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**Convicted Criminal**

LoP Guest Wrote:

George Eliot used a male psuedonym to avoid the steretype that women largely published lighthearted romance.

There's also George Sand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Sand

**Convicted Criminal** · (This post was last modified: 04-23-2012 01:23 AM by Convicted Criminal.)

LoP Guest Wrote:

Did you pick up this erroneous tidbit in a Womynz Studies group or something?

No, I was just reflecting on the fact that relatively few people had basic literacy skills before 1900, and most of the elite five percent that did were men.

**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 77388 04-23-2012 01:30 AM

Convicted Criminal Wrote:

LoP Guest Wrote:
Did you pick up this erroneous tidbit in a Womynz Studies group or something?

No, I was just reflecting on the fact that relatively few people had basic literacy skills before 1900, and most of the elite five percent that did were men.

That's a misconception as well. In fact, I would argue that the average Colonial was vastly more literate than the average American of today.

These were devout people who read their Bibles fervently. These were people who were stirred to action by Thomas Paine's Common Sense

The book would never hasve elicited a response if no one could have read it.

And why bother exhuming and burning Wycliffe's body, as well as his writings, if no one could read his translation of the Bible anyway?

Literacy has gone down since those days, not up. A distinction ought to be drawn between being able to interpret letters into words and sentences and being conversant with great books and ideas.

**Convicted Criminal**

LoP Guest Wrote:

These were devout people who read their Bibles fervently.

A lot of people in Mali today read the Koran fervently, and yet this doesn't prevent 50 % of the population from being functionally illiterate.

http://www.indexmundi.com/mali/literacy.html

**yeswecan**

Convicted Criminal Wrote:

LoP Guest Wrote:
These were devout people who read their Bibles fervently.

A lot of people in Mali today read the Koran fervently, and yet this doesn't prevent 50 % of the population from being functionally illiterate.

http://www.indexmundi.com/mali/literacy.html

idiots, gotta be,
idiots

**roadtoad**

Just about every american male author owes aligence to Mark Twain.
But, I think the first 50 pages of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein will endure, and indear, as long as humans can read.