Functionin' illiterate.

As you may have read over the weekend, Fantasia cannot read, which is interesting in that she's the only author apparently responsible for her book. Anyway, we flipped randomly to page 68 of Life Is Not a Fairy Tale, and here's what we found:

"My third mistake was dropping out of school. That was my biggest mistake ever, and I pay for it every day. You see, I'm what I would call a functionin' illiterate. That means I "get by" in life, but my readin' isn't what it should be. I am workin' on it. I am still not confident enough with words or letters. If I see a word that I'm not familiar with, I still get scared. Sometimes I don't even know how to begin to pronounce them or even how to sound the letters out. Not a day goes by that I'm not ashamed about my situation. If you hand me a newspaper, I just look at the pictures and try to figure out what happened. I do recognize the common words like "death" and "money," "taxes," "president," "baby," "marriage," and "rich," but big words or too many words together just scare me... That is why when I sign my autograph I draw my lips. When people ask me to write a special message, I have trouble forming words right on the spot, so I write something short like "Be Blessed" or something like that, something that I already know how to write. Whatever I write, I mean it from my heart."

Fantasia, we thank you for sharing your secret with us. For those of you who don't know what it's like to be a functionin' illiterate, let us show you. We'll rewrite the preceding excerpt in "functionin' illiterate" style:

"Fg asdtb wegdfgn qnh shgfnbvn ast mk sffhkl. zdfy zdb erg ndjjres sldktsa fghk, afs R sxd fvr ty xfghu wtg. Wuf poo, R'f asdf R would call a fjwctionws' asdfeeefaf. Twse maaws R "cvb gr" sx asfg, vbh sy rsfdvb' iwx't ascf in svgtuj fe. R qm wddfsn' sf fv. R xx awdcv afc wdfgujhye asdfsd vxcv werfv zx mkkujy. Ia R sww q ascc acre R'w ser gfrilyhtf sfdf, R swddl ass zzxsed. Sdfsdcxeq R sde't easn kaac vbn tw axdcg tw sedfgyhve twww sd ewwa aaw mn slklh ref ldffres wsx. Nwq q xde cfrt vg bhnj R'f nsd acvbgtr okuht mr sedtgartf. Rf ywe sdas da a bnmkjhgfd, R wsdf sdgd sg sgd erdfvbnh das qse tt bgvfcd rfv bgft zdxfcghv. R df wdrgyjigh tre awsedr drftg xcvn "death" xnv "money," "taxes," "president," "baby," "marriage," xng "rich," asd cvr ergeg xc afw mcrs sdweg zsxdcfvg bhnj rfvgy fg... Tads ix wxx sfhk R nmrf ms dfvbnjmku R awcf ey fges. Wdsd xdcvbh awe wq sc ngrtf a weggert hootsy, R awse cvtghki wryiplj cderf nmghv ds tdf awrt, sa R vbgfd sefghyjuk sqwse cvmh "Be Blessed" mb xnemakrnxc lawe erre, dgrcvbuji tedf R sfdfafe afef erg te ghjkl. Dswedrft R adgjl, R edcf wd sfhy sy asfth."