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Everywhere I look I am inundated with it. I don't mind a minor flaw here or there in writing. But, I consistently see horrific misspellings, run-on sentences, lack of paragraph structuring, incoherent themes, etc.. What makes me cringe the most is when somebody presents themself as being educated and their post looks like it was written by a third grader.
What has happened to our educational system?
Sometimes I wonder how a 12th century grammar nazi would feel about today's grammar nazis. They'd probably be hollering at one another over the usage of Thee and Thou.
Language is a medium of communication, and at best, a form of art. No need to pretend it is a science.
Lousy grammar and spelling, lamentable though they are, are not the problem. They are a symptom of the deeper problem: the glorification of ignorance, the lowering of the general bar, the assurance that everyone must get a trophy or pass the grade regardless of performance--even if there is no performance and no effort to perform.
It is one thing to be ignorant; that can be remedied if one cares to do so. It is quite another to define ignorance as strength, as the social norm, as something in which one takes pride. That was a national decision, I believe, though obviously not a unanimous one. By deciding that we valued the emblems of education in preference to the actual education--by not flunking people provided they showed up now and then--we devalued that actual education.
Unfortunately, it's impossible to remedy. The remedy would take a national multi-generational decision involving sustained funding and commitment with no expectation of seeing the benefits for twenty years at least. That was impossible under our system even before the national political discourse descended to the preschool level.
The public education system has recently finished the transition to an edutainment system. American's are so in love with the notion of full time entertainment that they barely have any tolerance for their work. The fifties and sixties will be remembered as the best years for public schools, beyond those years the schools became the target of cost cutters and those who saw it as a great laboratory for their new teaching methods.
During my working years I was involved with various aspects of quality control, working alongside younger co-workers who were challenged by the necessity to read and interpret engineering commands. Many of these people had been university educated and had a hard time reading for comprehension. Their reading ability also led to many disagreements, and we all know the stress that comes from workplace friction.
I have wondered since retiring if the situation wasn't getting worse because of the older people bailing out. I did notice that those with the better education could speak well even when their reading and writing skills suffered. Those younger workers with a high school education and working in the manufacturing jobs were at a loss to demonstrate any language skills at all. It's a shame on the entire country not just the schools.
Some good points here, I finished high school in 1970, and while I had a high B average in English, I never thought I was that good at it. But now, reviewing reports and resumes, I feel like I have a Masters. Seems to me it was somewhere in the mid-70's when they started all that pass-fail, touchy feely, self-esteem crap.
Just today at the Quickee Mart I saw a sign that said ATM Machine is Broke. ATM Machine is redundant and the it's brokeN, not broke.
Why bother, this country has been successfully dumbed down.
And the funny part, when I checked my subscribed threads log, the thread titled Survivor Samoa had 19K views with 916 responses.
I mentioned before that I am an online instructor. I teach in the fields of psychology and child development. I have been told by my higher-ups "not to count off" for grammar and spelling, but only to evaluate based upon the content of the student's writing. Well, their writing is all I have since there is no "classroom" per se. I find it impossible to ignore some of the tragic writing "styles" I see. I know that I'm not an English instructor, but should we really give students a free pass who show no command whatsoever of the written English language? I find it pretty exasperating and sometimes infuriating. Just my $.02!
Jertheber summarized it. After the 50s and 60s, it all went to hello. In a handbasketo.
I had 16 years of Catholic education, graduating from college (with a degree in English!) in 1969. I have no clue what public school was back then, but oh brother was I taught grammar! Also Latin and a smattering of Greek. Honest. In high school, we were also taught chemistry and physics and math and a mandatory foreign language - and even mechanical drawing. (I passed on typing, to my eternal regret.) Today, I feel like an educational Brobdingnag in the land of Lilliput. (If you get that, you are at my shoulder.)
And yet, I cannot hold a waxen wick to the education of a man only ten years my senior, who REALLY knows this language.
Everywhere I look I am inundated with it. I don't mind a minor flaw here or there in writing. But, I consistently see horrific misspellings, run-on sentences, lack of paragraph structuring, incoherent themes, etc.. What makes me cringe the most is when somebody presents themself as being educated and their post looks like it was written by a third grader.
What has happened to our educational system?
Oh, sorry! Please, please forgive me; however, I cannot resist. LOL!
I believe it should be "somebody presents herself or himself as being educated and her or his post looks..."
"Somebody" is an indefinite pronoun that is always singular.
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"somebody" is singular
