Illiteracy Accommodation Confounds The Literate
I love establishments that provide not just good food and potent coffee, but also various diversions for those of us badly in need of a study break.
But for the second day in a row at my favorite cafe-that-would-get-linked-here-if-they’d-ever-link-back, I’ve sat next to a group of Uno players confounded by the new Uno Cards – the motto of which seems to be “Fewer Words Makes Thinking Less Important!”
You know Uno, don’t you? That card game that is surprisingly as much fun today as it was in the 3d grade? Remember how it had “Wildcards,” “Reverse” cards, and “Skip” cards? Not anymore. Not it has a seemingly incomprehensible system of pictograms and symbols based on some culture other than one in which most of us grew up.
Maybe it should be called Uno 2.0. Or just Due.
While it is fun to watch what are clearly educated, straight-shooters-with-upper-management-potential furrow their brows over this new breed of Uno, it is mostly just desperately sad if we’ve let go of any hope of wide-spread literacy to the point where we have to dumb down a card game with at most three words in it.
I’m going to have to start pimping out my old school deck to the other diehard readers here.