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490 Comments
- gmarie624, on 01/10/2009, -15/+203I believe the title should read "1 in 7 U.S. Adults Is Illiterate" (subject-verb agreement).
- Drakoi, on 01/11/2009, -14/+127and 5 of 7 are just ***** stupid.
- meruru, on 01/11/2009, -4/+103Me fail english? That's unpossible
- DillingerSmooth, on 01/11/2009, -6/+85I don't know what this said but I dugg it anyway
- PhoenixFlames, on 01/10/2009, -4/+82The average reading age od adults is generally that of a 12 years old. So, when you communicate, you should remember this aspect and don't try to use big words.
- gmarie624, on 01/10/2009, -10/+81Hmm - I'm deferring to my English major daughter, and the way I understand it from her is that you take the subject (in this case "1") without the modifiers ("in 7 U.S. Adults") and just match the subject up with the verb: so "one is illiterate" - not "one are illiterate" is correct.
- treelovinhippie, on 01/11/2009, -41/+102That would help explain the massive numbers of religious people in the US.
- ileftfark, on 01/11/2009, -6/+66Shennanigans. CIA World Factbook says the US has a 99% literacy rate. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world ...
Illiteracy may be higher than 1%, but there's no ***** way 14% are illiterate. Unless you count Youtube comments. - casuallyevil, on 01/11/2009, -2/+55I'm not usually one to come to the defense of the religious, but the Bible is responsible for more literacy over history than just about anything else. The initial argument for the establishment of public education was that everybody needed to be able to read so they could read their Bibles.
- inactive, on 01/10/2009, -1/+52When I was in journalism school, we were taught that the average American reads at a fifth-grade level. That level may be higher for people who actually subscribe to newspapers, but the point remains: When writing for a general audience, it's best to use the fewest amount of simple words necessary to tell a story.
While I agree that flowery prose often seems forced and pretentious, it's a shame when professional writers have to "dumb down" their work for the sake of the uneducated or undereducated masses. - Epitaph, on 01/11/2009, -1/+52Yea, sometimes I don't feel like talking to a 12 year old. My family in the midwest frustrates me with this. I've said "melodic" and they went "whoa there, what's with the big words?". This actually happens quite frequently. I'm often called pretentious or arrogant for using my vocabulary and I don't understand this. If I say a word you don't understand, there's no reason for you to get insecure about your intelligence. Just ask me the definition of the word and I'll try to be as precise as possible. If you're too afraid to ask, then leave me the hell alone.
p.s. The above is average for me in conversation, so you can see why it would get frustrating when people are asking me to please use smaller words. These are the words that come to mind; I don't try to use big words. - SemiSarcastic, on 01/11/2009, -0/+47Exhibit A: Youtube comments.
- inactive, on 01/11/2009, -2/+48What's even scarier, is that these are just the people who are illiterate, there are even more people who can't read above a 6th grade level, let alone adult literature. I remember doing a practicum in a kindergarten classroom and the teacher had an issue with the parents of this little boy who would never sign anything sent home with the boy, not even important things such as permission forms, etc,. and the teacher was really frustrated and thought the parents were just really lazy and didn't care about their child's education. Then she found out that the reason the parents never signed anything was because they couldn't read what was on the papers, they were both illiterate. However, very, very poor reading skills are much more common then illiteracy and that's just very sad, because I couldn't imagine not being able to read whatever I wanted to or how that would make me feel about myself.
- inactive, on 01/11/2009, -3/+481 in 7 U.S. Diggers have a girlfriend, wife or imaginary friend.
- DeePsix501, on 01/11/2009, -2/+465 out of 4 Americans are bad with fractions.
- lisaawesome, on 01/11/2009, -1/+40Half of my extended family thinks I'm arrogant for going to college. I guess not wanting to be trailer trash makes me an uppity bitch. Oh how I love people.
- Onyxblaze, on 01/11/2009, -3/+40but 7 of 9 is hot
- MCA2142, on 01/11/2009, -12/+49one man in that 14% got to be president.
- Sornos, on 01/11/2009, -4/+39I'll have to go with gmarie. If you expand the title it makes it clearer.
On average, one American out of seven is illiterate. - Maddoktor2, on 01/11/2009, -3/+38...and the rest voted for him.
- SeaMowse, on 01/10/2009, -9/+41"...who are missing the 'boad' and falling behind."
Are you speaking from experience, or was it a traditional education that taught you how to misspell the word, 'boat'.
I have a girlfriend who has homeschooled all three of her kids, mainly because one of her daughters has a serious health condition that needs constant monitoring. Her oldest daughter, just 16, is now attending a local college.
So much for homeschooled kids, missing the 'boad(t)'. - Octopus33Prime, on 01/11/2009, -0/+29The CIA counts Hispanic immigrants as being able to read and write in Spanish, and so on. Which makes sense. They are still literate people, just in another language. I don't believe the statistic in the article at all.
- lolwaffle, on 01/11/2009, -0/+29Hell, half the college graduates I come across don't even know the difference between "your" and "you're".
- DiggMeUpPlz, on 01/11/2009, -2/+30The other 20 percent can't do math....!!!
- k3rfuffl3, on 01/11/2009, -8/+35The massive number of illiterate religious people
- whoreable, on 01/11/2009, -5/+32There is no way this is true. Maybe they cant read English but they can read.
- Neiby, on 01/11/2009, -3/+28You apparently don't know any home-schooled kids. They're usually superb readers.
- ultraJesus, on 01/11/2009, -1/+244 in 17 adults make up statistics up on the spot
- skellener, on 01/11/2009, -1/+22I this 2009 or 1909?
- kyoobeh, on 01/10/2009, -5/+25Lol, you sound like Ann Coulter.
- TheFinaleofSeem, on 01/11/2009, -2/+21I'm wondering if that statistic includes immigrants from south of the border. That's going to skew the statistic a bit. I took a look at border states and they seem to be well above the average.
- Kosh, on 01/11/2009, -3/+20Any proof of that? Statistics show the exact opposite.
"According to a report published by the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) and funded by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, homeschool student achievement test scores were exceptionally high. The median scores for every subtest at every grade were well above those of public and Catholic/private-school students. On average, homeschool students in grades one to four performed one grade level above their age-level public/private school peers on achievement tests. Students who had been homeschooled their entire academic life had higher scholastic achievement test scores than students who had also attended other educational programs."
(http://school.familyeducation.com/home-schooling/e ... - gtluke, on 01/11/2009, -3/+19Yeah hi, Bush has been president for 8 years, which does not make an adult.
Try harder - minuslars, on 01/11/2009, -1/+17Coincidentally, 5 out out of 7 Diggers will believe anything.
- inactive, on 01/11/2009, -4/+20so 1/5 dont know how to locate the US on a map and 1/7 can't read
i call BS on whoever is making up these statistics - ColonelJessup, on 01/11/2009, -0/+15Imaginary girlfriend over here..................................
- MrJagil, on 01/11/2009, -1/+16Which is something that was clearly prominent in the speeches during the presidential campaign. As a foreigner, i was really dumbfounded when i first heard them speak, but later i realised that America is _very_ diverse concerning litteracy and education(compared to where i come from (Denmark) where everyone is pretty much at the same level).
- BelatedHero, on 01/11/2009, -0/+15"That level may be higher for people who actually subscribe to newspapers"
Not if the paper is USA Today. - andre321, on 01/11/2009, -0/+14Being a dyslexic at school, my English teacher always used to insult my grammar. I said, "you never even met her."
- MeghnaK, on 01/10/2009, -3/+17Looking at the subject-verb agreement topic, I think 99% are only partly literate :)
- HiKevinRose, on 01/11/2009, -3/+17"However, very, very poor reading skills are much more common then illiteracy"
than* - inactive, on 01/11/2009, -6/+19Since 't' and 'd' don't sit next to each other, I would guess that it is NOT a typo. Even if it were, if you are going to be brazen enough on calling others on their illiteracy, you should have enough sense to proofread yourself.
- Vietrmx, on 01/11/2009, -1/+14Where are all these people? I don't think I've met a single illiterate adult. And I live in Kentucky.
- phosphodyson, on 01/11/2009, -6/+18The correct phrase is indeed "one in seven adults is..." So you will have "two in seven are..." "in seven adults" is a prepositional phrase and has on effect on the plurality of the subject, which is one, therefore singular. One could have easily said "a woman in a group is the lead singer", not "a woman in a group are the lead singer." Don't confuse the prepositional phrase with the subject of the sentence.
- camilos007, on 01/11/2009, -5/+17He IS Ann Coulter. Except he has no penis.
- spriggig, on 01/11/2009, -0/+12According to the source article the margin of error is admittedly high. Here you can see the stats from each state:
http://nces.ed.gov/naal/estimates/StateEstimates.a ... - Pzycho, on 01/11/2009, -1/+13wut?
- HiKevinRose, on 01/11/2009, -3/+15No, it's referring to one person out of a group of people, in which case the verb "is" is correct.
- diskit, on 01/11/2009, -1/+13Well 2 out of 9 statistics are just made up anyways.
- lead2thehead, on 01/11/2009, -5/+17Starting January 20th, I'll be blaming Obama for all of the world's problems. Not because I think they're his fault... but to show all of the Bush haters how retarded they sound.
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