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By the time I started school. phonics was a thing of the past. Mother bought flash cards and I learned to spell in spite of myself. When high school came, nothing would do except I had to take Latin despite the fact it was a dead language. Dad argued it was the root of the English Language. I guess he missed the Greek part.
The only Latin I ever heard was from Miss Fulton and the priest. I never did meet a Roman in a toga, and after one semester I had enough. To this day I can still sing Adeste Fedelis in Latin, but I can't spell it anymore.
When I finished high school I could write as well anyone who lived. And boy could I diagram sentences, read technical manuals, and I knew what a conjugated verb was. About 20 years agp I went to bed after I finished a NY Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle. I have no idea what happened that night, but the next morning I could not did not know the answer to what a three letter word for feline!
If that was not bad enough, I lost all my English skills, and I could no longer read a common newspaper paragraph without a dictionary. Even then I had to read the sentence at least three times to understand what I just read. And I lost my math skills which I did not realize until spous gently informed me I made a $1000 error in the banks favor.
It has taken 20 years to crawl back one step at a time. I still can't understand technical manuals; I stopped trying. I accepted the fact I will never recover that ability. But on the other hand I don't need it. I still forget the subject is in the beginning and not at the end of a sentence. MY punctuation still needs a lot of work. It always will.
Today I do not do too badly. I write in a rather simple manner and I do most of my own editing. I rely too heavily on the spell checker because I"m too lazy to pull up the dictionary on line. But on the other hand, I find it is not as good as a great English teacher. The MS spell check is not nearly as good as it is cut out to be, but it is better than nothing. I have 15 dictionaries including four in foreign languages, a legal dicationary and a medical dictionary - all of which I cannot see to read.
As I look back, I can see that phoenics and the computer saved me from a world of ignorance. I talked to several foreign language students. There are people who studied Russian and Chinese for years. They say the same thing: English is the hardest language in the world because of the nuances.
Spelling is not difficult to learn. If you cannot spell, invest a few bucks in phonics.
Publishers forgive the occasional typo, and the missed comma. They pay editors to clean up a really good story. What NYC publishers do not, and will not. forgive is a poorly written, poorly spelled, poorly punctuated submission filled with basic grammar mistakes. The end result is the best story in the world is returned to the author. They will not invest the time and money to clan up ten pages, let alone a book. Not understanding TENSE (present, past and future), basic grammar and spelling is a death knell to a great story.
The best book I read in several years is the first novel written by Walter Scott before he was knighted. The was published in 1823 and it was banned in his homeland. It is a great read. I highly recommend it for everyone. It's online. The short title is "Quentin Durward". YOu will be surprised how greatly English changed in the 186 years since it was frst printed.
For anyone who needs a spelling or grammer check ...turn to DirecTV Fox channel 360.
They run a scrolling news broadcast while the program is running in regular time.
It's hard sometimes to keep a focus on the live??? action and read whats happening on the bottom of the screen.
Overlooking an occasional Abbreviation is okay....the obvious mispelling on many words is just plain unexceptable...taking into consideration the young children who might be watching prime time news.
Then again...many adults probably never notice the difference or even care.
The local supermarket has had a wine section for several years. Recently I pointed out that one of their signs had "Madiera" instead of "Madeira". They said no one had ever mentioned it before.
PS: I refer to the computer's spelling checker as "that Polish guy, Mr. Spelczek."
Back in the dark ages when I was in school, we actually did have spelling and grammar as separate subjects in grade school. My problem was that I started reading so young, I just 'knew' when something was right or not. I always scored very high on any tests. In junior high, we had more grammar but it was included with literature - by then, we were supposed to either know how to spell, or how to use a dictionary to find what we needed. Same with punctuation, we were supposed to know it all, and when writing down something memorized, if the correct punctuation wasn't used, it was marked as an error. (Especially in the class where we memorized far too much Shakespeare.) High school? Forget all that stuff, we were taught new subjects, not the fine points of anything. That, however, was when I finally learned English grammar. That was when I took Spanish - it was actually my third year of Spanish, but the previous years were strictly conversational - and learning Spanish grammar enabled me to relate it to English grammar. So, finally, I learned why some things looked right and others didn't.
Now, I think school administrations just don't care. In one school where I worked, there was a student - an average student - who literally could not spell her stepfather's last name or the name of the street where she lived. A friend who's husband is a doctor told me he had some serious problems finding receptionists the last few years before he retired. She told me they found one, out of I forget how many but there were a lot, who was willing to work, was bright, liked the work, and wanted to learn, but who had graduated from high school with essentially 4th grade level spelling skills. They simply couldn't keep her on, but they did encourage her to take some remedial classes and go on to at least one of the community colleges.
Now, I think school administrations just don't care.
I think this sums everything up. Administrations don't care because it becomes an unbelievable political mess whenever anyone tries to enforce standards--right away, someone or other begins screaming "discrimination," and the immediate reaction to that is to back off. Standards became a dirty word in the education field quite a few years ago. So when you get right down to it, they gave up. And all you have to do is read through a lot of the postings here on C-D to see the results.
I think this sums everything up. Administrations don't care because it becomes an unbelievable political mess whenever anyone tries to enforce standards--right away, someone or other begins screaming "discrimination," and the immediate reaction to that is to back off. Standards became a dirty word in the education field quite a few years ago. So when you get right down to it, they gave up. And all you have to do is read through a lot of the postings here on C-D to see the results.
In my humble opinion, one of the worst things to happen to modern education was that 'no child left behind' thing. They may not have been left behind, but that certainly didn't mean they learned anything, either. It also resulted in some serious dumbing down of a whole generation, if not more. I also think it contributed to the sense of entitlement that seems to be running rampant through the current younger generation.
The US was so proud of it's modern educational system in the old days, until the advent of Sputnik. Then, all of a sudden, it was What Happened?! A plethora of programs for gifted children sprang up like weeds in a garden, but having been one, I can vouch for the fact that there was no research done on any of it until well after the fact. It was considered an aspect of special ed, and everything pertaining to that involved the physically and/or mentally disabled. Now we are losing ground throughout the world, educationally speaking. The last time I checked any statistics, Iceland had the highest literacy rate, at 97%. I don't know - or want to know - what the current literacy rate in the US is, or what kind of test it's based on.
Aight, nah, I mean, spelling and grammar are important, but sometimes ya just wanna' slang it up a bit.
Seriously, you're right, it irritates the <expletive deleted> out of me, but as one person said, I'd rather people post with errors than to not post as well. I think people should pay more attention to proper grammar and spelling, but at the same time, there's nothing we can do about it. So, I read what's wrote, silently shake my head at "alot" of the mistakes, and move on..
there's nothing we can do about it. So, I read what's wrote, silently shake my head at "alot" of the mistakes, and move on..
<mischievous grin> It's all good, dawg.
I don't think it's necessarily true that there's nothing we can do about it. We could, for instance, point out bad spelling whenever we see it. (And no, it's not all good. Sometimes, it's just plain awful!)
Fred-man, ya had me laughing there, sometimes, it is awful. I gave up pointing out other peoples mistakes a long time ago. Every time I did point it out, the person would go into a wild fit, freaking out like a cat about to get neutered. We can point things out all day long, but it's up to the other person if they listen or not..
I envision a world of perfect grammar and spelling, but I'm also the type to visualize whirled peas as well... ...then again, maybe I am slightly insane.
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