Poll shows 1 in 4 Americans read no books last year. But books aren't everything . . .

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Aug 21, 2007, at 10:16 PM, Dennis Baron wrote:

> There's a new post on the
> Web of Language:
>
> Poll shows 1 in 4 Americans read no books last year.  But books
> aren't everything . . .
>
> 27% of Americans read no books last year, according to an AP-Ipsos
> poll just out.  The media immediately reported that the nation’s
> literacy is in free fall.
>
> Every time there’s a literacy crisis,...
>
> Finding a solution to the latest reading crisis...

> But there’s no invisible hand steering the nation’s literacy...

you can get the raw results (in percentages, broken down by various
categories) at:

http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/client/act_dsp_pdf.cfm?
name=mr070821-4topline.pdf&id=3613

there are no measures of statistical significance in this report.
presumably, the numbers speak for themselves.

two further comments:

1.  the coverage strongly suggests that book-reading has *declined*,
but there's nothing in the report that bears on this question.  the
report merely shows that (self-reported) book-reading is at a level
that many would find scandalously low.

i'm willing to believe that book-reading has declined, but this study
doesn't show that.

2.  the report goes back and forth between references to book-reading
and references to "literacy".  see the snippets above.  this makes me
very uncomfortable.  in other contexts -- for example, in discussions
of spanish-speaking immigrants -- "literacy" retains its older
meaning of 'ability to read and write', or has an extended meaning
'knowledge or competence in a specific field'.

granted, we could use terms for involvement in reading (in general)
and in book-reading (specifically), but "literacy" is already taken.

arnold

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