« canadian invasion | Main | what price, $1.39? »

March 12, 2011

reader mail: canadian invasion

Ultimately, quite a few Canadian readers responded to yesterday's post. But they took their time. First came that most dread of species, Americans With Opinions.

Alas, I found myself agreeing with almost all of them. Our fellow Americans not only don't care that they sound illiterate; so unskilled are they in the written word, they're no longer capable of recognizing the issue. So being good Americans, instead of mitigating the issue, they lazily dismiss its importance.

Special honors go to the guy who said the decline in American writing is due to the influx of Mexicans. Unless they're sucking the literacy out of people named Tyler and Courtney (I'm imagining sucking the innards of a tamale out of a corn hush), this is not what I'm talking about. Come sit in on my college English class and see the privileged white children of affluence not give a shit that they write at a sixth grade level, and then tell me again about the Mexicans.

But back to the Canadians. When they didn't write, I was puzzled.

"Of course they didn't. Why would people who write well read Stank?" Allie asked.

posted by john at 8:18 AM  â€¢  permalink