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Wallace Sellars
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 17667
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| Posted: 20 August 2014 at 4:43pm | IP Logged | 1
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I have encountered more than a few people who consider anyone not
mangling the English language to be uppity or "acting White" (if s/he is a
person of Color).
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Tim Cousar
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 May 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 1662
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| Posted: 20 August 2014 at 6:19pm | IP Logged | 2
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Eric Ladd wrote:
The gap between current generations and the "greatest generation" continues to widen.
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I saw a post somewhere a couple of days ago that said, "In less than 100 years, we've gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to teaching remedial English in college."
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Koroush Ghazi
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 October 2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 1646
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| Posted: 20 August 2014 at 6:37pm | IP Logged | 3
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It's basically the result of people thinking that the ends justify the means. Yes, even with serious grammatical and spelling mistakes, you can still communicate your thoughts to others. But this does not justify mangling the language, and losing the ability to convey your thoughts in a more articulate and precise manner.
The bottom line is that poor grammar and spelling are a reflection of poor education and quite possibly poor thought processes, or at the very least extremely lazy and undisciplined thought processes. When I read well-formed, grammatically correct text, I tend to respect the person and the point they're trying to make much more than when I read a sloppy mess, even if the underlying point is exactly the same.
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Pete Carrubba
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 June 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 2767
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| Posted: 24 August 2014 at 5:47am | IP Logged | 4
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I've actually been referred to as a "spelling Nazi" in the past, but "grammar Nazi" seems more appropriate.
As with many on this Forum, my pet peeves include the incorrect use of words such as "to/too/two," "loose/lose," "your/you're" and others.
I can't adequately express how phrases like, "Nothing to loose" and "To many" just leap out at me and ruin an otherwise interesting reading experience.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132234
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| Posted: 24 August 2014 at 8:11am | IP Logged | 5
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The rules for speaking and writing English weller are completely arbitrary, and in many cases based (without any sense at all) on the rules of proper Latin usage. I read, years ago, for instance, that the outcry agains dangling participles comes from a time when scholars declared Latin a perfect language. Apparently, it is actually impossible to dangle one's participle in Latin, due to the way the language is structured.* So, this totally artificial rule was foisted upon school children struggling to make sense of a language that tells us "tough" and "dough" are pronounced differently.That said, however silly some of the rules may be, they DO exist, and if we want to communicate in a civilized manner, we might as well learn them. (I find it curious that many who fight so loudly against proper English usage, condemning as "Nazis" those who insist on following the rules, seem nevertheless able to pick up all the latest internet slang and weave it without effort into their messages. I mean, really! I you can learn to use "2" for "to," how hard is it to learn to do it properly?) ________ * Don't hold me to that! It may be split infinitives that are impossible in Latin!
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Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 12429
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| Posted: 24 August 2014 at 8:18am | IP Logged | 6
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I've noted that many, many people when texting refuse to write "ok" and instead write "kk." Such text-speak is my personal bugbear. Larry David had an episode of CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM where his character lost his marbles over somebody actually saying L-O-L, speaking the letters, to denote amusement instead of, ya know, really just laughing out loud.
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Wallace Sellars
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 17667
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| Posted: 24 August 2014 at 8:26am | IP Logged | 7
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I you can learn to use "2" for "to," how hard is it to learn to do it
properly?
---
My fourth grade English teacher (who also taught me in the sixth grade)
required us to put "-ly" adverbs in front of the verbs they modified. She
would expect JB's sentence to read "...how hard is it to learn to properly
do it?" It is a practice with which I sometimes struggle because I know
how awkward it sounds to many people. (The same is true of ending
phrases with a preposition.)
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 24 August 2014 at 10:25am | IP Logged | 8
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She would expect JB's sentence to read "...how hard is it to learn to properly do it?"•• Isn't THAT a split infinitive?
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Wallace Sellars
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 17667
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| Posted: 24 August 2014 at 12:05pm | IP Logged | 9
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She would expect JB's sentence to read "...how hard is it to learn to properly
do it?"
—
Isn't THAT a split infinitive?
—
It is, and my teacher knew this. If I correctly recall, she said that not using
split infinitives often resulted in sentences with unclear meaning. The clarity
of our writing was very important to her. If students ended sentences using
"-ly" adverbs, they could fix the sentence by moving the modifier so that it
preceded the verb or rewrite the sentence so that it no longer contained an
"-ly" adverb.
"How hard is it to do in the proper manner?"
The practice has become so ingrained that there are times when I find it
difficult to move that switch to the off position!
A fellow educator recently joked that I probably watch STAR TREK just to hear
"To boldly go where no man has gone before!" I had to bite my tongue to
keep from telling him that while I am quite happy with "boldly" in front of
"go," I used to have a problem with "before" being the last word!
What can I say? I'm a work in progress!
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John Harrison
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 July 2007
Posts: 1441
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| Posted: 24 August 2014 at 1:15pm | IP Logged | 10
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I saw a post somewhere a couple of days ago that said, "In less than 100 years, we've gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to teaching remedial English in college."
*****
When I was attending college and I had a professor who gave us a reading/writing/comprehension exam on the first day of class. This was a communications class and he later told me why he had done this. He needed to know what level to teach the class. After twenty years of teaching, he had discovered the average college student read at a third grade level. He would often compare his results with the college placement testing.
I piqued his curiosity by actually reading at a college freshman level. We became friends for awhile after I passed his class. He told me he was retiring soon and usually wasn't so open with students. He told me about the pressure to pass students through, that the college did not view students as students but as paying customers who should have a pleasant experience at college.
He went as far to list out what professors I should avoid in future classes and which ones he recommended. He was an interesting guy.
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Steven Myers
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 10 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5624
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| Posted: 24 August 2014 at 1:29pm | IP Logged | 11
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100 years ago college was more for the elite, while most men could make decent living with an 8th grade education or so. So of course the average ability level has decreased.
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Jason Czeskleba
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 April 2004
Posts: 4548
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| Posted: 24 August 2014 at 3:19pm | IP Logged | 12
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What Steven said. According to this publication, in 1910 only 13% of the US population graduated high school, and only 3% completed college. In 1998, 83% of the population graduated high school, and 25% college. And I suspect the numbers have gone up even more in the past 16 years. So the declining ability of the average college student is not necessarily an indicator of greater stupidity in society as a whole.
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