| | The Associated Press is reporting ...that in 2006, a young man was given a 2-point credit, out of a possible 27 points, for answering a question with "ef off." (I would cut and paste a quote, but the Associated Press is getting very prissy about bloggers using their copyrighted material without their express, written permission. And giving them money. I'll just tell you about the silly little boy and his potty mouth pen.)
Anyway, the examiner gave the credit, which would have been more if the guy had punctuated. The tester said that it would have been wicked not to give him any credit because writing the expletive showed some very basic skill, conveyed some meaning and was spelled correctly. He added that "ef off" was better than writing nothing at all.
We live in a time when artists use excrement as a material, photographers use it formed into words as the basis for their work, and now this young man is using verbal excrement as the universal answer to standardized testing. Are we surprised?
In a post at another website, I said I thought that the shock being expressed over this was misplaced. Had the likes of Jane Austen lived in our time of such freedom, I'm sure we'd not have been troubled with such wordy passages as, "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope." or "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." Generations would have been spared so much verbiage had she just had that little "effin'" tool.
Take care--Susan Kaye
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| | Posted 7/1/2008 5:49 AM - 41 views - 0 comments
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