While we all suffer from fat fingered typing at times and we at DU don’t grade, it’s still amazing how horrific the spelling and grammar can be in some of the comments on this blog. I’m surprised when contractions like don’t and can’t actually have apostrophes. Yes, there are differences between there, their and they’re, as well as to and too. I can’t even guess why people think noone is a word. I guess Anthony Burgess was on to something when he wrote A Clockwork Orange given this push to do away with teaching grammar at all.
The academic left has painted itself into a peculiar corner. They urge the rejection of traditional grammar as chauvinistic, or, more frequently, “hegemonic.” Unfortunately for them, they eventually have to read papers by students who have previously been taught by teachers who also share this outlook.
One of the seminal texts that promotes the “grammar is dead” thesis is Preparing to Teach Writing by James Williams. “Ironically, the third edition of Williams’ book Preparing to Teach Writing appeared in 2003, the same year the National Commission on Writing made public its discovery that ‘Recent analyses indicate that more than 50 percent of first-year college students are unable to produce papers that are relatively free of language errors,’” retired English professor Nan Miller points out.
New Jersey widower Van-Ness Crawford is going to court to bring attention to the failures of that state’s public schools. “Not only for his family.” The New York Post’s Andrea Peyser reports, “But for more than 60,000 students—the vast majority of them poor and minority—attending 95 rotten Jersey schools, the worst of which have failure rates of 87 percent in standardized English tests. And a 90 percent failure rate in math.” “He is the lead plaintiff in a groundbreaking lawsuit filed yesterday [July 13th] in Newark against the New Jersey education department.”
“It seeks a remedy that makes the educrats—who’ve ruled the schools for decades too long—absolutely insane. Crawford wants to take the $16,351 in taxpayer dollars that are squandered each year in the name of educating each of his kids, and use the money for a private school.”
Me fail English? That’s Unpossible!
I’m amazed too.
I’m not english speaking, but nonetheless, I’m amazed…
“Recent analyses indicate that more than 50 percent of first-year college students are unable to produce papers that are relatively free of language errors”
This doesn’t surprise me. There are so many rules and exception to the rules for English, we would never finish any papers in a reasonable amount of time if we tried to make sure what we are writing is relatively error free.
I too notice language errors all the time, but I chalk it up to not proof reading, which I wouldn’t spend too much time for a blog comment anyway.
I see this as a sort of circular aspect to history – inevitably we’ll end up communicating in prehistoric grunts punctuated with sharp blows from a club.
It is a sad situation. It seems schools do not teach anymore. When you have college graduates that are functionaly illerate, it amazes me how some of our so-called experts claim we are on the right path when the evidence proves otherwise.
At least the spelling errors will be eliminated in Firefox 2.0. It has a spell checker to help poor spellers, like myself.
gc — will it help folks with grammer — like me, like you 🙂
There’s something about this that fascinates me. On the one hand, much of our education system is still geared toward the old, agrarian and industrial schedules, methods of teaching and teaching toward making factory workers, not thinkers. On the other, where there is change it’s toward doing away with grammer, learn what you want and so on. Combine them together with a big dose of junk TV and what do you have? A non-critical thinking, empty headed slacker who will accept the low paying retail job that he’s given, vote for twits like Bush and not question when elected officials (who went to private schools and learned correctly) do stupid things for their own aggrandizement and push their agendas at society’s expense.
Ah, no. That’s crazy talk. Conspiracy crap. Guess I’ll just go back to watching Trading Spouses and Fox News.
Is it any wonder the USA is losing the economic and technology battles with countries that still hold an education aloft like a prize?
This all starts with the complacency and the stupidity of the parents. By the time I was in the fourth grade I was tested at a significantly higher level of reading and math, not because of inherent intelligence or proficiency in my studies; simply because my parents used proper grammar in the home and promoted an environment that encouraged logical thinking and pride in achieving goals.
I think its (!) actually wonderful that Internet posters cant (!) spell. Its (!) very rare that the grammar-impaired aren’t also brain- or, at a minimum, education- or experienced-impaired. Thus a terrifically useful filter when browsing Digg,
Fark, et al. If the poster can’t spell, he/she probably has little wit and little worth reading.
Finally, an article about ECA. LOL
Eideard, I’m usually pretty good gramatically, except when I type in blogs. I’m usually type too fast to get my thoughts in. I really should proofread before I hit enter…
‘Recent analyses indicate that more than 50 percent of first-year college students are unable to produce papers that are relatively free of language errors,’”
The fact that it is only 50% surprises me. I read a lot of material written by people with years of very expensive education which inevitably contains grammatical errors. No doubt my professional writing contains some, too. It is something to avoid the best you can, but not something to fly into a tizzy about. Mixing up “who” and “whom” does not mean that the author is an ignoramus.
I would say that writing on internet discussion groups and e-mail is more like verbal conversation than professional writing, and grammar is not quite as important.
gc — I know. It was just a small tease.
By now, you’ve caught on to my deliberate [occasional] use of common parlance to make a point.
Grammar be [expletive deleted]….
IMHO getting the point across without serious spelling and grammatical errors is sufficient. “Who” v.s. “whom” is nonsense….
Back in the days of $20/minute and glass teletypes, spelling and grammatical errors “online” were excuseable. Even without a spellchecker we should be literate enough to stay reasonably close to standard today – just keep a dictionary handy.
As for education, well, that’s another disaster. “Teaching to the test” has all but destroyed our schools already…. I don’t believe in the “grade only the kid’s journal” approach (ran into that more than 30 years ago), but a course in Philosophy shouldn’t need more than minimal emphasis on composition and grammar – that should have been covered elsewhere anyway. In short, I think the students need the specialized courses, and some reinforcement of that education in other courses….
One of my best college years was one that included a “Western Civilization” course and a ‘History of Art” course in the same semester. The Art instructor couldn’t understand how a non-Art-Major could do that well. Cheating was all but impossible – the Art exams consisted of putting a slide on the wall and asking for details. Since the guy had genuine trouble with the projector, which slide came up when was problematical. If you didn’t recognize the picture….
Meantime, the Western Civ course used many of the same images for “emphasis” or just “illustration” – you can’t talk about Narmur without showing that cosmetic palette….
Regards,
Stu.
There is a difference between grammatical blunders and typos. In the comments section of a blog where the user is not allowed to go back and fix things once posted I can’t take the screwups too seriously.
Also some usages change over time. Most experts today, for example, eschew the use of the word “whom” under all circumstances. I still like and use the word.
I also blame Strunk and White for edicts that should be mere suggestions not rigid laws.
That said, all these idiotic experiments with modernization are a bad idea since they are never universally adopted and just ruin the kids who get stuck in such programs. And let’s not even get into Ebonics!!!
17. I am waiting for formal usage to change so that “they” can replace “he or she” (or worse “s/he”) as a non-gender-specific single pronoun. It is already commonly used that way in spoken English.
I have always noted that the people promoting “ebonics,” are not the ones who will be held back in life by the condition of their language skills.
I’ve been a professor at public universities for more than 20 years, and students aren’t writing any better or worse than they were back in the ’80s.
In the new utopia there will be no apostrophe.
Wow, where are the posts from the folk that completely massacre spelling, grammer, and punctuation? Not seeing any posts yet from you. Just pokin’ at ‘ya.
19. Prof, that’s because it is in the 80’s that this all started!! 🙂
We are now just beginning to notice.
12,
I saw that…
If i could make my fingers work as fast as my head, I might look better.
but, if you really look up Websters history, you will find that he had ALOT of fun making a dictionary.
He accually Changed the spelling of words, the meanings of words, and even the pronunciation. He hated the English and french. so he did the best thing he could as a practicle joke, and last resort. He wrote a dictionary, and messed it all up.
No language has the Rules that American English has. Its the hardest language to Spell, and pronounce.
Take the word,
Aluminium…It ISNT american
And the english pronounce it..
Al u mini um NOT A Lu min um.
So, go ahead and have fun. I love it, as much as a Pulled tooth.(Very high pain tolerance).
But, consider this is an international site. At least with my Spelling, I can still understand all the broken english that gets spoke, better then most i think.
I especially concur with #10-Mark in emphasizing the importance of the home environment. So many parents are either unaware or apathetic regarding the needless language handicap they often pass on to their family’s next generation through their home environment. We’re largely creatures of habit, for better or worse, and these habits are especially crucial when you consider that language skills are the foundation of nearly all higher learning.
I always admire the academic dedication it takes for a child to excel in school when overcoming the hindrance of a family that speaks ebonics, redneck, or some other foreign language at home.
This has become so common that I worry this will become a “new grammar” with a lowering of standards and a dumbing down of the language, and those that used to speak and write well will eventually be looked down upon for doing so.
This has become so common that I worry this will become a “new grammar” with a lowering of standards and a dumbing down of the language, and those that used to speak and write well will eventually be looked down upon for doing so.
In HS I was one of the top students in honour/AP English. I also had very strict teachers. In college my writting skills went down, in part as some of the profs wanted would have been incorect. I even had one English prof mark me down for something that even acording to the texts he used for his classes was correct, and what he wanted would have been incorrect. There is no common “grammer” right now. It was near impossible to make sure I wrote gramically correct for each prof. As each prof had their own understanding and what might be correct for one, would be wrong for another. Then of course I was lazt and did not prof read as well as I should as I did not leave the time to. Then again I can find erors in other’s works much easier than my own, unless a significant amount of time has passed. Thus my three years of under grad lowered my writing skills from my HS days and so when I entered Grad school, my writing was a mess. Not just gramerwise, but style wise also as what was wanted and taught in HS was closer to what I needed for Grad school, but was form and style wise, and at times gramerwise, not what I needed in College. The lazy habits of college also did not help, and so now I strougle a lot more with my own writing, though I can detect the problems that I make in the writting of others, but often not in my own…
Someday I may be back to where I need to be and want to be, but for me it was those three years of undergrad that messed me up. Primarily by the English Prof. I’m glad I was a Relgion, History and Psych guy and not an English guy, or who knows how messed up I would have been by the time I got done.
To quote Max Headroom: You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but if you don’t teach them to read, you can fool them any time you want.”
23-
English is hard?!?…
Man, you should try to learn a non proto-indo-european language like Suomi (Finnish language). Or Slavic languages, or Turkish or even Greek. Even mine – Portuguese has the same root as Spanish, French or Italian. The grammar is almost the same. Talk about exception to rules… English is soooo easy in comparison.
I, myself, hated grammar when in school, thus I’m not the best one to be talking about correctness of language, but, after some years of english reading I can spot uncorrectness (almost) as a native, and sometimes I’m appaled with the linguistic blunders I read on forums and blogs…
PS. there’s also a key that you accidentaly, I’m sure, hit a lot (not ALOT), that’s caps lock…
But 😉 anyway, I like some of your posts and, at least, they seem to foster debate.
I write ‘alot’ as the other form has differetn meanings.
I have a Lot of property for sale. Lot is a discriptive of a plot of land. a parking Lot, and so forth.. where ‘alot’ is ment to mean something spacific.
and I like being devils advocate, as well as being old enough to still remember the past, and how things were.
ECA, please look at your last post and notice the sheer number of misspellings. Discriptive, differetn, ment, spacific
As a suggestion, reread your posts before pressing the button and make corrections.