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"that disturbing kind of uncomfortability, if that is a word"
Hearing this, my first reaction was: Uncomfortability is not a word.
Second reaction: Uncomfortability is actually a not-bad description of what these news anchors were seeing.
Still and all, a news anchor should know whether uncomfortability is or is not a word.
sauve qui peut!
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From today's WaPo on a parent group fighting TERC. This vice chairman likes TERC. What's wrong with the rosy picture he paints?
+++
School Board Vice Chairman Michael Otaigbe (Coles), who voted to approve the program and has visited Investigations classes regularly, said in an interview that he thinks the program deepens a student's knowledge of mathematics, beyond rote memorization. "With the old way of teaching math, you have a class of 30 students, and maybe three or four students understand what's really going on," he said. "What I see are students actively engaged in learning math. I see students defending their answers and solutions to problems."
I wonder how long it will take Loudoun parents to protest TERC?
Sorry; this hit one of my pet peeves:
"Hearing this, my first reaction was: Uncomfortability is not a word."
Then what is it? It's not a fruit (I've seen those and they taste different); it's not a car (not expensive enough, plus you don't need insurance); and it's definitely not a basketball game.
It's even a well-formed English word with an easily discernable meaning. (One might even say it largely lacks undiscernability, though one might even be a fool to do so.)
English, like most languages, has the capability to synthesize new words from root morphemes on the fly. It is less likely to do this than some other languages (like Inuktitut, for a fairly extreme example), but "uncomfortability" is squarely within the realm of the regular synthesis allowed without remark in English.
As another example, "un-green*" is a fine English word (though perhaps of limited use) that you are unlikely to find explicitly in any dictionary. It will be understood on first reading by any native speaker of the language in exactly the way that the writer should expect.
Finally, if you want an authoritative source, that's available too. Take a look in the front of your favorite dictionary -- you are quite likely to find a section like the one titled "Lists of Undefined Words" in mine**. That says, in part, "The lists are not exhaustive of all the words that might be, or actually have been, formed with these prefixes and combining forms."
Note that both "un-" and "-ability" are defined "prefixes [or] combining forms" in this dictionary, and I see nothing that would restrict their use with "comfort".
Q.E.D.
As I noted, a pet peeve.
8-)
* The hyphen in "un-green" is desirable for the convenience of the reader. Without it, the syllable boundary may be unclear on the first pass.
** This quote comes from "Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th Ed.".
Doug - In other words, it's a perfectly cromulent word?
Btw, I also like to take credit for introducing the word, 'gruntled'.
[...synthesize new words...]
So the illiterate creation "irregardless" is perfectly fine because there is such a prefix as in irresponsible? Dis- and un- are fine prefixes but some want "disinterested" to mean impartial. It helps the communication process to have agreed-upon meanings.
I will try to be more sensitive in the future!
"So the illiterate creation "irregardless" is perfectly fine because there is such a prefix as in irresponsible?"
You're begging the question; bad form, old chap.
Irregardless is a fine word in many dialects. It is suspect in Standard Edited American English not because it is poorly formed but because it uses an internal doubled negation. FWIW, such double-negation used for emphasis is common in most dialects of English and is normally easily understood. (I don't use the word myself, but that isn't especially relevant to this discussion.)
"Dis- and un- are fine prefixes but some want "disinterested" to mean impartial. It helps the communication process to have agreed-upon meanings."
That particular battle is probably lost, as is the battle over the difference between "continuous" and "continual". On the other hand, such differences have always been unstable -- the difference between "insure" and "ensure" only developed during the last couple of hundred years (and might be disappearing again), for instance.
It does not help the communication process to rely upon differences in nuance that your audience understands poorly. Feel free to lament that (as I lament the loss of "decimate"), but it doesn't do much good.
But all that is orthogonal to the issue at hand unless you can suggest two conflicting meanings for "uncomfortability" in common use or a difference in nuance between "uncomfortability" and "discomfortability". I probably won't use either word, but then I don't use "orientate" -- and I only use "utilize" by mistake.
Living languages change. The instant case isn't even an irregular change; it's entirely a regular use of the rules of English.
I hope you are not too exercised by the "illiterate" use of "peas" (plural noun) instead of the historically standard "pease" (mass noun), or of "corn" to mean only "maize" in N. America. They were much bigger changes, affected many more people, and were arguably much less regular. Although, I suppose a little exercise is good for you.
8-)
"decimate"
I thought is what happens when decimals get together. : )
Yet another way in which KTM posts veer to encompass my life experiences:
I looked at the word and, like Doug, thought it adequate, but also thought something simpler, like "discomfort" would have sufficed, but that's just me.
One of our first year teachers came back from an all-day conference yesterday terribly excited about having learned a NEW, BETTER way to teach students vocabulary. (We teach high school. The conference taught him a whole lot of elementary techniques including acting out the word, drawing pictures, etc.)
He went on and on about the fantastic new word he'd learned...but when I asked he couldn't remember it. It started with a "g" and meant "a whole lot of something." He went to the dictionary. It started with a "g" and it meant a whole lot of something, and he thought the second letter was "a". While he was searching, and since he'd said it meant "a whole lot," I went into the "The Three Amigos" routine about "plethora."
He'd never seen "The Three Amigos." I was crushed.
Turns out, the word was gallimaufry, which is slightly different in meaning from "a whole lot of something." So he'd learned a new word with fantastic new techniques, but he'd been taught an inaccurate description.
And then we talked for a while about teaching students vocabulary they can actually use in the future, just in case they don't become vocab freaks like the rest of us English teachers.
Yet another way in which KTM posts veer to encompass my life experiences:
I looked at the word and, like Doug, thought it adequate, but also thought something simpler, like "discomfort" would have sufficed, but that's just me.
One of our first year teachers came back from an all-day conference yesterday terribly excited about having learned a NEW, BETTER way to teach students vocabulary. (We teach high school. The conference taught him a whole lot of elementary techniques including acting out the word, drawing pictures, etc.)
He went on and on about the fantastic new word he'd learned...but when I asked he couldn't remember it. It started with a "g" and meant "a whole lot of something." He went to the dictionary. It started with a "g" and it meant a whole lot of something, and he thought the second letter was "a". While he was searching, and since he'd said it meant "a whole lot," I went into the "The Three Amigos" routine about "plethora."
He'd never seen "The Three Amigos." I was crushed.
Turns out, the word was gallimaufry, which is slightly different in meaning from "a whole lot of something." So he'd learned a new word with fantastic new techniques, but he'd been taught an inaccurate description.
And then we talked for a while about teaching students vocabulary they can actually use in the future, just in case they don't become vocab freaks like the rest of us English teachers.
I don't know why that posted twice. I had nothing to do with it.
And when I said "...he'd been taught an inaccurate description" I meant "...an inaccurate definition."
I've been grading. That's my only excuse.
"It started with a "g" and meant 'a whole lot of something.'"
And here I thought you were going for "ginormous" (speaking of newly created words; it's also not quite right, of course).
Also, from the description I'd have to say that "learned a new word" is something of an exaggeration. Well, maybe the next time around the spiral, or perhaps the time after that.
8-)
>>Also, from the description I'd have to say that "learned a new word" is something of an exaggeration.<<
Heh. Yes.
It was a great lesson for the teacher though. He immediately saw the irony, and the flaw.
wow!
I'm glad you brought up gallimaufry. Like your colleague, I, too, had learned the word "gallimaufry" in the past year, and, also like your colleague, I have forgotten both the word and what the word means.
Let's just hope my team gets gallimaufry in tonight's spelling bee.
I found more on TERC's Beyond Arithmetic in an article by David Klein on edspresso. TERC thinks standard algorithms are harmful:
Schmid’s observations are confirmed by a resource book for K-6 teachers entitled, Beyond Arithmetic, which “provides support for teachers, administrators, and curriculum specialists who are transforming mathematics learning and teaching and are implementing curricula such as Investigations in Number, Data, and Space,” according to promotional materials from the publisher (which also publishes TERC). Beyond Arithmetic explains, “In the Investigations curriculum, standard algorithms are not taught because they interfere with a child’s growing sense and fluency with the number system.”[7]
“In the Investigations curriculum, standard algorithms are not taught because they interfere with a child’s growing sense and fluency with the number system.”[7]
Perhaps early in the debate they really believed this stuff. Now they know that they can't be quite so blatant about it. They've heard the arguments against TERC for years, but they have too much invested. Like Everyday Math, it's all about money, market share, and pushing the new version that solves everything. Schools (birds of a feather) want to believe, so they buy into it all, including the anti-parent PR. (It reminds me of a very old, pre-PC, concept that nobody got fired for specifying IBM.)
Their defense against Singapore Math is feeble at best and has nothing to do with TERC or EM being better. They know this, but they still bring up the bogeyman of "traditional" math. They know exactly what they're doing and it has little to do with selecting the best math curriculum.
They know exactly what they're doing. Everyday Math is not for the elite. They say this. Using Everyday Math guarantees this.
Among other things, the fuzzy types don't like standard algorithms because they are neurotically opposed to anything having to do with memorization. What I don't understand is how they think their cumbersome, alternative methods get around memorization. I would think the cumbersome, inefficient methods require even more memorization.
Good point! Can't tell you how many times I've wanted to illustrate the lattice method of multiplication to a disbelieving adult and I lose a great opportunity b/c I can't remember how to set it up, where to put those diagonal lines, etc. Dang!
Another thing I simply cannot understand is why logic and reason doesn't carry more weight in the math wars.
Doesn't it stant to reason that if you try to teach 3-4 different methods for various arithmetic operations to elementary students, you will confuse them?
Doesn't it stand to reason that math curricula that rely heavily on reading and writing will cause problems for ESL kids and kids with reading disabilities?
I just don't get how the most basic logic can be ignored by educationists. I sometimes think this is what the non-parent public doesn't understand about the public education they are paying for with their taxes--they assume (falsely) that common sense continues to underlie the system, so we appear to be overreacting.
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