Postcards from the Funny Farm

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E.D. Hirsch Jr. was one of my heroes in college (not “ED” but “E.D.” - many make that mistake).  His 1987 work “Cultural Literacy” opened up windows to knowledge I’d never suspected as I read it nearly a decade after its release.

One might say his theory is a predecessor to Tim O’Reilly’s “Web 2.0“ concept because it involves “the people” passing on traditions and tacit understanding to the next generation on and on always evolving.  I’ve blogged some other “off-topic” things about the Web 2.0 concept as it relates to language which you can read at your leisure here. 

In reading some of his thoughtful quotes recently around the web, I stumbled across his “Dictionary of Cultural Literacy.”  This is an amazing feat put together by a team over a long-term period that attempts to provide the reader with help.  This help is a book of significant and particular definitions of terms and concepts required for “cultural literacy” and through that: understanding.  While Hirsch’s dictionary is VALUABLE for readers who lack knowledge of american history, the advent of Web 2.0 and technologyspeak, if you will, probably makes even the vision of a new edition obsolete.  Time and language move like wildfire now. But even though it can’t be 100% encompassing of cultural literacy and language, his dictionary still holds much value today.  Hirsch states that:

Reading and writing are not simply acts of decoding and encoding but rather acts of communication. The literal words we speak and read and write are just the tip of the iceberg in communication. An active understanding of the written word requires far more than the ability to call out words from a page or the possession of basic vocabulary, syntax, grammar, and inferencing techniques. We have learned that successful reading also requires a knowledge of shared, taken-for-granted information that is not set down on the page. (Hirsch)

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edi...