Showing posts with label dumbing down of america. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dumbing down of america. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Rillet – Wordplay Wednesday™ 11/22/17



Streaming … Time … Water … Life  

Some days stream along slowly and pleasantly, while others sweep you along on a torrent of flood waters … kinda like how time passes.

RILLET ( rilสนit) n. – a tiny rill; brooklet. [WW #139]

Uh-huh. So I sorta get “brooklet”—but what’s a “rill”? And what does a tiny one look like?

Well, isn’t just a stream—it’s a “small stream.”

The dictionary is full of definitions like this to confuse and compound the English language. Since rillet’s mommy-word is just two entries above, you’re not left scratching your head.  

Often however, looking up A word, you must waste your time rifling through the 1,000+ pages to a completely different letter section, for a definitive meaning, or decide not to bother. Do they know TIME is our most precious commodity?!

Timemay seem to trickle like a rillet while waiting for Happy Hour—but don’t look now—nearly a year’s worth of Happy Hours have gushed away, in a fleeting torrent.  

Beyond that, all I can say, is I hope the rillet of venom, hate, and vilification of human contact that is penetrating the news doesn’t turn in to a delusional flood that destroys human contact altogether. May as well turn the Earth over to the AIs at that point.

Word Challenge: RILLET. On a bright note … it takes a rillet to join a stream that fills a river on its way to the ocean. Start your week of writing with a noodling rillet.

Write first for yourself … only then can you write for others. (L.Rochelle) 

                       




E-N-D

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Poor news writing red-flags credibility



Plagued with unpolished grammar skills and a tabloid penny press style of yore, many high profile news sources have lost their luster.

What happened to good writers and valid journalism?

For many people, their first brush with the day is a review of the morning news
"On an average day, 31.99 million American college graduates read newspaper content online or offline." (Statisa.com) Add to that the large majority who can read without college degrees, and it's obvious news is popular. (The article, "stigma of ignorance is rampant without higher education" is for another time.) 

Today’s plethora of print and online news sources however, are diluted with articles disguised as journalism. "News" is often culled from agencies that feature writers without credentials or real-world industry experience.

Infiltrating the ranks of established journalists are ill-equipped writers who rely more on opinions than facts, and eschew professional editing (or opt for none). Likewise, op-eds, obscure blogs, and personal essays, have moved from the back pages to become front page “news.”

Online news aggregates, citizen news sites, and lifestyle publications masquerading as news, are especially guilty of this, with skillful presentation, gaining high readership. Unfortunately, articles are often published without vetting to weed out marginal or even spurious writers. Though many production-article writers may be credible and experienced journalists, those who are not, further decay the industry.

How to spot the aggregates … I, we, you vs. he, she, it …

Sunday, August 31, 2014

New PFP Feature: PenQuips!


Let me introduce you to Penchant for Penning's fun new "PenQuips"!

Definition: A PenQuip is 1) a picture and heading combination appropriate to the theme of a brief text anomaly quoted from the Internet; or,
2) a picture and heading combination with your own amazing, brief text of wit, opinion, fact, or (gasp!) wisdom.

PenQuips are my eccentric way of exploiting dumb public comments that illustrate society’s current lack of intelligent thought. Sigh … we have not progressed much past the Dark Ages. Yes, I fear we are headed in the same direction as that of the Roman Empire.

While we could expound at length about the whys and wherefores of modern society’s decline, let’s face it. Humanity has never been particularly peaceful and in my humble opinion, wars are just plain dumb.

Bottom line, we are ruled by Greed, Money, Power, Sex, and Violence. Not always in that order. And each category has its own set of dumb. So we have an infinity of fodder to fossilize in PenQuips.

How I began PenQuips: The Dumbing-Down of America ...