Then let's engage in a conversation about all the reaction to the use of
"niggardly" by a department head in Washingtion who was fired by the Mayor
for using it.

Once people began to realize that the word had absolutely no racial origin
(it means stingy and comes from old English), they started making excuses
like "It's an archaic term that no one understands, therefore, should not
be used,"  It was  probably used by the department head to show his
superiority,"  "Even if it does not mean anything racial, it might be
construed as such, so should be eliminated from our vocabulary."

Talk about demands  that we dumb down so the undeducated and uninformed can
understand us!  How about our educational establishment demanding more of
students.  Or is it the case that most educators would not know the word
either (my wife is a second grade teacher, bless her heart, and she did not
know the meaning of the word).


------
Robert Handy
Brazoria County Historical Museum
100 East Cedar
Angleton, Texas  77515
(409) 864-1208
museum_bob
[log in to unmask]
http://www.bchm.org

----------
From:   Heidi Carroll[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Monday, February 08, 1999 8:29 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: Was: Your TOP EVENT Now: news

Would it be naive to think that perhaps if newspapers did not write at
the educational level of the audience, the "'dumbing down' of literacy
in America" would at least slow down, hopefully even reverse itself?
We all must attend high school, so why can't we read higher than a
fourth grade level anyway?
H. Carroll


>newspapers adhere to a writing style that suits their
>audience; there are those that consciously write for those with
fourth-grade
>educations.  There are very few newspapers of quality left in the
United
>States.  Unfortunately, we're seeing evidence on this list of the
"dumbing
>down" of literacy in America.

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