Dumbing down?

[bassybill]

I just found this Tolkien obituary from the Times. He died in 1973.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multime...en_261597a.jpg

It struck me that the style of writing, the vocabulary and intended readership would be inappropriate, even for the Times, here in 2009.

Do you think this is the case? If so, is it down to a change in the demographic of newspaper readers? Does it reflect something else about general standards of education in recent years? Are wider social changes involved? Are we "dumbing down" in some respects whilst getting more sophisticated in others?

I ask because this seems to be like something from another world compared to what is published at present. Purely from a linguistic point of view, this piece seems to display a quality of English rarely seen in newspapers today.

I'm genuinely interested to hear views on this. Your thoughts, please?

[bassrique]

Are we "dumbing down" in some respects whilst getting more sophisticated in others?

Computers, the internet, email and texting are changing our brains. I've been reading about this for years, but have no links to provide right now. And then there's TV......

EDIT:

are changing

Perhaps I should have posted, "have changed, and continue to change".

[Munjibunga]

Sucks, doesn't it?

[bassrique]

Originally Posted by Munjibunga

Sucks, doesn't it?

The trade-off is worth it for all the music and porn.

[Jim Campbell]

Originally Posted by bassybill

I just found this Tolkien obituary from the Times. He died in 1973.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multime...en_261597a.jpg

It struck me that the style of writing, the vocabulary and intended readership would be inappropriate, even for the Times, here in 2009.

Do you think this is the case? If so, is it down to a change in the demographic of newspaper readers? Does it reflect something else about general standards of education in recent years? Are wider social changes involved? Are we "dumbing down" in some respects whilst getting more sophisticated in others?

I ask because this seems to be like something from another world compared to what is published at present. Purely from a linguistic point of view, this piece seems to display a quality of English rarely seen in newspapers today.

I'm genuinely interested to hear views on this. Your thoughts, please?

when i was a lad the check out girl had to know in her head how much a pound of this or that sold for,if it was on sale,and the stock boy had to remember not to order safety salt in july and bbq coals in december..now a machine does all the thinnin' and a lot those jobs require much less savvy....

in the sixties it was said that around 30% of the population needed to be fairly well educated to keep the machine running,and because of that the boomers were lucky to live in a time when the sons and daughters of working folks had access to universities that had previously been reserved for the rich .....

....i think that number is closer to 10% now,and jerry springer and american idol can divert the rest

[ADbassman]

I don't believe we're getting dumber. I just think the dumb have a larger forum.

[emor]

Originally Posted by Jim Campbell

when i was a lad the check out girl had to know in her head how much a pound of this or that sold for,if it was on sale,and the stock boy had to remember not to order safety salt in july and bbq coals in december..now a machine does all the thinnin' and a lot those jobs require much less savvy....

Try to find someone who can count back change correctly, instead of dumping a bunch of coins, bills, and the receipt in your hand.

[emor]

BTW

Originally Posted by bassybill

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multime...en_261597a.jpg

TLDR

[HeavyDuty]

I can sum it up in one word: idiocracy.

[fdeck]

I'm not sure today's New York Times is necessarily dumbed down compared to this. The modern writing is perhaps less gratuitously ornate. I have moderated my own writing over the years, partly due to the fact that a sizable fraction of my audience is likely to be non-native English speakers.

I don't buy into the idea that people are dumbing down.

[LarryO]

HeavyDuty took the words out of my mouth (idiocracy). I thought it was a very funny movie and maybe a stretch but kind of accurate.......BRONDO HAS ELECTROLYTES!

[MonetBass]

Originally Posted by ADbassman

I don't believe we're getting dumber. I just think the dumb have a larger forum.

I think you may have nailed it right there. It seems that the news media and internet makes us more aware of the stupidity and violent nature of some, but in reality the ratio of intelligent to ignorant folks is about the same. That said, I think today's media (news on TV and in print) has perhaps 'dumbed down' to a point as to appeal to a broader audience. I have no facts to back this up, it's just my opinion and perception.

[Jim Campbell]

Originally Posted by emor

Try to find someone who can count back change correctly, instead of dumping a bunch of coins, bills, and the receipt in your hand.

sigh.......i've seen that blank stare way to often,especially when you try to add the change necessary to make it come back in bills

.....i've seen more than a few hesitating even when the till tells them how much,as if counting is beyond their ability

[dullsilver_mike]

We're just in the process of moving from a literate culture to an electronically literate culture. There are different skill sets and cognitive processes at work than there were decades ago. We're not really any dumber, we're just not as good at the things that smart people were good at 30 years ago. Smart people are good at different things now.

Imagine how stupid one of Tolkien's contemporaries would seem to someone from an oral, illiterate culture. "You mean a layperson from the 20th century couldn't listen to a 10 minute piece of music once and memorize the general melody, rhythm, and rhyme scheme of every section?!? Must be pretty stupid. In cultures without print literacy, people had their brains wired to do things like that.

edit* I know there have been studies done on the vocabulary or general periodicals and newspapers in general, and the trend of lower reading levels is very real (though sorry-I can't cite any sources as I haven't looked into the issue in years). You could say it's a positive thing for liberal democracies as now the reading level of our in information centers is appropriate for a much larger portion of the population than it used to be. Now more citizens can be informed of what is going on than ever before, when in the past, only a more exclusive group could fully understand what was being written in the papers (though certainly our whole society's vocabulary is also depleting, I'm just saying it could be two trends rather than just one).

[RickenBoogie]

I do believe it's a matter of the dummies having gained the lead in the population. Where, back in the 60's and 70's, idiots accounted for less than 20% of the population, and nowadays, well over 50%. It's downright frightening. Look around, they're freaking everywhere.

[ADbassman]

Originally Posted by MonetBass

I think you may have nailed it right there. It seems that the news media and internet makes us more aware of the stupidity and violent nature of some, but in reality the ratio of intelligent to ignorant folks is about the same. That said, I think today's media (news on TV and in print) has perhaps 'dumbed down' to a point as to appeal to a broader audience. I have no facts to back this up, it's just my opinion and perception.

When I was learning Journalism, they taught us to write to an 8th grade reading level. I had been writing fiction for a while before that so it was infuriating to try and dumb down my speech. I got tired of bending over backwards writing half-baked articles for my editors and I had an interest in history, so I switched over to that.

[Eric Perry]

There was a similar thread maybe a year or so a go (Latimour's thread, maybe?). I strongly believe it's an issue of dumbing down, for multiple reasons. Several of which divert into a somewhat political realm which is taboo here.

I sincerely believe that society as a whole is doomed. I just hope it holds out till I'm outta here!

[ThunderLizard]

BassBilly-
Lot's of good points. Check out the Ken Burns Civil War documentary to see how we handled our language 160 years ago. The letters written back then were very eloquent.
I think one factor is our short attention span... and our lack of courtesy and willingness to listen to other points of view.
Check out AM Hate radio is you want an example.

[Pilgrim]

Originally Posted by dullsilver_mike

We're just in the process of moving from a literate culture to an electronically literate culture. There are different skill sets and cognitive processes at work than there were decades ago. We're not really any dumber, we're just not as good at the things that smart people were good at 30 years ago. Smart people are good at different things now.

Imagine how stupid one of Tolkien's contemporaries would seem to someone from an oral, illiterate culture. "You mean a layperson from the 20th century couldn't listen to a 10 minute piece of music once and memorize the general melody, rhythm, and rhyme scheme of every section?!? Must be pretty stupid. In cultures without print literacy, people had their brains wired to do things like that.

edit* I know there have been studies done on the vocabulary or general periodicals and newspapers in general, and the trend of lower reading levels is very real (though sorry-I can't cite any sources as I haven't looked into the issue in years). You could say it's a positive thing for liberal democracies as now the reading level of our in information centers is appropriate for a much larger portion of the population than it used to be. Now more citizens can be informed of what is going on than ever before, when in the past, only a more exclusive group could fully understand what was being written in the papers (though certainly our whole society's vocabulary is also depleting, I'm just saying it could be two trends rather than just one).

Mike, that's a fascinating explanation. It makes sense to me that with the adaptability of the human brain, we have indeed gone through various types of "literacies" and capabilities.

The generally lost tradition of passing oral histories down through generations suggests itself as one such "literacy". You no longer find people in most cultures who know the history of their family or people and can declaim it for hours from memory.

It occurs to me that there is also an increasing emphasis on technology literacy. Anyone who does not know how to operate a computer and cell phone is now at a disadvantage in US society, and many aspects of the "literacy" of computer use transfer readily to other devices such as cell phones, GPS, etc. If someone lacks that literacy, they're at a real disadvantage.

As for the OP - I can't speak to the style of newspapers in the UK, but I suspect that the wording would seem unusually formal today. The phrasings are not those of the US, so it's hard to know how much would translate. However, I find that the forms of language in the US have become increasingly informal over the past 20 years, and I find that requiring my graduate students to write with a clear, concise and highly accurate wording is more than some of them can do. In fact, I get some graduate students who I think are not capable of writing at the level of a competent high school graduate.

[dullsilver_mike]

Originally Posted by Pilgrim

Mike, that's a fascinating explanation. It makes sense to me that with the adaptability of the human brain, we have indeed gone through various types of "literacies" and capabilities.

One of the linguists at my university was telling me that this adaptability of the brain is physically literal and is already being documented at the physiological level. Neurologists are discovering that children growing up amidst mass electronic media are wired differently than children who grow up without it.

That's most interesting to me, they don't just learn to think differently, they're physiologically developed to think differently.