We have just gone through one “pandemic”, and now some “experts” are telling us that the next one is just round the corner. Humbug! But there’s one actual pandemic that should strike fear into everyone’s heart. Its name? FI, or functional illiteracy.
According to most recent data, around 14 per cent of people in the world today remain illiterate. They cannot read and write at all. In other words, their lives are wasted and unfulfilled, unable to avail themselves of everything life has to offer. But what about those who are capable of reading and writing? Are they faring any better?
A growing number of those who are labelled as literate are still illiterate—functionally illiterate, that is. They can read and sound out the words they see in front of them, but they cannot comprehend them as a whole. Say, the above paragraph holds around 50 words or so. Functionally illiterate people can make out the words, understand each one by itself, but they still can’t glean the overall meaning of those 50 words. Functional illiteracy does not only apply to the written word, but also to verbal instructions. And this is a big problem with far-reaching consequences.
At work, when given instructions by a line manager, they can’t understand the instructions, get things wrong and, in the worst case, injure or kill a co-worker.
They listen to a politician on TV, but all they take away from the speech is… nothing. And then they go and vote for the wrong candidate.
It has often been said in newspapers, for example, that functional illiteracy affects at least 50 per cent of people in Canada and the US. But it’s a problem we see everywhere, regardless of the language. Germans or the French find it just as hard to read and comprehend these days.
Personally, what I find the most aggravating is that people who deal with language for a living, such as journalists, writers, translators and teachers, are just as likely to be functionally illiterate as someone who scrubs toilets. When I look at the output of journalists in Canada, the US, Germany, France, etc., all I want to do is cry. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there: I have seen published books with major mistakes in them, such as words that are used incorrectly or misspelled horribly. As I always say, if you want to be a writer and write the “great Canadian or American novel”, you have to have mastered your language first.
Time and time again, I am contacted by translation agencies with requests and inquiries that have absolutely nothing to do with the services I offer as a professional translator. Now, you’d think that people who work in the language industry are educated and literate. Not true. Quite often, they are the worst offenders. So, why do they ask me to translate a document into French when my public website and all of my online profiles specify—in clear and precise language—that I translate from French into English, but not into French? Because they see the words, but cannot understand them. They are functionally illiterate.
One such agency contacted me the other day. They call themselves “The Language Expert”, operating out of Pennsylvania:
We found you online, and we would like to hire you for Canadian French voiceovers. Please send us an audio sample of your native Canadian French voice.
What? Whatever gave them the impression that I was a native speaker of “Canadian French”? Look at my professional website, for example:
It then goes on to describe my services in greater detail. While I did a fair amount of work in the voiceover field many years ago, such as for TV and radio commercials, I no longer offer that service, and it’s not mentioned on my website either. So, why send me such a ridiculous request? Really, WTF?
The answer is straightforward: at “The Language Experts” in Pennsylvania, they have a guy who is functionally illiterate. Working for a translation agency no less! My reply was swift and devastating: I don’t work for or with functionally illiterate people. There is too much risk involved. Take invoices, for example: when your agency hires functionally illiterate people, there’s no telling what kind of things might go wrong, and then I end up not getting paid, because you people can’t handle even the simplest tasks. Take me off your contact list and do not contact me ever again.
In this day and age, there’s no excuse for illiteracy, functional or otherwise. This is why I don’t feel bad about discriminating against such people. I don’t discriminate against anyone else, but the functionally illiterate are fair game—they brought it on themselves, and they deserve that kind of abuse. Most of them are hopeless cases, intellectually challenged, but if there’s one thing that might help them to get on the right track, it’s shaming them. Yes, calling them idiots to their faces, for example, or in an e-mail. The rest of us must let them know that this kind of reversal of human evolution is unacceptable.
Cogito ergo sum—I think therefore I am. In other words, if your thinking doesn’t work properly, you don’t exist.