Laeping to Literacy

Lakewood High School is in Florida, and for leap day, the literacy coach thought it would be fun to have a "Leaping to Literacy" night. There was just one problem: The sign. Article here.

Gentlemen, here's one more reason to read.

"Ladies love a well-read gentleman" via.

Fight Illegibility!

Via.

September: The Month of Backs

"Back to work, back to school, back to BOOKS!"


This WPA poster from Illinois was printed back in the late 1930s. (The Works Progress Administration was a government agency that provided jobs, income, food, clothing and housing to people during the Great Depression.)

Good stuff from the Library of Congress! Here's one more.

Verba Non Grata

Like a lot of people in the U.S., I woke up this morning thinking about the status of Latin in England’s towns. This concern stems from recent news that the Bournemouth Council has banned the use of nearly 20 Latin words and phrases from the mouths and pens of its local employees. The terms in question:
In addition to these, Salisbury has also banned ergo and QED (quod erat demonstrandum), and Fife has excommunicated ex officio (oh, good one!). While classics scholars have been soiling themselves and concocting the perfect Latin phrase to express their outrage, a spokesperson from the Plain English Campaign (a group that's appeared here before) praised the move:

“[It] is important to remember that the national literacy level is about 12 years old and the vast majority of people hardly ever use these terms. It is far better to use words people understand.”

Hmm. Instead of segregating Latin words out from English as sui generis (unique and unable to classify), why not be more inclusive? After all, don’t ALL the words in our dictionaries make English e pluribus unum? (Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.)