Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
'I seen' annoys me. What really gets me wondering about the American educational system, however, is reading an article written by a reporter or journalist with misspellings, poor grammar, and missing words. I see it every day. How do these people get jobs working for news agencies?
'I seen' annoys me. What really gets me wondering about the American educational system, however, is reading an article written by a reporter or journalist with misspellings, poor grammar, and missing words. I see it every day. How do these people get jobs working for news agencies?
The same way they always have.
Those issues hinge more on editors than writers. The collapse of the newspaper industry has essentially gutted what used to the pipeline for editors in journalism. Journalists gather facts and submit their stories. This dovetails with thinner margins in the industry (which is primarily what has killed off so many newspapers) and one of the obvious places to reduce costs is by cutting editors, and with the 24/7 news cycle putting an emphasis on getting the story out now (rather than letting it pass through what editorial screening still exists a couple more times for further cleanup). You may think that once upon a time, in the good old days when print media was a daily newspaper and a weekly magazine, reporters were once far more erudite than now - but that was just an illusion that was masked by a situation that is no longer the norm.
The importance of editors isn't limited to reporting. Your average novel would be a mess without editors.
I never saw elementary or high school students spell "a lot" as one non-word, namely "alot".
I never saw student writers who couldn't distinguish between "your" and "you're", or between "there", "their", and "they're".
I never observed students who could not distinguish the difference between words such as "break" and "brake".
I wonder how much of this is due to the focus on phonics and phonetic spelling. In the 1990s in my state, elementary school students were taught to get their thoughts on paper, and misspellings were disregarded; in fact, correcting spelling was thought to inhibit the child's creativity. A principal at a school in which one of my kids was enrolled told parents that there was no need to teach spelling due to the impending availability of spell correction software.
The importance of editors isn't limited to reporting. Your average novel would be a mess without editors.
I rarely read fiction, so I don't feel qualified to comment on novels, but I can tell you that I have seen some terrible grammatical/spelling mistakes in biographies and other non-fiction works recently. For instance, I recently read a social history of Chicago from the mid-19th Century through the early 20th Century, and there was a consistent use of "lead" when the correct word would have been "led". Also, every time that "dominate" was used, it should have been the word "dominant".
Does the author--who has penned over 20 other books--not know the correct usage of these words?
Did his editor not recognize the author's errors?
Did the author use those words correctly, only to have an unqualified editor change them to incorrect words?
I don't know the answer to those questions, but I see errors of this nature in print more and more as the years pass.
I rarely read fiction, so I don't feel qualified to comment on novels, but I can tell you that I have seen some terrible grammatical/spelling mistakes in biographies and other non-fiction works recently. For instance, I recently read a social history of Chicago from the mid-19th Century through the early 20th Century, and there was a consistent use of "lead" when the correct word would have been "led". Also, every time that "dominate" was used, it should have been the word "dominant".
Does the author--who has penned over 20 other books--not know the correct usage of these words?
Did his editor not recognize the author's errors?
Did the author use those words correctly, only to have an unqualified editor change them to incorrect words?
I don't know the answer to those questions, but I see errors of this nature in print more and more as the years pass.
When I am writing and I mean ever, my fingers usually type every. I have no idea why this happens. There is no confusion on my part between ever and every. It just happens. I occasionally type a homonym of the word I want to use. In that case, I figure that's just a consequence of rushing to get my thoughts down before they escape (a perpetual problem for many writers) and my brain responds with the correct 'sound' but the wrong spelling.
This is normal. I have written first drafts of approximately 100,000 words. They have errors, and I find many of these on my first read-through, which is a pleasure. However, the revising process gets less and less enjoyable and more and more of a chore with repeated passes. Still, errors remain. When I've already read what I've written several times, most of the wonder is gone. Staring at that manuscript, knowing that I've got to read it yet again, and read it slow enough to catch everything - remember, I wrote it, so my mind anticipates where things are going, thus presumably sometimes substituting the correct usage where I have made an error (in a similar way that a compact disc player would read an error on a CD and sample-correct it during playback) - is no picnic. But I do it. And I find errors, though in an ever-diminishing quantity.
Finally, the manuscript is ready to go out to my first readers. And guess what? There are still errors therein, and they are noticed. Indeed, they're probably more noticeable to fresh eyes. The Franzens and Pynchons and Hemingways of the world made mistakes in writing. A look at a marked-up draft of a famous novel is a fascinating thing.
Beyond errors made where I know better, I will readily confess that I continue to learn new things about English. I didn't reach some point years ago where I knew it all. Sometimes those new things are obscure. Occasionally, they surprise me. Nor do some famous authors. The poet Robert Browning rather infamously thought that a certain very vulgar slang term for female genitalia referred instead to article of nun's clothing, and published it in a poem (look it up if you like - I won't even try and go into more detail here).
And editors? They're not perfect, either. It happens, and it always has.
When I am writing and I mean ever, my fingers usually type every. I have no idea why this happens.
Similarly, when I used to write the Court Complaints for my state's Child Protective agency, I had to make reference to alcohol in the vast majority of those documents. On a consistent basis, I would type "alchohol", rather than "alcohol", and I would have to go back and correct that mistake. Some mistakes of this type are unexplainable, but none of my legal documents bore that mistake by the time that they were submitted to the court.
I wonder how much of this is due to the focus on phonics and phonetic spelling. In the 1990s in my state, elementary school students were taught to get their thoughts on paper, and misspellings were disregarded; in fact, correcting spelling was thought to inhibit the child's creativity. A principal at a school in which one of my kids was enrolled told parents that there was no need to teach spelling due to the impending availability of spell correction software.
Well in the 1950s I was taught phonics, or how to "sound out" words when reading. This skill serves me still. I do not equate the present emphasis on kids writing before they can spell well, with the teaching of phonics.
Here is a definition from the web: phonics a method of teaching people to read by correlating sounds with letters or groups of letters in an alphabetic writing system
Both my own kids who attended elementary school in the 1980s and my grands who have and are attending elementary school now, are tasked with writing their thoughts down, even while they can barely spell their names! But I think this is a good thing. Spelling comes later. In the meantime they are learning to communicate in writing as best they can.
I don't know about grammar. I learned a few basics, and then basically tuned everything else out. I did take Latin which is sort of helpful. I think that reading widely and often helps with knowing how to use the English language. And being able to spell helps too, although spell check is great to have.
My mother who was a gifted elementary teacher for many years told me that whatever method was used to teach, the same kids "got it" and the same kids did not.
It also helps when the family uses good grammar. I was lucky that my family at least used verb tenses correctly. I can't tell you how many people say "I have went. . . "
Well in the 1950s I was taught phonics, or how to "sound out" words when reading. This skill serves me still. I do not equate the present emphasis on kids writing before they can spell well, with the teaching of phonics.
Here is a definition from the web: phonics a method of teaching people to read by correlating sounds with letters or groups of letters in an alphabetic writing system
I should have said phonetic writing. And this particular method of teaching phonetic writing backfired later....those kids entered middle school with atrocious writing conventions. Our state had to reevaluate that particular teaching method a few years later.
I am currently reading John McWhorter's The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language.
I was amused last night to stumble across this quote lamenting the supposed degradation of language: "The grammar people use when speaking has broken down. The masses barely use anything but the nominative and the accusative. It's gotten to the point that the student of Latin is writing in what to them is an artificial language, and it is an effort for him to recite it decently."
This was written in the year 63 CE, in Gaul - then a Roman province, now France. Latin, of course, was ever-changing, and it changed differently in different places. In Gaul, it was in the early stages of becoming what would ultimately be French. And the self-appointed literati was unhappy about it. So it was, so it is, so it always will be.
I was amused last night to stumble across this quote lamenting the supposed degradation of language: "The grammar people use when speaking has broken down. The masses barely use anything but the nominative and the accusative. It's gotten to the point that the student of Latin is writing..."
The beginning of the sentence, "The grammar people use" is confusing. "Grammar people"? Maybe our language hasn't changed much from centuries ago...
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
