Why are people who lack basic English grammar surprised they can't find a job??? (generations, economy)
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Way off topic. I just saw a piece on that school girl that was shot by the Taliban...Oh My Lord. She spoke English so well I freaked out.... 12 years old[when she was shot] and have such a command on what I assume is not her native language. Her message wasn't shabby either.
I have to agree. I watched her and thought to myself, "What fifteen year old in the U.S. is that passionate about education?". To listen to her speak, one would agree that she expresses herself much better than many native English speakers. She definitely would of put to shame at fifteen!
I didn't graduate from high school. At 17, I dropped out and immediately got my Good Enough Diploma. While in school I did well, I was in the gifted program for a while, was consistently an honor roll student, and well behaved. I loathed English. I hated writing, unless it was a subject I was particularly interested in. I loved to read and did so often and on my own.
I also grew up poor and in a single-parent household. My mother was too busy working to stay on top of our schooling. Luckily for me, I wanted to make my mother's life easier and that meant being a good student with no supervision required, (until I discovered boys). I joined the military, left home, got out, and went to school. The military was my way to go from being poor and pregnant at 18, to bettering my position in life.
My brother is and will always be a different story. He intellectually was never slow. He was lazy. If something was just a little bit hard or required effort, he would not do it. This started to really take hold in middle school. It was heavily reinforced by the teachers. It was easier for them to let him sit in the back of the classroom and draw than to make him work. He was one grade level above me. To this day, this disease of laziness has affected every area of his life. He is unable and has never supported himself. He goes from couch to couch, using up other's resources, all the while blaming everything but himself for his circumstance. The only relationship he knows is one of exploitation.
Laziness in one area of one's life will always carry over into others. People are going to base their impressions of you on how you present yourself. If someone doesn't care enough about such a basic things as speaking and writing properly, then they obviously don't care too much about securing employment.
My brother is and will always be a different story. He intellectually was never slow. He was lazy. If something was just a little bit hard or required effort, he would not do it. This started to really take hold in middle school. It was heavily reinforced by the teachers. It was easier for them to let him sit in the back of the classroom and draw than to make him work. He was one grade level above me. To this day, this disease of laziness has affected every area of his life. He is unable and has never supported himself. He goes from couch to couch, using up other's resources, all the while blaming everything but himself for his circumstance. The only relationship he knows is one of exploitation.
Laziness in one area of one's life will always carry over into others. People are going to base their impressions of you on how you present yourself. If someone doesn't care enough about such a basic things as speaking and writing properly, then they obviously don't care too much about securing employment.
What about your parents? Why didn't they do something to stop their son's laziness? They were the parents, after all. Teachers are not parents, and shouldn't be expected to be. It drives me crazy when people expect teachers to be doing parenting.
I've seen college resumes submitted with text and leet speak in them.
Really people ? Did you not take Technical Writing in college ?
Have you forgotten all the grammar ever taught you ?
Do you turn off spellcheck or ignore it completely ?
And resumes with their cover letters is not hard work.
I've seen some that even turned in hand edited cover letters with one word crossed out and the correct word penciled in above it.
People just don't care. It's that plain and simple.
Its and it's, your and you're, then and than, their and there, lose and loose, should have went, could of, pluralizing by using apostrophes, and much more.
Don't forget people writing "advise" when they mean "advice". Very popular mistake on this forum, probably because it's a place that people come to ask for advice. Probably running neck and neck with that "loose and lose" thing.
Personally, the epidemic of using apostrophes for plurals drives me the craziest. This just started on a bigtime scale about three or four years ago. Why? Did everyone just forget that they went to second grade or something????
Don't forget people writing "advise" when they mean "advice". Very popular mistake on this forum, probably because it's a place that people come to ask for advice. Probably running neck and neck with that "loose and lose" thing.
Personally, the epidemic of using apostrophes for plurals drives me the craziest. This just started on a bigtime scale about three or four years ago. Why? Did everyone just forget that they went to second grade or something????
I don't pay much attention to grammar misuse on forums because many times it's a typo or quick thinking put to text and not gone over before hitting that submit button. I admit to many times editing a posted comment because after I re-read it, it needed corrections.
But you have formal writing (do they even use that term anymore ?) in resumes, business emails, etc. that exhibit the same carelessness/lack of QA on the writer's part.
I use apostrophes for plural possessives. What's wrong with that ?
Parents' fault means both parents. Parent's fault means a single parent.
Chimuel, we're not talking about you. I'm sorry about the disability. Disability is a far cry from actual illiteracy in which someone just doesn't care. You care.
Exactly. I don't hold people with actual learning disabilities responsible for their inability to spell/write clearly. As a matter of fact, I have a dyslexic coworker who checks and double-checks everything and she does very well in her job, which involves a lot of written material. However, these people who don't spell or punctuate clearly can't ALL have learning disabilities!
People are lazy, or more often, I suspect, they pretend to be stupid because they fancy themselves as some sort of maverick by not following the rules--like the five jillion other idiots who fancy themselves mavericks, too.
I write and belong to writers groups. You'd be amazed at the number of a-holes who want to be published but will snidely declare that THEY don't bother with proper spelling or punctuation and that the editors who hold the power to publish their work should not be CONCERNED with such trivialities because, after all, they are ARTISTS. And then their work goes into the shredder.
I've read a lot of threads on CD by and about people either looking for a job (unemployed) or people looking for a better job. Many of these people, if their writing examples on CD are any indication, have only a very basic understanding of English. For example, when mentioning money, the put the dollar sign on the right instead of the left. They have paragraphs that are just one long sentence. They can't spell. They don't know when to capitalize. Etc.... I get the idea that a lot of these people are very young (late teens, early 20s). Some might not be native English speakers. I should say this isn't a new issue. I was in a hiring position years ago and have had people fill out applications who couldn't spell the word "school". But are people this dense? Don't they realize some basic skills are required?
American men have been trained heavily to be as masculine as possible, hence less networking and conversing in different things.
For the intellectually challenged let me clarify -
I'm making fun of liberals who cry racism at the drop of a hat.
I would have thought the sarcasm was apparent but then again.
If you have to explain your sarcasm, then you're a sarcaloon.
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