Reading comments on the proposed FDA Regs... You people worry me

[Susan~S]

Great video sonic!

 

[Anjaffm]

Tee hee, I love Weird Al!

 

[ppeeble]

The tourble is taht msot popele dnot eevn nitoce seplilng msiktaes. The brain automatically corrects words by skimming the first and last letters and assuming the rest.
( I gave up half way through that. It's hard to deliberately write incorrectly).
In my opinion the OP is correct. Whenever i start reading anything i subconsciously follow the 3 strikes rule. I forgive one grammatical mistake, get annoyed by the second and give up by the third.
Anyone in authority reading comments full of errors is going to disregard those comments. Worst case scenario is the reader drawing attention to blatant ignorance and saying ' these people need to be governed by us to save them from their own ignorance'......
(Our ability to communicate is what makes human beings human. I really don't want to have to revert to ...-sniffing, i have poorly knees).

 

[AndriaD]

(Our ability to communicate is what makes human beings human. I really don't want to have to revert to ...-sniffing, i have poorly knees).

As you point out, other animals do communicate -- by scent, often, or even different sounds they make. What raises the human species above the rest is *language* but even moreso, by the complexities of human languages. I think that to give up on mastery of one's native tongue before one has fully mastered it is to give up part of one's humanity. Of course there are different levels of mastery, but one is expected to know how to, at the very least, write a cogent letter, by the time one graduates from high school. This includes spelling, grammar, sentence structure, and paragraph structure and organization -- all are skills that one is supposed to have mastered by the time one is a high school graduate. The disgrace in modern education is that many people can't do it.

Andria

 

[DaveP]

"On your way back, grab the hose pipe and water the dog."


The number one mission for government regulators is perpetuating their mission. No government regulator ever said, "Gee, I think this goes too far." Or, "This change is too confusing and has too many rules." And certainly never, "Nobody will ever read this book of rules. Let's simplify this, maybe reduce it to one page."


In a roundabout way, you've finally reached the thing I like to rant about as well. There's an element of "dumbing things down" along with public schools turning to achieving metrics over educating. No, it's just carelessness and it shows. No matter how little you think it matters. It's there.

When I was growing up, you dressed up to go to church. You also did so when traveling via commercial airline and attending a job interview. Why is that? Appearances matter. No matter what people you may look up to may say about this, it does not change the impression you make with appearance. You can be a total idiot, and when you present yourself as put together, people will believe anything you tell them. The inverse is also true: If you present yourself as a complete idiot, nobody will believe a thing you say no matter how credible you actually are. Maybe a few will, especially if they are as careless or sloven as you are.

For the most part, my grade school English and Creative Writing teachers in the '70's stressed this. If you communicate poorly, your message will not be taken seriously. Over the years this has become less important. In my opinion there's two main reasons. 1. Educators are measured by results using standardized tests. It's no surprise that is now the focus of their efforts, instead of the longer term goal of equipping a young person for success in adulthood. 2. This trend now spans at least two generations in the past 40 years. Parents that learned careless communication habits now teaching their children. Now adults, they influence the standards being applied in a negative way.

Cultural influences have accelerated the decline of care in communication. Technology has to be number one. Why do the hard work when there's a gadget to do that for you? Yes it's never perfect, but who cares? Less people every day, apparently. There's also an increasing trend of giving those that should otherwise set the standards for solid communication a pass. Public figures and journalists. I see communication gaffes as an indication of carelessness, and that carelessness either equals contempt for the audience in the worst case, or at least less credibility.

The absolute worst are the people that point at an effective communicator and ridicule them. Calling them arrogant or the like. Really? It's a culture of failure. Failure is celebrated while success is alienated. Why do people do this? My belief is the "lowest common denominator." Bring everyone else down to my level. Suddenly I'm at least average since everyone else is like me. Well, no. You still appear ignorant and it's nothing to celebrate and be proud of. There's just more of you now. Next time you're looking for something to watch on TV, see if you can find Idiocracy on Netflix or Hulu. Takes what I've posted here to an extreme.

If you don't at least take minimal care in communicating a message to the FDA, you may as well not bother. I can't imagine that, if there are actual people reading these comments (versus automated word counts and whatnot), they will slow down and read the ones that are readable while simply scanning through the ones that were written carelessly.

Elements of this post should be read to graduating students. Of course, the NEA members in the audience would be appalled, but rightfully so.

When I was growing up, you dressed up to go to church. You also did so when traveling via commercial airline and attending a job interview. Why is that? Appearances matter. No matter what people you may look up to may say about this, it does not change the impression you make with appearance. You can be a total idiot, and when you present yourself as put together, people will believe anything you tell them. The inverse is also true: If you present yourself as a complete idiot, nobody will believe a thing you say no matter how credible you actually are. Maybe a few will, especially if they are as careless or sloven as you are.

If I could like the above multiple times, I would do so.

Bravo, RedForeman, people do judge us by our appearances and our actions. The former makes them notice and listen to us and the latter hopefully reinforces their initial judgement. Jobs and Wozniak climbed to power somehow. It must have been their early knowledge of the coming computer generation and their expertise in making it happen. Maybe Jobs guided Wozniak through the process and kept him locked in the garage when corporate types came calling. Bill Gates was highly involved at that time selling DOS as the OS of the future, walking around in a business suit making contacts and shaking hands. If his hair had been shoulder length, coupled with blue jeans and a sweatshirt, we might all be using Apple computers today!

Cultural influences are largely the result of some being purposely held back in past generations. Given an even chance throughout life, most of the population is capable of success. Instead of accelerating those who need it, we've lowered the bar to the least common denominator.

In defense of many of the comments I've read, most have included the important points ... Ecigs have enabled them to stop smoking cigarettes. Their health has improved in the time that they vaped and didn't smoke, and they have no inclination to go back to cigarettes. It's illegal for kids to buy ecigs, so why are we worried so much about fruit and candy flavors? That worry didn't stop cherry vodka from remaining on the market, so why should we try to outlaw electronic cigarettes because some unscrupulous vendor might sell one to a teenager? At least doing so might prevent that teenager from buying his or her first pack of tobacco cigarettes, especially if government tells the truth and admits that one is a known killer and so far no one has found anything terribly wrong with vaping.

 

[ClippinWings]

LOL

Can't even make this stuff up...

Just added to the Oxford Dictionary:

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/vape

At least the publishers appear to be Pro-vapor, from their word usage example sentences.

 

[Weizenheimer]

People suck and homophones in written English. Welcome to the internet