Quotes: Illiteracy, Illiterate, Uneducated

(just because we were born that way is no justification for staying in such a condition)

illiteracy (s) (noun), illiteracies (pl)
1. A lack of the ability to read and to write: It cannot be underestimated that illiteracy is not only prevalent among the younger generation, but also found in adults who have chosen ways to hide this handicap.

June found it most difficult to find a job in shops or stores because of her illiteracy and not being able to decipher the writing on the packages she would have to place on the shelves for the customers.
2. The circumstance of not having any or enough education: Jim was told that the mistakes he made in writing or speaking were the results his illiteracy.

illiterate (s) (noun), illiterates (pl)
1. Someone who is unable to read or write: Susan was an illiterate who did not know the alphabet, let alone competent enough to peruse the contents of a text.
2. Anyone who has or demonstrates having very little or no education: In some parts of the world there are many illiterates who have had little or no formal or proper schooling.

Quotations

Functional illiteracy is the inability of an individual to use reading, writing or math skills in everyday life. while no one knows precisely how many Americans cannot read, many major agencies and programs that focus on the problem have estimated the number at more than 27 million. Illiteracy connects to all sorts of problems, ranging from poverty to relations with spouses and children to the simple inability to fill out a request for a fishing license.
—Alex Haley, Parade Magazine, September 2, 1990, pg. 28.

Someone has said that there is no such thing as functional illiteracy; because when a person is illiterate, he is not functional.
—Theodore Roosevelt

No one gives advice with more enthusiasm and less knowledge than an ignorant person and, too often, an educated person is someone who knows how to be ignorant "intelligently". It's all right to be ignorant about some things, but it's ridiculous to make a career of it.
—John Rayoa


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