[etni] fw: Wanted: A minister who values education
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- Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:47:45 +0200
From: Tom Balazs <tom123online@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Wanted: A minister who values education
Wanted: A minister who values education
Haaretz - Feb. 16, 2009
"Apparently the revolutionaries demanded civil rights," one of my college
students said recently. Not just apparently, I retorted, but in actual
practice. After years in which I abstained from acting like the annoying
aunt, correcting people when they say hamesh shekel ("five shekel") instead
of the grammatically correct Hebrew usage of the number five in this
instance ("hamisha"), and weeding out the Hebrew equivalent of phrases such
as "whatever," "as if," "like," and "seemingly," I have returned to fight
for the language's receding integrity, armed with new pearls of wisdom. The
contempt I acquired for the cheapening of the language, and - more so - for
the difficulty of those born in the 1980s to build a convincing argument,
has come back to haunt me.
True, they are the ignorant ones whose language is limited to dismantling
"synonyms" in the textbook for the psychometric exam, but we are the ones
who pave the way. The education portfolio features prominently in every
election campaign, yet afterward returns to its natural place as excess
baggage.
(To read the whole article, go to -
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1064442.html )
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