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Weak article and weak paper. A more accurate title is: English majors from two Kansas universities had trouble understanding vocabulary words used in a 19th cen
by keiferski 1y ago
Weak article and weak paper. A more accurate title is: English majors from two Kansas universities had trouble understanding vocabulary words used in a 19th century British novel, such as Michaelmas term, mire, and blinkers.
- rahimnathwani 1y agoThey were allowed to use their phones to look up words they did not know.
- koakuma-chan 1y agoLook up "whiskers," is a kind of cat. In what world does "whiskers" mean "bearded man"?
- carlosjobim 1y agoWhiskers are a mustache. It's not a kind of cat, it is the antenna hairs that cats have around their nose.
- koakuma-chan 1y agoOh you're right
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ZephyrBlu 1y agoAre you a native English speaker? "whiskers" is a common euphemism for a moustache. I would be very surprised if a native speaker didn't know that, or couldn't infer from context.
- koakuma-chan 1y ago> Are you a native English speaker? Nope
- keiferski 1y agoIt’s not that rare of a word, but I wouldn't say it’s particularly common either. Definitely not a common word amongst anyone under the age of 40.
- npinsker 1y agoI accept the ambiguity there, but the mention of “voice” and “interminable brief” are more than enough to coax you to the right interpretation.
- palmotea 1y ago> Are you a native English speaker? "whiskers" is a common euphemism for a moustache. I would be very surprised if a native speaker didn't know that, or couldn't infer from context. It's not euphemism, whiskers are literally what a moustache is made from. A whisker is an individual male facial hair.
- tremon 1y ago> Look up "whiskers" ok: http://dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=*&Query=whiskers http://dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=*&Query=whisker... whiskers n 1: the hair growing on the lower part of a man's face [syn: beard ...]
- keiferski 1y agoI don’t think that would have been very useful, as Victorian English is typically written in a style that seems alien to modern ears. Perhaps a better title still would be: English students had difficulty understanding a passage written in a different culture and time. Which seems completely normal and expected to me. The issue is in defining “English” as too broad of a term.
- rahimnathwani 1y agoWould you expect that 19% could not read contemporary English at the level expected of a 10th grader? To establish a baseline, they had the students first take a standardized reading comprehension test, the Degrees of Reading Power test, designed for the 10th grade level. Almost all the students scored above 80, indicating they read at or above a 10th grade level.
- carlosjobim 1y ago"They have a dictionary, reference material, and their phones on hand to assist in looking up any unfamiliar terms" Vocabulary is not a problem. I read foreign texts to learn languages as well as very old texts, and it's easy to look up an unfamiliar word to learn it.
- dwb 1y agoRubbish - they could look up any unfamiliar terms. Look at how they understood the dinosaur reference. I do find the level of reading quite shocking – it’s not a difficult passage, and I’m not at all well-read in this area of literature.
- keiferski 1y agoWell I found it to be a bit confusingly written, so it didn’t surprise me that some students at average/below average universities had trouble. Furthermore it certainly doesn’t validate the title of “English majors can’t read,” but of course without that this piece couldn’t latch on to the pseudo-outrage trend at how everyone is supposedly dumb.
- noir_lord 1y agoI am - hard to be a life long avid reader in the UK and not read Dickens at some point. I found his books worth reading (and considered in their context as a reaction against the unfairness of society in his time they are indeed classics) but not something I'd say is always pleasurable reading - he feels like Pratchett without the humour, Pratchett had the rage (you can't read say Small Gods or Jingo and not sense the rage) but was warmer about the human experience. That said we are specifically talking about English majors here - I wouldn't expect an average member of any English speaking country to do that well on Dickens because that is simply not the modern style of written/spoken English but they are English majors so you would expect the overall level to be higher than the general population as a whole. In the UK reading is on the decline and what people read has fundamentally changed (I'm not competent to say why but to me at least it feels like we have a horrible streak of anti-intellectualism that runs across society).
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoThe trouble understanding isn't the issue - the lack of curiosity is. They're English majors, on an education level whose purpose is to teach you how to learn. They did not learn or wante to learn, they guessed. Ignorance is fine, unwillingness to admit you don't know and lack the will to learn is not IMO.
- mihaaly 1y agoNot individual words, but what the text conveys. Also how to approach (digest) unfamiliar content.