PS — on the accuracy thing and why I am such a picky ***** about it — I posted dire warnings two days ago and here is a terrible tragic example on the news today, CNN.
A retired engineer driving down the highway saw damage to an overpass and called in to 911 to report the danger to the public — a responsible and competent engineer. He reported that an *I-beam* was damaged.
An I-beam is one of those multi-ton chunks of steel that holds fifty feet of overpass up; if you look at the end of one it is shaped like a capital I, hence the name.
Well, the 911 operator didn’t recognize the word “I-beam” *and* didn’t ask for enough clarification or ask him to spell it out; she thought he must mean “sign” and reported it to the state highway department as a damaged sign. The workers went up and down the road looking for a damaged sign, not too urgently as it would be a minor hazard. The I-beam on the overpass collapsed and killed an entire family.
But hey, if you replace an unfamiliar word with one that you do know and it makes sense in the sentence, that’s just fine, isn’t it?
Re: On accuracy and why I am a stiff-necked picky *****
Hey, you were a stiff necked picky *(&(* before that happened….
But seriously, yea, accuracy is horribly underrated. Is there a link still live that I could cite & send to a couple of our faculty? They are on the verge of entertaining the idea that we need to work on reading accuracy in our developmental reading classes instead of saying “I think they decode alright, it’s their comprehension.” (Or, at any rate, they’re going to entertain testing the students’ decoding!)
Re: On accuracy and why I am a stiff-necked picky *****
Sue — I don’t have a specific link, just saw it on CNN as I was watching and reading simultaneously. NN and/or Washington Post website should have it. Colorado if that helps.
Re: On accuracy and why I am a stiff-necked picky *****
I’ d searched CNN’s site (but thru their search engine and I know those sometimes are sadnesses).
Ah, well, if today continues to be slow I’ll get some time to pull Surfin’ Sally’s talents out.
But I’m rather pleasantly distracted by the task of … well, figuring out how to integrate some down and dirty skills work into the developmental curriculum. They’ve done it before but it’s been fragmented and nothing transferred (which is giving me some insights as far as how people become anti-isolated-skills folks) — so if I can figure out a way to make it work…
Re: On accuracy and why I am a stiff-necked picky *****
Sue — found two links. One of them for some reason has just the headline and has lost the article (I have sent them a note about this). The other article mostly concerns other errors, of which there were apparently a large number, but has one short paragraph on this issue.
TheDenverChannel_com - News - Caller Reports Unstable Girder Hour Before Fatal Accident.htm
TheDenverChannel_com - News - Several Problems Led To Unstable Girder.htm
They are missing the weeping emoticon on here and that’s what I would have posted. This has to be the best illustration for that point that could ever be made. What a tragedy.
Janis