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I remember being drilled on the use of the correct verb of to be, as in "If I were you" as opposed to what you see more frequently now, even in print media, "If I was you."
I just read, "He wished that it was a longer sentence" in a newspaper. No, not a blog or on a forum.
(Ah, Fiddler: "If I were a rich man...")
I wonder if there has been some change in the quality of the students, the quality of the teachers, the quality of schools, or all of the above.
I was appalled years ago about some sort of "new math." I can't see any reason to not teach math the same as I learned it. I got my BSEE degree so I guess it worked. I wonder now, do they let students use calculators in math classes? I presume that would be on their cellphones since I suspect that calculators that don't do anything else are probably obsolete.
And what's this with not teaching cursive writing? How are you going to sign a contract? With a bit X?
I guess fingerprints and biometrics are taking the place of the scrawled we've had for centuries.
Sometimes I wonder what's the use. Most of those kids who don't go to college are headed for dead-end jobs where they can learn everything they need to know on their first day on the job.
They can get direct deposit and get their cash at ATMs. If they don't have Apple pay or one of the other electronic payment methods in their cell, I get by just fine signing my credit card purchases with a wavy line. Why even bother to form a personal signature? Who is going to look at it anyway? Nobody.
I have serious concern for stupid or lazy people who don't learn anything and don't have any job skills. What use are they in the modern world except as consumer fodder?
I think it has to do with the drop in reading more than anything else.
I was stopped at a traffic light a few weeks ago, and I saw a teenage boy walking on the sidewalk nearby and HE WAS READING A BOOK WHILE HE WALKED.
Such joy filled my heart to see that.
Alex Trebek said this once on Jeopardy when the winning contestant turned out not to be college-educated. He said that in his observation, it's not a matter of your level of formal education but how much you read.
We who read remember words and how they are used and spelled.
I remember when--in my state, anyway--public school standards dictated that creative writing did not necessarily have to include correct punctuation, verb tense, spelling, etc. The students were told to get their thoughts down, and that was what mattered. My oldest was learning to write then...teachers did not correct their work. Later those kids hit early middle school and all that phonetic writing was impossible to read. Many of them never learned to write clearly.
I have been in writing workshops with people who thought that way. There was one young woman, very talented creatively, but whose work was difficult to review because her careless spelling and punctuation distracted the reader from the content.
She became very angry when the instructor suggested she proofread or have someone else proofread before submitting her workshop piece to the class for critique. That was "the editor's job", she said.
Honeybunch, it's not going to ever be seen by an editor if the other people on the way to his or her desk can't get through your work.
Honeybunch, it's not going to ever be seen by an editor if the other people on the way to his or her desk can't get through your work.
I completely agree. If the first thing your editor notices is your atrocious spelling and grammar he/she isn't even going to try to plow through the dreck to see if there is a story there.
There is so much competition in writing that the only successful authors have covered all the bases. There is too much competition to sample read anything that isn't perfect in every way.
I think this comes from the culture that thinks kids should receive "participation rewards."
That just isn't the real world. In the real world the participation award is that somebody else eats your lunch and you go hungry.
I think it has to do with the drop in reading more than anything else.
I was stopped at a traffic light a few weeks ago, and I saw a teenage boy walking on the sidewalk nearby and HE WAS READING A BOOK WHILE HE WALKED.
Such joy filled my heart to see that.
Alex Trebek said this once on Jeopardy when the winning contestant turned out not to be college-educated. He said that in his observation, it's not a matter of your level of formal education but how much you read.
We who read remember words and how they are used and spelled.
I don't know if even that is true any more. I read a lot of free Kindle books from Amazon; the spelling, punctuation, and grammar are often atrocious. If that's all one read, one would not see examples of good writing.
I just finished an ebook from the library (supposed to be professionally produced) that misused words in several places, and was missing the first page of every chapter. Are there editors or proofreaders any more?
I don't know if even that is true any more. I read a lot of free Kindle books from Amazon; the spelling, punctuation, and grammar are often atrocious. If that's all one read, one would not see examples of good writing.
I just finished an ebook from the library (supposed to be professionally produced) that misused words in several places, and was missing the first page of every chapter. Are there editors or proofreaders any more?
Self-publishing on Amazon often produces books that have never been seen by an editor or proofreader.
In my estimation, when it comes to fiction, the most critical element is the writer's ear. When something sounds good, it is good, even when poorly spoken or read. The mistakes can become integral to the story when the story suits them well.
The mechanics of language just make the reading smoother. When a proper novel lacks the basic arc it must have, no amount of editing or proofreading will save it.
If your English is good you can intuitively tell when a sentence isn't right. (Well I can.) I often find awkward sentences that after analysis are grammatically correct but just sound off, so I rewrite them until they sound good.
The bottom feeder level at Amazon Kindle is interesting. I don't even see how very many books could succeed there since how would anybody know to search for the author or title? I don't know how many items Amazon stocks, or even how many ebooks, but the number must be immense.
Grammatical abilities vary among authors. I'm pretty sure mine would be near perfect, not enough mistakes to jar the reader, but not all people can claim that.
And there is always the situation that if the author's grammatical skills exceed the readers' then who would notice?
I don't know if even that is true any more. I read a lot of free Kindle books from Amazon; the spelling, punctuation, and grammar are often atrocious. If that's all one read, one would not see examples of good writing.
I just finished an ebook from the library (supposed to be professionally produced) that misused words in several places, and was missing the first page of every chapter. Are there editors or proofreaders any more?
That may be true. I have not used ebooks. I have nothing against the medium. It's just that I still have so many "real" books to read that I haven't gotten there yet.
The newspapers are full of atrocious errors, both online and in print. Last year I got so fed up with seeing people misuse the term "begs the question" too many times (NO, IT DOES NOT MEAN "RAISES THE QUESTION!!!!") that when it appeared in Crain's, the respected commercial real estate and business publication, I wrote to the author of the article in which it was misused and sent him a link. He thanked me.
Self-publishing on Amazon often produces books that have never been seen by an editor or proofreader.
In my estimation, when it comes to fiction, the most critical element is the writer's ear. When something sounds good, it is good, even when poorly spoken or read. The mistakes can become integral to the story when the story suits them well.
The mechanics of language just make the reading smoother. When a proper novel lacks the basic arc it must have, no amount of editing or proofreading will save it.
I belonged to a writers group in my area, and the woman who started it had self-published a non-fiction book about her struggle with mental illness. I checked out her book online and started to read it, but within the first five pages, she used the term "Needless to say," three times, and I just couldn't go on.
First of all, if it's needless to say, why are you saying it? Secondly, don't keep repeating the same phrase. Grrr.
Eventually she paid an editor to clean it up. She sold about 8,000 copies online over a few years, and a small start-up publisher contacted her to write a second, follow-up book that was published traditionally.
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