I would be willing to bet that the majority of native English speakers do not know when to use "their" vs. "there" OR "your" vs. "you're" OR "sit" vs. "set" OR "lay" vs. "lie"....
They also probably don't know what those four dots in a row following my last sentence are called. They don't know when there should be three and when there should be four. They don't know that my four dots are not technically correct because the spacing is not correct.
But the reason they don't know all of these things, is not that they suffer from some mental defect. The reason that they don't know all those things is that they are simply not interested.
I disagree with the notion that the language skills of the average Joe are in decline. The real issue is that, 20 years ago, you never saw the writing of the average Joe. Most everything you read was filtered through an editor or some other "gatekeeper".
These days, practically anyone, including our friend average Joe, can publish a Weblog or post to Slashdot, without the approval of an editor.
Think of it like this: We used to have a client-server model of publishing written material. Proxies (editors) sat between the client and server and made sure that all the traffic complied with protocol specifications (spelling/grammar rules). Now, we have a more peer-to-peer model of publishing, where the proxy is bypassed. If we took all of the proxies (and other types of filters) away from our networks, the Internet would descend into utter chaos. So when you look at it this way, it is a miracle that people can still communicate at all.
Another example is that you buy your meat from a butcher (perhaps not directly, and maybe the butcher is actually a large corporation, but that's not the point). That butcher is, or at least claims to be, highly-skilled in the fine art of handling meat (NO, not in the same way that you are, I mean it in a different context). In addition to your butcher's meat-handling skill, his product is subject to inspection by "meat-lookers". Long story short: If we all freely traded meat from person to person, then we would all be much more likely to see ugly, discolored, stinky, repulsive meat more often.
On the issue of proofreading: No, I haven't proofread this garbage. Why would I? I have wasted enough time writing it in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
I would be willing to bet that the majority of native English speakers do not know when to use "their" vs. "there" OR "your" vs. "you're" OR "sit" vs. "set" OR "lay" vs. "lie"....
They also probably don't know what those four dots in a row following my last sentence are called. They don't know when there should be three and when there should be four. They don't know that my four dots are not technically correct because the spacing is not correct.
But the reason they don't know all of these things, is not that they suffer from some mental defect. The reason that they don't know all those things is that they are simply not interested.
Hell, maybe they're on to something.
I disagree with the notion that the language skills of the average Joe are in decline. The real issue is that, 20 years ago, you never saw the writing of the average Joe. Most everything you read was filtered through an editor or some other "gatekeeper".
These days, practically anyone, including our friend average Joe, can publish a Weblog or post to Slashdot, without the approval of an editor.
Think of it like this: We used to have a client-server model of publishing written material. Proxies (editors) sat between the client and server and made sure that all the traffic complied with protocol specifications (spelling/grammar rules). Now, we have a more peer-to-peer model of publishing, where the proxy is bypassed. If we took all of the proxies (and other types of filters) away from our networks, the Internet would descend into utter chaos. So when you look at it this way, it is a miracle that people can still communicate at all.
Another example is that you buy your meat from a butcher (perhaps not directly, and maybe the butcher is actually a large corporation, but that's not the point). That butcher is, or at least claims to be, highly-skilled in the fine art of handling meat (NO, not in the same way that you are, I mean it in a different context). In addition to your butcher's meat-handling skill, his product is subject to inspection by "meat-lookers". Long story short: If we all freely traded meat from person to person, then we would all be much more likely to see ugly, discolored, stinky, repulsive meat more often.
On the issue of proofreading: No, I haven't proofread this garbage. Why would I? I have wasted enough time writing it in the first place.