www.ipn.at/ipn.asp?BGC

And then take this test:
http://brain.web-us.com/brain/braindominance.htm

on edit:
My test results state:
You responded as a right brained person to 6 questions, and you responded as a left brained person to 12questions. According to the Hemispheric Dominance test, you use your left brain the most.

But after the first test, there is more to learn! :woohoo:

[Oeditpus Rex]

10. It says I'm more left-brained

though I went 9 and 9.

I also found an error in one of the questions:

When you are learning a dance step, is it easier for you to
learn by imitation the teacher and getting the feel of the music?

It's a curse, I tellya. :eyes:

[Whoa_Nelly]

11. Found a MUCH better test

and posted it in the Lounge.

Give it a try :D

[GoddessOfGuinness]

7. Mr GoG's a math whiz...

He cringes watching the "homework help" shows on the public school channels. He says it's no wonder that kids aren't learning their math.

[RevCheesehead]

8. you had to edit your own post?

:rofl: that's priceless! :hi:

[Oeditpus Rex]

12. It is, innit?

But, in my defense, I think it's also significant that I caught the goof.

Harumph.

[RevCheesehead]

15. no defense needed.

It's just nice catching you in a rare, humanly fallible moment. :D

[Oeditpus Rex]

17. Damn

I try to avoid those on the internets. :blush:

[RevCheesehead]

18. I don't think anyone noticed.

And I won't go around pointing it out, either.

[fizzgig]

9. i write for a living

but i still have some issues with grammar...they never really taught me grammar in school

as for math, i find that the older i get, the more i get it

[Oeditpus Rex]

13. I edit for a living

Fear me. :evilgrin:

[leftofthedial]

16. no. you're right.

people are stupid and uneducated

[havocmom]

20. Yep. Some of us are just not good spellers

A young friend, who suffers the same spelling problems I do although he has a fantastic grasp of language, explained his difficulty to me. He said he as a problem 'seeing' the work in his mind, therefore, he cannot duplicate it. Said he just has trouble visualizing and remembering letter symbol combinations. Realized that was a shortcoming for me too.

Odd thing... we both do well in mathematics. And neither of us can draw beyond the level of a typical 6 year old. :shrug:

[Oeditpus Rex]

26. Precisely the kind of answer I was looking for

"Just not good spellers" doesn't explain it. "Trouble visualizing and remembering letter symbol combinations" does.

Thank you, havocmom. :thumbsup:

[havocmom]

28. My young friend eased my mind with that explanation too.

Have tried for DECADES to understand my own spelling problems. Am a fair word-smith, just never been able to spell. Problem goes so far back, that my fifth grade teacher, who had so much faith in my writing, she stayed in contact with me for decades encouraging me to keep at it, blew it off as just something I had to accept about myself. When I would plead I couldn't be a writer because I STILL couldn't spell, she fanned it off with "My dear, you'll have a secretary and editors to take care of that sort of detail!" That was WAY before spell check or keyboards attached to anything but a carriage, platent, an inky strip of cloth, and a lot of tiny metal parts with letters stamped on the ends. ;)

But I can solve complex geometry problems in my mind's eye, and do a whole lotta math without much conscience thought at all.

Seems we are wired differently. Some can do this but not that. Am thinking it is a message... we are all here to work together. Now if we could just find the group of people skilled at inspiring populations to do that and work for the greater good... See, not everyone can do that and the folks with that gene don't come along in copious numbers very damned often. We got lucky when this nation was forged, and a time or two since. Sure could use that gene to rear its head on a massive scale again here pretty damned soon, cuz the greedy gene people have been running amok long enough!

[jobycom]

21. Language and math mistakes are different animals

Math is a system of representing connections and patterns in the universe. The "language" of math is contrived, but what the language tries to represent is real. The greatest mathematicians see past the symbols to the reality. The people with the most problem get hung up on the symbols and don't see through to the reality behind them. Since these symbols were created by humans, and aren't a natural system, they are less intuitive.

Language is more natural. It is wired into the way we think. There is some distance between our actual thoughts and the words we use, but we are so used to thinking in our language that we aren't even aware of that distance. Because of this, even bad grammar is still effective language. If I say, "Bush sure ain't no genius!" you know what I mean even if the words aren't technically correct. So language is like real math, as opposes to the symbols used to communicate math.

Good grammar, on the other hand, is more like the symbols for math. It's not as intuitive as language in general. "Bush is no genius" is more grammatically correct than "Bush sure ain't no genius" even though both effectively communicate what you mean (assuming you understand that the speaker is using a double negative on accident). So you have to learn good grammar, in the way you have to learn mathematical symbols, but language is more like math--an intuitive reality (although you still have to be taught both before they become intuitive).

So what you are doing is seeing defects in grammar, not in the language itself. The older you get, the more that grammar is becoming ingrained, so it becomes more intuitive, almost equal to real language for you. Same thing happens with mathematicians. They see complex formulas and solve them easily because the language has become almost equal to the reality for them. I really don't believe it's a matter of left-right brain, I think it's just a matter of what you study. In high school I made an effort to be good at both, and I scored about equally between them on standardized tests (a good way to boost your score, since most people are much stronger in one than the other). I'm not so good at math now because I haven't tried to be in years.

Anyway, that's my theory. I made it up out of thin air, and there is no reason you should believe it. I just felt like typing. Have a nice night. :-)

[Oeditpus Rex]

27. Elements of your theory have been proven

or at least well-illustrated by practical demonstrations such as... well, okay; I'll mock up one.

AnywayThat'sMyTheory.IMadeItUpOutOfThinAirAndThereIsNoReasonYouShouldBelieveIt.IJustFeltLikeTyping.HaveANiceNight.

Anyone have any trouble understanding that?

Mathematics must be precise, because 2 plus 2 must equal seven four. If it didn't, untold chaos would ensue. However, the mechanics of language, while precise, are not essential to anything but clarity, particularly to those with lesser language comprehension. (Could an average first-grader figure out the above example?)

As a copy editor, I'm aware that in the long run it doesn't really make a damned bit of difference to the average reader if I put commas before and after "in the long run" just then, even though The Rules dictate I should've. But there are other examples where it would matter; I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I know 'em when I see 'em. (There're all kinds of classic copy-desk bits illustrating how a dropped hyphen could lead to World War III and stuff like that.)

I wonder, too, if computers — that is, keyboards — haven't led to a higher incidence of "illiteracy," as it's a helluva lot easier to miss a keystroke than it is to mis-write a letter, all literacy factors being equal.

Damn, this is a fun ramble.

[havocmom]

29. To back up your argument that math HAS to be constant

or chaos ensues, one need only point to the current economy in the US.

2 + 2 still equals 4, but the people running things have misused the language to the point that 2 + 2 is now meaningless. They will pull whatever number they need at a given time to make a given point. Owing to the misuse of both language AND mathematics, the system is in chaos.

Those of us who understand that intuitively beat our heads against the wall of those who just don't have the ability to adventure beyond all the discipline they have received to accept only symbols as their reality. They cannot see reality.

Aye, there's the rub!

And, since you're an editor, why the misery about the need for same? You want we should all be S. Clemens and put you on the breadline? ;)

This is an interesting thread. Thanks.

[Oeditpus Rex]

32. A nation of Twains wouldn't put editors out of work

Hell, even he had editors.

It'd just make editing a lot more interesting — and challenging. And I'd love that.

[havocmom]

33. Make for better reading too.

Be hell for politicians though. :D

He's a god to me.

[Gormy Cuss]

31. "A well regulated Militia,being necessary to the security of a free State,

the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Explain how those commas affect meaning.}(

********************************

I'm someone with a very good grasp of grammar, spelling, and punctuation but my skills go by the wayside when I try to compose at the keyboard. I have tried to remedy this problem but nothing seems to work. There is a disconnection between the composed thought and the message sent to the fingers.

[NMMNG]

23. I never thought of it that way, but you might be on to something

I've always been heavily into the verbal side of things. I learned to read at age four, and have been an avid reader since then. Throughout school I was always placed in the highest level of reading/English classes. In high school and college my best friend would use me as her "walking thesaurus" as it was so much easier than looking things up in a regular thesaurus.

However when it came to math it was a different story. Math has always been a struggle for me, particularly beyond basic arithmetic, and I was always in the lowest level classes for math subjects.


So maybe we word-wizards should give others a break, and realize that the math-wizards are sitting out there wondering what the heck we find so hard about quadradic equations.

[havocmom]

30. What worries me more than poor spelling and grammar is the increasing

inability of many in the population to even communicate abstract concepts. Read any college essays of late?

Some of us can't spell, well the hmuan mnid had wrkeod an end run arunod taht porlebm, see? And grammar? What is 'proper' seems to be a static thing. It is alive. Some of us just blow the rules due to a drive to get a concept across, running roughshod over what we might consider to be nit-picking regulations. Some of us blow it because we hear everybody screwing up. (You would faint listening to the people with master's degrees where I live. They all speak the same and it is like fingernails on a blackboard to me.)

And some of use blow the rules so we can write like people actually speak. Local color is good and has a certain poetry. I will admit to hopeless frustration with the first fifty pages of Their Eyes Were Watching God. Having never set foot in the rural south, the tempo, pronunciation and terms were a foreign language. Once I 'got it' the whole tome was magic. Everybody was absolutely alive in my mind and how I loved them!

Sometimes, some of us break rules just to poke a stick in the general direction of another's agenda or sensibilities :evilgrin:

But the increasing lack in skill at making a point or understanding one is what really concerns me. We are letting the population drift back into a dark-ages sort of ignorance with all the accompanying perils.

Recently, it has become my paranoid conclusion that it is all part of the plan by those who think themselves superior and divinely anointed to keep the masses down. The darkness grows partly from human nature and partly from human design. We cannot work to the greater good if we are trapped in a Tower of Babble.

That, Friend Rex, is something to really get your knickers in a twist about.

[Rabrrrrrr]

34. I'm always surprised by the math people who can't do language.

To me, the two go hand in hand and I'm good in both. Both are fairly rules-based (though of course the rules for language are actually flexible and mutable) and require memorization/awareness of patterns.

But one thing I learned in engineering college is that I am the exception - the engineer who can use language.

Music, too, seems to go hand in hand with language and mathematics, as it, too, is but another symbolic language.

But it seems that music and math go far more hand in hand than math and language, or even language and music.