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Literacy Limps Into the Kill Zone
Ant writes to tell us that Wired has an interesting look at the current standards of writing and the general decline of spelling and grammar in today's "comic book generation." The author blames many of the problems on instant or near-instant communications stating that the slang developed is essentially eroding our ability to formulate coherent thoughts in writing when called upon to do so.
You didn't really have to go and proove them right, did you?
IMAGE VERIFICATION IS EVIL!
Also, a roman once said the same thing or a greek. That the young people of today are a generation that look down on the world and are showing no moral principels or showing problems with language and spelling and all the hoo haa he could drag up. And this was BC.
Yeah, and what happened after that? look up Europe's history starting about the time when the Western Roman Empire collapsed. Feel free to go all the way up to the Middle Ages if you like.
Methinks you need to work up a better argument, sonny.
Goerge was wrong.
So instead of double speek in 1984, we get half speek in 2006.
Not to flame you or anything like that, but you should have used a semicolon instead of a comma after the word "grammar" in the fifth paragraph. ;-)
"What I need is an exact list of specific unknown problems we might encounter."
So you're saying that English is like Perl?
Ah, yes... the #1 pick-up line of all times:
Say, does this rag smell like clorophorm to you?
Ignore this signature. By order.
Our literacy is eroding? WTF? OMG! ROFL!
BRB
A thread where spelling and grammar nazis won't be modded off-topic! Yes!
Telltale Games: Bone, Sam and Max
Accuracy of the quotes aside, you'd have made a much more interesting and relevant point had the progression gone more like this.
"Students today can't prepare bark to calculate their problems.
They depend upon their slates which are more expensive. What will they do
when their slate is dropped and it breaks? They will be unable to write!"
-Teacher's Conference, 1790
"Students today use too much paper too much. They don't know how
to write on slate without getting all dusty. They can't clean a slate.
What will they do when they all run all out of paper?"
-Principal's Association, 1815
"Students are loosing their mind. They don't know how to do the things
that get them ink. When they run out of ink they will be unable to write
all those curly letters and cute numbers until they're next trip to the
place with shops and stores. I am crying."
-The Rural Amercan Teecher, 1929
"Students 2day use spensive pens. They like, what the heck is a strait
pin and nib(?) (dont' get me started on quills). They need to stop riting
and facus on sports and singing so they can be rich."
-PTA Paper,1941
"Pens ruin teachy-smarts in US. Kids use pens. Throw pens away.
Good US goodness, not waste, gone. Shop-shop and save-save all gone.
Me eat pens. Pens good food, not write-write."
-a cave, 1950
The quotes above are real, btw, I got them using my time machine (thanks John T.), a Britney Spears album which I dropped off in the early 1800's, and Google Talk, so please no comments to the effect that I made these up. That kind of thing hurts. Seriously. Ouch.
Bash.org quote #367896
<Fashykekes> Capitalization is the difference between "I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse.." and "I had to help my uncle jack off a horse.."
:)
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo!
It's OK, I knew what you meant anyway :)
> What happened to punctuation,
dead!!
> capitalisation,
Dead!!
> spelling
teh DEAD!
> and understanding of homophones?
Sexuality, like proper spelling, is now devoid of limits - though I don't see what makes you bring it up now.
Here's a perfect example of why proper punctuation is important (not mine, I stole it from someone else, can't remember who though):
I helped my uncle jack off a horse
I'm either a very helpful, or a very sick person. Which one is anyone's guess.