Re: Grammar

On 1 Dec 2003, ivy_mike wrote:

> Joni Rathbun <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote
>
> >On 1 Dec 2003, ivy_mike wrote:
>
> >> I'd say it would depend on the child,
> >> and his/her intelligence.
>
> >Uninformed and illogical.
>
> Do you even know the definition of the word (intelligence)?
> And please explain how my reasoning is illogical.

You're telling us that smarter children will automatically connect and
apply what they see on television. In reality, however, it just doesn't
work out that way most of the time. Like adults, they might tune in to
something for which they have a paricular and passionate interest
and take that information a step further. For the most part, however,
it's in one ear and out the other, even for adults unless there is
an opportunity given (guided for example) to put that info to immediate
use.  How  many details of the last National Geo special on a subject of
modest interest that you watched can you recall?

How many people who place quotation marks incorrectly have read
magazine articles and books up the ying yang that demonstrated
correct usage? But they have not made the connection or put the
correct usage into practice....

>
> >>  Hang a banana from the ceiling--just out of
> >> reach of a chimp--in a room devoid of anything but a chair.  The chimp
> >> will push the chair up and use it to obtain the food.  Hang a steak
> >> in the same room, this time with a dog, and the dog will futilely
> >> jump up at the meat all day long, never making the connection with
> >> the chair available to him.
>
> >Irrelevant.
>
> Please elaborate.

A banana or a steak to a child - WRT television - will be something
they're especially interested in. A special on dinosaurs might be
a steak to a dino fanatic. Most programming, however, is little more
than pablam (sp?). And many children, especially those who've
not yet developed abstract thought (most children under 10 or 11
years of age) might not even know a steak when they see one, will
not understand the importance of that steak to their overall nutrition
or well being and will make no more of it than the pablam. Interest
and how they act on that interest has nothing to do with intelligence.