The other day I was picking up after somebody’s good time—two somebodies’, in fact: Frick’s (2) and Frack’s (4). As I was filling a garbage bag full of shrapnel from some kind of colorful explosion that occurred in my art room, scattering over every surface innumerable ripped pieces of construction paper, I came across something that was clearly not a product of my mischievous junior duo. It was an unmolested white piece of printer paper with legible handwriting on it. The words written on it formed a relatively neat looking column, with check marks beside each item. It appeared to be some sort of “To Do” list—a sign of ordered thought, noted the anthropologist-mom in me, indicating the presence of a higher intelligence, of planned activity, not just the frenzy of two wild brutes.
After studying the empirical evidence, I deduced that this list must be the work of one resident Kindergartner who had carefully planned and executed a pretend shopping trip in our home. “Now isn’t this cute; I know these letters are supposed to spell real words,” I think to myself. A mere twenty minutes later, I had her figured out. Now, deciphering her language isn’t as hard as deciphering a fragment of papyrus with hieroglyphs or a shard of pottery with some previously-unattested variant of the Greek script. But when she repeatedly uses the wrong letters altogether, it’s like the frustration of looking for “buddr” in the dictionary and never finding it. You know it’s a real word, but when you are accustomed to decoding English on sight, reading this is a chore.
Evidence of a higher civilization?
When Ps become Bs and Is become As and As become Os and Os become As and some letters are just plain missing altogether, what are you left to work with? Context, I guess, if you are trying to decipher sentences. But sometimes, especially in the case of random lists of things, you have to put yourself in the shoes of the writer. That could be challenging if you wear an 8 and the writer wears a 1 ½. So, I tried to imagine how my Kindergartner thinks and what she likes to play with. Chalk it up to the miraculous: eventually I was able to squeeze my brain into her shoes and figure out every word on my daughter’s list.
You should see my daughter read with ease and speak with perfect diction. You would never know that she couldn’t spell and that she still writes some letters and numbers completely backwards. We humans are uniquely hard wired for language, but it doesn’t come automatically to us. Imagine if you were never spoken to as a baby –you might only make monosyllabic sounds, grunts, or cries in trying to communicate (much as 14 year-old boys do in an interesting display of retro-development prior to maturity.) As clever as the human animal is, we can’t figure out English on our own; we have to be taught it by imitation first and by instruction later. It seems even a Kindergartner can understand structures like sentences and lists, but spelling is mastered only with the kind of patience and attention to detail that are not exactly in abundant supply in our culture these days.
I know of only a few other members of the animal kingdom who take spelling as seriously as we humans are capable of. Badgers, for instance. Russell Hoban knew that b-r-n-d and g-k-l-s don’t spell anything, but in his story called A Birthday for Frances, the sweet little badger-girl so named thinks that’s how you really spell ‘cake’ and ‘candy’, and when her mother doesn’t understand, she earns her daugher’s disdain: “I thought you could spell,” chides Frances.
Failure to take orthography seriously will have dire consequences for individuals long before any threats to civilization are manifested. E. B. White’s Wilbur would have been turned into some tasty applewood smoked bacon and sausage links if Charlotte had foolishly taken on faith the untutored goose’s answer to her question:
“Does anybody here know how to spell ‘terrific’?”
“I think,” said the gander, “it’s tee double ee double rr double eye double ff double eye double see see see see see.”
Our own Christopher Robin is not exactly a good example for other species. If he were placed in charge of anything important, his lack of care for the details of his mother tongue might just bring down the whole system of Western civilization as we know it:
Owl lived at the Chestnuts, an old-world residence of great charm, which was grander than anybody else’s, or seemed so to Bear, because it had both a knocker and a bell-pull. Underneath the knocker there was a notice which said:
PLES RING IF RNSER IS REQIRD.
Underneath the bell-pull there was a notice which said:
PLEZ CNOKE IF AN RNSR IS NOT REQID.
These notices had been written by Christopher Robin, who was the only one in the forest
who could spell…
Winnie-the-Pooh read the two notices very carefully, first from left to right, and afterwards, in case he had missed some of it, from right to left. Then, to make quite sure, he knocked and pulled the knocker, and he pulled and knocked the bell-rope, and he called out in a very loud voice, “Owl! I require an answer! It’s Bear speaking.”
No one would care about the written word anymore. The last spelling bee in the history of the English language would end thus:
Anyone could join the spelling bee this year; you didn’t have to qualify. After round one, no one was eliminated; every attempt to spell a word, whether correct or incorrect, was adequate. After round two, still no one was eliminated. Round three, round four, round five and so on until round thirty proved no different. The judges take drastic action: If we are going to finish this before midnight we had better declare the next two contestants the ‘finalists’. “Okay, here we go. We have our two finalists and this is the last word,” one judge says. “Spell PRECOCIOUS.” The first finalist says, “precocious…P-R-E-E-K-O-S-H-U-S ”. “That is correct,” the judge says. “Next finalist, please.” The second finalist says, “precocious…P-R-E-C-O-T-I-U-S.” “Also correct,” declares the judge. “Everyone’s a winner!” The anxios parent’s in the room let out a colective “FEW!” n whipe they’re forheads in RELEAF!
The Christian faith could doubtless survive in such a culture, as it not only survived but thrived amongst the illiterate peoples of Europe for centuries, as it does today in secluded South American villages and sleepy rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa. But what about the priesthood? As simple and humble as the Apostles may have been, the Church has always required men who could read and write in order to propagate and defend the deposit of faith.
If Christ’s shepherds are going to preserve every iota of His revelation (Lk 16:17), they must start by knowing the basics—you know, “iota before ‘e’, except after ‘c’…” We’ll need to do better than Christopher Robin, who upon scrutiny doesn’t really seem like promising Anglicanorum Coetibus material after all…
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Do I detect a subtle anti-jesuit bias? The most interesting item on the list appears to read “bating sot s.j.”
That would be “bathing suits” with a checkmark (as opposed to a “j” at the end of her word). I was taught to read k-language early on… (hah!)
I love her list! Such creativity and beauty, and perhaps a beautiful complement of imitating her mother’s actions. I particularly like her need for basic healthy foods, a bathing suit (a must have for a child), books, and her stuffed animals (safftanamols).
“…my spelling is Wobbly. It’s good spelling but it Wobbles and the letters get in the wrong places.”
What is the “abascit” that appears on the list? I am intrigued – does she mean an abacus?
Or a biscuit?
I read that one as “a basket”.
You know, the ancient Greeks and Romans didn’t put spaces between words, either. They thought it was a waste of paper. Or marble.
Wow, Denys, you are a better archaeologist than I am! That was the one word I needed to think about the longest. If you know my daughter, you would know that she has always loved playing with baskets as she still does today. Denys, you are correct–”abascit” means a basket.
atisct atasct.
agreneandyellobascit?