What does it mean to be literate?

Question

what do you believe (reading,writing) is used for?

my teacher asked us to write an essay about it.. and its kinda obvious what it is...but I wanted to know what you guys think.. thanks

Answer 1

Break the word down into it's component parts lite and rate.

"Lite" means you drink a watered down beer. "Rate" means you think it's worth considering. So being "lite-rate" is to be someone who thinks drinking a watered down beer is worth considering.

I'm not sure what reading and writing have to do with considering drinking watered down beer.

Answer 2

Literacy, at its basest definition, means that you can competently communicate with others and understand other's communications when using a written language. Note that this is ANY written language (e.g.- English, Russian, C++, etc), using any set of symbols (roman alphabet, ASCII, morse code, whatever).

Literacy is both reading and writing. In the world of communication, there is the synchronous and the asynchronous. Either we wait around for a response, or we don't. Verbal communication is sychronous. Since we know that the other person is waiting around for a response, we only have a small period of time to compose what we are going to say. With writing, we have a greater period of time to compose, re-write, edit, and reconsider, so what we wind up writing tends to be used for more important communications whereas the verbal is generally used for the less important, more spontaneous.

Additionally, the written word tends to be more persistant. Once you say something, it's said and gone never to be recovered. When you write something down it can be displayed over and over. This is less important now that we seem to videotape anything really important that people say, but it still has the effect of making people REALLY careful when they write things down.

An interesting side effect of the digital revolution is that we're now creating semi-synchronous forms of communication. When IM'ing with people, for instance, the other person can be holding multiple conversations while they wait for us to type. What we write can be saved, but usually isn't. It's still literacy, but there's a presumption of imprecision caused by the higher speed at which it has to be returned. We still haven't worked out what the proper folkways are for that kind of communication, but things like 1337 speak "LOL" style abreviations, and emoticons are evolving to help us cope.

Answer 3

It means to read and write which are used for communication, education, and entertainment.

Answer 4

to be literate, means to be knowledgeable, know how to read write, spell,knowledgeable about history, or a particular subject or subjects, to be aware of world events and the things and places around you

Answer 5

I suppose you could say that having knowledge would be literate. At least we know that being illiterate is the complete opposite.

Answer 6

This has to be one of the most asinine questions on YA yet! You ask then you partially answer your own rhetorical question!?

Answer 7

actually, it has been said, and it may even be true.... that the primary use the written word is put to is not to inform, but to confuse or delude. its something to think about, yeh?

Answer 8

to know how to read and write.
It is used in order for us to be able to do this, and other things
to communicate.