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nbcnewyork.com
This glaring misspelling has some criticizing the "dumbing down" of American society.
NEW YORK -- A glaring misspelling on a street sign outside a Manhattan high school has some laughing that the mistake’s gone unreported for months and stauncher critics condemning what they perceive to be a symbol of the “dumbing down" of American society.
The painted pavement on Stanton Street outside Marta Valle High School reads "SHCOOL X-NG."
The Department of Transportation claims the mistake was made by a utility provider, not the city, according to The New York Post. The agency said it would reach out to the contractor to have the error fixed.
But that hasn't quelled the outcry.
“It’s sad,” Derek Pacheco, a securities worker who passes by the sign on his way to the office each day, told the Post. “It speaks volumes about the dumbing down of American culture.”
- Read original story on nbcnewyork.com
A city worker who asked not to be identified told the Post regardless of who made the mistake, a student or administrator at the school should have noticed and reported it some time ago.
Another worker in the area laughed when the Post asked him what he thought of the pavement sign.
"It's embarrassing for the city," said Luis Maldonado. "Teaching kids to read and write correctly is very important."
Area residents said construction crews labored on the street over the summer.
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News
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Not funny one bit.... Good grief.
This has nothing to do with American Schools.
It makes a lot more sense when you realize the worker who painted that likely didn't even speak English, never-mind ever set foot in an American school.
Gotnorice: The fact the school allowed it to remain there is what I was thinking about...... :D) Good call in addition on your part.
Where did you get that information? It's not stated in the article.
Educated guess, and probably not too far off the mark. A lot of imagrint workers dont read and rite to good.
A lot of non-immigrant workers "dont read and rite to good" either.
I'd say NOT such an "educated" guess, more like a little note of bigotry.
I would guess that the contractor is not screening the resumes of emigrant road workers to find the most qualified help. English would likely be a second language. Hey, I speak and write English very well but if you asked me to paint a sign on a street in a non-English speaking foreign country I would likely not come as close as this person did. It's not bigotry, it's reality. Now feel free to grade my spelling and grammar, I want to know how I did! Shcool me.
Not that I'm a fan of illegal immigration, but A102ndyh there's so many things wrong with your comment that it's not even funny. I certainly hope your second sentence was meant to be facetious otherwise you have no place criticizing ANYONES ability to read and write.
If you insist. Your first lesson is the difference between EMIGRANT and IMMIGRANT. And yes, it's still bigotry. Many IMMIGRANTS speak and write English better than "native born" Americans.
No it's emigrant, as in someone that "should" be leaving the country. And you continue to miss the point that many of them do not. Case in point.
--Yes, Brian, it was was meant to be facetious.
Sh-cool. That's actually how Sean Connery pronounces school. Maybe a Scottish person drew the sign.
A102ndyh: Normally I would not presume to be spelling and grammar police but since your comment concerned both I could not help myself.
"immigrant" (not imagrint) workers
"write" (not rite)
and "well" not "good."
Perhaps you were being sarcastic? ;^)
The internet, and MSNBC as well are rife with poor grammar and mis-spelled words.
Sign of the times - it's more important that you learn the abbreviations you need for texting.
It looks like a simple case of "dixleria". Just because a person is dixlecsic doesn't mean they are stupid.
I'm going to guess that this has nothing to do with the education level or ethnicity of the person who put the lettering on the street. It has more to do with checking your work before putting the paint down. It was a mistake, nothing more.
And 3 out of 10 people surveyed preferred the new spelling.
Well, folks......
The way I see it is ther is defanitly a lak of gud speling coming frum our studens thees days.
oh, and not to mention the Improper capitalization of the correct Words (or Lack Thereof).
And we certainly cant forget the incorrect use of apostrophy's when its appropriate.
And lastly, many people (including myself), have a hard time with mechanics of sentence structure and paragraph breaks, as well as the concept of staying on topic (which is kind of like playing football- you can't be reading the running backs when the QB is looking downfield to pass), and of course the illegal use of run on sentences, which never seem to end, or include proper pauses, and are usually rife with too many commas, again like football in the case where there are too many men on the field, it just makes no sense when trying to play the game, or in this case, write a sensible paragraph that actually doesn't run on, and on, and on, and on........
WHEW! English is hard!! I guess I'd better pay better attention to my errors grammatical and horibull shpelling...
We could just throw out the English language altogether and go with Japanese instead. They never seem to have problems with spelling, right? Of course, I wonder if they get those pretty little pictures confused at times.....hmmm.
LOL! It isn't mispelled....
It is, "Sh, cool!" ;)
"Skool"
I'm going to say dyslexic also. I work on St. Charles Avenue (NO) where the streetcar goes. I watched one day as workers (young white men not illegals as one would like to say) were putting down street instructions (Caution Street Car Crossing). I knew they were putting it in the wrong place because they put it in the traffice light part instead of in the opening for the street where there is a street car crossing. The next day they were out there pulling the paint up with a machine (it is applied with heat). About a week later they put it in the right place.
"SKEWL"
Stupidity is a human condition none of us is exempt from. I work with professionals with degrees (bachelor and graduate) who occasionally spell things incorrectly. Some are just typing in a hurry and don't have time to use the spell check function...some don't care....and some are just clueless.
I blame the inability to spell on our educational institution and it's preference for quick results rather than quallity results. Their insistence on learning to read through memorizing words doesn't create an adequate foundation to also be a good speller.
Do the workers not use stencils for these types of signs?
I would guess it was possibly just an error in the order that each letter was put down, in combination with no quality control check.
I feel this is more of a woopsy than a person who honestly didn't know how to spell the word! Calm down peeps! I could totally see myself doing something like this and I'm a jenious!
; >
So typical!
Marie485962 - Perhaps you should be aware that you used "it's" wrong. It's all good, though. I guess your computer doesn't have a spell check/usage check function, either. Darn our educational institution and its preference for quick results.
Okay those who think immigrants don’t know English, Look
into your computer industry how many immigrants are in the job and look
everywhere how many engineer and doctors are imported from all over the world
to US to fulfill the demand , what does this imply
Stop guessing and stereotyping
Anybody think it might have been a prank??? I mean, that's the first thought that came to MY mind!
Shcool's for fools
This happened on Obama's watch. Shameful.
Don't you mean:
"Shcool's for foosl" ?
:-P
The dumbing down is evidenced by the rise of the Tea Party.
Now anyone with any brains knows why some people are desparate for "shcool" vouchers. A more appropriate sign for America's public schools, would have been "Screw-U-All."
Check your dictionary for spelling of "desparate", by the way.
Yeah, that's embarassing but how about this grammatical error on the IRS.gov website? You might be a redneck if..."you lives in ..."!!
irs.gov website then search for where to file addresses for taxpayers and tax professionals filing form 1040ES during calendar year 2012. (wouldn't let me include the direct link)
No offense meant to any rednecks ;)
or how about the mistakes that journalists on sites like this make everyday. the person who wrote shcool didn't have spell check like journalists do.
Hatr - There is a difference between using the words "everyday" and "every day". Yours is incorrect. Sorry.
And this concludes "mozzie's literary follies". Where some adverse reaction is caused within every context or spelling of every post, of every joke, future and past. Don't catch your nose in the ceiling fan!
That's nothing. They should proofread msnbc. And reporters like to say "their words are their tools." Your tools need sharpening.
I can only assume that poor spelling that gets through the NBC website is the fault of editors and not the actual reporters themselves, but if you're good at finding errors and you like the newsvine maybe you should submit a resume.
peanutgallerytheater: Saucy.... or was that sassy.... Ha! :D)
im sawry too sae butt spelin hass bekum a laust aurt en et wus awlays mie bes subjekt.
That screw up should have been corrected in less than 24 hours but that seems to be another problem that needs to be tackled...owning up to and correcting mistakes. Last time I checked, I think it's called taking responsibility. Another lost art.
"They" get plenty of feedback on these vines already and they clearly dont read or respond to them. Considering I got a C in english and I can still find blatant errors, their bar is obviously very low.
You're FYRED!!!!
Betcha he gets high scores on Madden 2011. Go Patroits!
Deplorable! Is it any wonder that Americans are the laughing stock of the world.
Don't they know it is skool. geesh!
Does anyone know where the time machine is?
We're letting the advertising community ruin our language any way! Let's all go get some "Chikin 2 nite" and make sure your kids "eat mor chikin" (Chick fil a). This and other ads teach our kids more than the schools!
Listening to our politicians is just as bad...how many time have you heard "I aksed about that...". Texting is also bringing down the literacy of our children...I don't know how they'll be able to communicate effectively when they get out of shcool.
EBONICS.
More than likely the road crew which painted the sign cannot speak or read or write in English. Will we never learn?
This is not even close to the first time this has happened.
But to be fair, the job of painting lines on a road isn't going to have a lot of high school (or higher) educated people lining up for it.
They could always unionize...
With all of the British speaking invasion into our culture such as the "Gieco Lizard", the British speakers in a multitude of infomercials, British cooks/chefs on the telly, I'm guessing that this word "Shcool" is the English-spelling version along with neighbour, labour, favour, etc.
Speaking of poor spelling, its Geico.
Easy to remember if you know it means Government Employees Insurance Company.
You're joking, right???????
Phonics is the demise of civilized language.
This happens all the time, all over the country. Lucky's supermarket in my town seems to think "Incontinence" products should be indicated by the word "Incontinents". Can't convince them to change the sign....we're an illiterate nation.
My grocery store has a sign at the self checkout reminding customers to "take the change do to you." It makes me sigh every time I see it.
Grocery store signs. Geez. I pointed out to a manager once that the shelf price for yogurt - which was .49c (there's no cents symbol on the keyboard-you get the idea) wasn't right. He couldn't understand that $.49 was not the same as .49c. I told him I would return in a couple of days and fill my cart with .49c yogurt and they WOULD honor the shelf price. It was changed. Also--only one store I've seen has the proper "Ten items or fewer" sign. And, let's not get into the improper use of apostrophes. The actual term for a misused one is Grocer's Apostrophe.
There is both a dry cleaners and an eatery in my town. Sign says WE OPEN NOW and if closed It says
WE CLOSED NOW...... My 12 year old and I damn near cry of laughter when we drive by..
O'hatesamerica's and Bloomeyhateswhitey's mission is complete. Give the people 'fitty' cents and they'll vote for you; as long as they have help in the voting booth.
It's a typo, relax.
I love it when something is called a typographical error. It makes is sound like some sort of mechanical failure instead of coming out and admitting that someone made a mistake.
Thats what our society has become.
Yep, and with things going downhill at THIS rate, people will soon start mispelling simple four lettered and three lettered words for Christ's sake.
*FACEPALMS*
this, coming from msnbc? how ironic.
If this is the most important thing on all of your minds, we are indeed in serious trouble, but not from spelling errors. Get a life folks. This evolved in a few comments from a spelling error, to an indictment of schools, to comments on immigration, to racism (ebonics). We are all totally screwed if this is how you all think.
@ragtops; who ....... in your cheerios?lol
Ragtopz, I think someone with a speech impediment is to blame here! You know how they can shometimesh shlur their schpeech? Shcool ish perfect if you shound it out!
Its about attention to detail. If you have that, you can learn anything. If you dont, you get embarrassing mistakes like this.
Our Shcooling system is the best in the world.
Yeah right.
I bet this was done on purpose.
I could see someone doing this on a dolphin. Never a purpose.
And quite possibly left in place for months not because of anyone else's inability to spell properly, but rather to lack of observation to detail AND to "seeing what we expect to see". People look at the street painting as they are driving and rapidly ingest the whole thing as a single idea "school crossing, slow this car down!" rather than actually focusing on the individual pieces of the idea.
Try reading through this and see if it doesn't actually make sense to you - and if you want to find out more about this phenomenom and haven't seen it before, start here: http://dan.hersam.com/2005/01/27/reading-jumbled-letters/ or http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/Cmabrigde/ It is a matter of grasping concepts (good readers) rather than fighting your way through a sentence letter by letter (poor readers)...
I once saw a sign that I could read clearly: "WANRING HIGH SPEED TRAINS". It took several readings for my brain to finally spot the juxtaposition of letters.
Administrators, yes. Students - that's dicey. In my day we used to spot far worse mistakes by administrators in the school handbooks, daily bulletins, and monthly newsletters. We pointed the errors out to one another and had a good laugh behind their backs. Most likely the students noticed it months ago and have been laughing about it ever since. Why report something that provides so much entertainment?
Borders, culture & language.
First go the borders, then goes the culture finally the language....
So long America you where nice while you lasted, I'm going to miss you.
Which language are you referring to Azrancher? Which borders? The U.S. as been multilingual since, well, BEFORE it was the U.S.
The areas we bought in the Louisiana purchase were FRENCH; Florida, plus much of the southwestern U.S. (acquired by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo) were SPANISH. We picked up those places by INCREASING our size -- expanding our borders if you will. BTW: If we hadn't Arizona wouldn't be in the U.S.
In fact, many of our immigrants didn't speak English in the 13 original colonies -- they spoke Dutch, German and French. That doesn't even address the Native American languages spoken here.
So, what America are you going to miss?
(As a side note, the reason English, especially American English, is considered the most dynamic language in the world is because of the influences of all those other languages.)