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Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on May 8, 2010 at 1:36am

I suspected I wasn't the only one frustrated with the loss of basic spelling and grammar skills in our culture. The really sad thing is that newspapers used to catch this sort of thing through proofreading. In recent years, I'm seeing many errors like this in print that would have been caught before going to press. Did they fire all the proofreaders?

Don't get me started on apostrophe diarrhea. No ' to indicate a plural. People don't know what to do with 'em anymore, so the sprinkle them everywhere. Perhaps a lot of people slept through their English classes or didn't have good teachers.

We've seen a huge slide in these basic skills for more than 10 years. The sad thing is that they're probably doing it better in India because more people want to learn to improve their job prospects. If people in our country don't want to learn or aren't getting adequate instruction, it hurts us all. Welcome to today's global economy, folks.

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Permalink Reply by Reddog (Cliff) on May 8, 2010 at 2:39am

I concur with your statements. I have a whole rant on "To, Too, and Two", that I like to go on from time to time.

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Permalink Reply by root on May 8, 2010 at 2:42am

i can almost hear the panties bunching.

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Permalink Reply by Ed on May 8, 2010 at 3:08am

I didn't no their was a difference between brake and break. I do not here the difference when it is spoken. I to appreciate you're clearing this up.

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Permalink Reply by Chuck a Muck on May 8, 2010 at 3:10am

Wads da madder wid da way eye right?

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Permalink Reply by Shay on May 8, 2010 at 3:40am

I share your pain. I recently posted this to my Facebook page and you would probably appreciate it:

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-y...

I used to teach Freshman Composition for a while (that's a true exercise in futility, but that story is for another time). I tried to make my students understand that if you write badly and use the wrong homonym, punctuation, etc, IT'S GOING TO MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE A STUPID IDIOT, even if you aren't. They just either didn't get it, or didn't care. You can be Albert Einstein but if you "right like you where to years old" then you're going to look stupid, end of story.

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Permalink Reply by Tank-Ridin' Ryan on May 8, 2010 at 4:58am

Someone forgot to mention "are" vs "our". :)

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Permalink Reply by mike w. on May 8, 2010 at 5:07am

i'll add "road" for "rode" to the list.

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Permalink Reply by Tank-Ridin' Ryan on May 8, 2010 at 5:20am

Yes! I've seen this mistake in a few CGOAB journals. And it's all been good writing except for that error.

mike w. said:

i'll add "road" for "rode" to the list.

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Permalink Reply by Doug Haynes on May 8, 2010 at 6:05am

OMG! Your so right, it is annoying!

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Permalink Reply by Amanda Olbrys on May 8, 2010 at 6:23am

yeah well i have bad grammar and spelling which could probably be for my dyslexia. so i give a screw you to all the grammar freaks yeah that's right i said it. :) !!!! j/k i understand how one could get frustrated but sadly that's life and some are undereducated or just lazy.

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Permalink Reply by Arrak Thumrs on May 8, 2010 at 7:05am

Adriana said:

How about 'anyways' or 'irregardless'? English is my second language, so I am all for constructive criticism!

I love it. English is my native language. I have read prolifically at times in my life yet never knew "irregardless" is technically an improper form of "irrespective" and "regardless" until this moment. Thank you for causing me to look it up :)

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