Change in Literacy Rate?

[Benjamin Barrett]

Has illiteracy really increased in the United States? I've always wondered
how many people really could read in the past given that documentation
methods were surely not as good as they are today.

Benjamin Barrett
Baking the World a Better Place
www.hiroki.us

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society
> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Laurence Urdang
> Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 11:35 AM

> With the decline of family culture and the rise of
> semiliteracy in America, the traditional pronunciations have
> given way to spelling pronunciations. I don't care how people
> pronounce a given word, as long as I can understand what they
> mean.