Standards of Accuracy?

Toronto Star reporter Lesley Ciarula Taylor took issue with the idea of a language test for immigrants, citing a silly question about whether standard-of-living should be said to increase or to rise, but blogger Brett disputes the source of the question. Arnold Zwicky clearly doesn’t understand how to evaluate sources. The question was reported in print in a newspaper with professional writers and editors, so it must be real. That the denial comes in a mere “blog” makes it inherently less credible. If Zwicky had taken the trouble to read the real book ‘Cult of the Amateur’ written by Andrew Keen he would have understood this and could have joined happily in the chorus of dismay about the silly test question.

P.S. With regard to the actual answer to the silly question, here’s my two cents worth:

The answer given is in fact wrong since although requiring a correct answer would apparently raise our standard of admission sufficiently to send back home about half of those already here including the native-born, the standard-of-living is not actually a standard of that sort but rather a measure of quality of life which is properly described as increasing or decreasing rather than rising or falling. On the other hand if we were to establish a minimal acceptable standard-of-living then that would be a standard of the standard sort and so could appropriately be said to rise or fall.

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