The Lost Art of Reading Comprehension

The smart money says you should never blog while angry or you might complain about the lost art of reading comprehension.

Or in simple terms you might mention how you have had three separate incidents in which you wondered if the person you were dealing with had been had fallen out of a tree and hit every branch on the way down.

My father and I share the same last name but have different first and middle names. We also subscribe to some of the same publications but in spite of what my younger sisters say we are clearly different people.

Yet I have had more than one set of email correspondence with the fine people at a popular news magazine about why I wasn’t receiving my subscription. Each time the conversation included blurbs where they suggested I was confused and or crazy to complain because they had extended my subscription.

My response was to ask them to check their information again at which point they admitted they had made a mistake but then suggested it might not be entirely their fault because we had the same last name.

If I had the power I would have given new meaning to the term, “two left feet.” Yep, I would have used the spell I learned at Hogwarts to turn all of the shoes for their “right foot” into left and then laughed.

This would have been high comedy worthy of  the Three Stooges. Clearly I was dealing with an intellect last scene failing the poison test with the man in black. It is INCONCEIVABLE!”

Skimming is Not Reading

I suspect my favorite curmudgeon from Down Under and I could have a real interesting discussion about who is responsible for making sure the information in an email/essay/article/book is understood.

The writer bears the brunt of the responsibility to produce content that is clear and easy to understand, unless they are the author of propositions to be voted upon in which case clarity is frowned upon.

In fact there is a little known law that says anyone who produces any summary that explains exactly what a law does and does not do is to be tarred and feathered. Much as I would like to discuss that with you it is a topic for a different day.

Some of the onus here has to be applied to the reader who should be obligated to do more than skim and pretend the 30 seconds they spent reading something that required a minimum of two was enough to ensure understanding.

But we live during the time of instant gratification in which people want their information in one line of text and not one page.

It Doesn’t Have To Be Like This

It doesn’t have to be like this nor should it be. We don’t have to be the people who go quietly into the night and let those who excuse laziness with remarks about being too busy to take a moment to read.

We don’t have to be the people who say that keyword optimization will solve all of our productivity problems and suggest that it is too bad if the computer doesn’t recognize sales is a part of business development.

It is our choice to lay down and let it go or push for something more.