Control for adults

April 12 in 45 countries of the world will be a total dictation in the Russian language. This free action allows everyone to check their literacy. The voluntary dictation in the form of a flash mob was conceived and was first held 11 years ago at Novosibirsk State University. At first it was a modest action of a student
"Club". Nothing special: 200 participants, a university teacher dictates an excerpt from the War and Peace. Everything is like at school. However, it must be admitted that the initial idea to introduce fashion for literacy and prove that one of the successful person will - the ability to correctly arrange punctuation marks, was impudent: at the beginning of the zero in the country other sentiments dominated. Nevertheless, as soon as the game moment appeared in the project, the number of people who want to write a total dictation began to increase rapidly, and the geography expanded. It is expected that this year the dictation will already write 50 thousand people in 362 cities.

The fracture occurred in 2009, when the singer and performer Psoy Korolenko was called as the "dictator". In addition, if at first the text for the total dictation was taken from the works of Russian classics, then they began to turn to modern writers - Boris Strugatsky, Dmitry Bykov, Zakhar Prilepin and Dina Rubina, who prepared a specialized text special for such an occasion. This year it was written by the author

The idea to introduce fashion for literacy and prove that one of the successful person will - the ability to correctly arrange punctuation marks, was a daring

The novel "Geographer Globus drank" Alexei Ivanov . He will personally dictate in the homeland of a total dictation - in Novosibirsk. At other sites, and this is mostly university audiences and libraries, there will be other readers.

Since the action covers different time zones, Alexei Ivanov prepared three options for the text. This will save subjects to peep, because when the total dictation will only begin in one region, in other cities, work can already be checked. However, such an intention would be strange, because a person passes to a literacy exclusively for himself and anonymously, hiding behind the cipher.

And everything would be fine if it weren’t for reports that the total dictation was expressed by the desire to write members of the ISS crew and employees of the Vostok Antarctic Scientific Station. Personally, I have nothing against the astronauts and polar explorers, but this is very reminiscent of the Olympic fire relay. So wait that next year the literacy promotion will happen in the thickness of the water of Baikal. Every social, humanitarian project begins to exhale as soon as it acquires the features of state -ownedness.

Each settlement has its own addresses, where people will gather, who decided to go through a literacy test. There, everyone will be given a pen and notebook. It will be difficult for young participants whose fingers are more accustomed to the computer keyboard! However, you can also write a dictation by going to

Russian punctuation from Russian spelling is less obligatory. Here are not such strict rules

The site of the Total Dictation Promotion. There will be an online broadcast of dictation, and the text will have to be typed in a special form. If in the first case your work is checked by a commission that will lead its expert philologist in each city, then in the second-a special computer program. Whatever you choose, the assessment and analysis of errors are guaranteed.

The total dictation has no age restrictions, and yet, first of all, it is not for schoolchildren - for adults. Meanwhile, the language changes over time, and with it the rules of Russian writing are changing. Does the older generations are waiting for representatives of the older generation? Suppose someone studied well at school and firmly remembers the rules of that time. Suppose 10, 20 or 30 years have passed. There were changes, new norms are codified, but a person does not know about them and therefore will make mistakes. Deputy Director of the Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences Leonid Krysin reassures - you should not worry:

- Perhaps, in order to notice the differences, you need to talk a little about a long time. Even if you keep in mind my generation, that is, people who studied in the middle of the century or a little later, in the second half of the twentieth century, they can have a little different skills in writing some words, but few. For example, when I studied, we wrote “still”, that is, together, and now, according to the new spelling rules, in this word there is a hyphen-“still”. Or, let's say

"Come", one of the most common Russian verbs. Now we need to write "come", through th, and there was a time when, according to the rules of spelling, it was necessary to write "come". People of the middle and older generation, even competent people, I mean those who are not alien to look into the dictionary, but still not every day does it, may be wrong. But this is a mistake of a special kind, it is the memory of the previous skill.

- Where are more difficulties, in spelling or in punctuation?

- Russian punctuation from Russian spelling is less obligatory. Here are not such strict rules. Unlike other national spelling systems, in the Russian rather strict rules for writing words, there are very few options, there are almost no options. But punctuation still admits some options. A person can, if he wants to emphasize something, put not a comma, but a dash. It is known that Gorky was distinguished by the fact that he had an abundance of dash. If some emotional breakdown in the middle of the phrase occurs or if he wants to emphasize that there will be something unexpected further. Not necessarily a writer, not necessarily a bitter, an ordinary person can put another instead of one punctuation sign. This is the so -called "author’s spelling." However, there is no particularly to be free. Instead of a comma, it is impossible to put something very far from this punctuation mark. You still need to choose some close options.

- According to my observations, phrases are especially often found, where both a dash and a colon are equally acceptable.

-Yes, this is a rather frequent variability, but in some cases, such replacements are impossible. "Several students came: ..." and the names are listed further. Here you can’t put a dash instead of a colon. And in other cases it is possible. In general, punctuation is based on intonation, it reflects intonation. These are not any external signs introduced subjectively or no matter how in a letter. If intonation shows that there is a pause or having interrupted speech here, all this should be reflected in the letter, and often receives. Therefore, there are fewer obligations. And in spelling there is no such thing that some factors external types of intonation affect the spelling of the word.

- Thus, those who will write a total dictation, who will listen to, how the writer pronounces his text, you also need to listen to his intonations?

-Yes, and those who will check the results of this dictation must still keep in mind that with regard to punctuation, there may be options, such variability. It is impossible to judge for these errors or for these options for setting punctuation marks as strictly as for spelling errors.