[78-L] Grammatically incorrect

[Graeme Jaye]

Hi Julian

On 21/09/2009 you wrote;

JV> I was taught at school never to begin a sentence with "and", "but" or
JV> "or". Or is my memory playing tricks?

Certainly not by the standards I was taught. I'd agree with all of
these. Just for the record, I'm 66, so I suspect those of my
generation would all be in agreement.

It seems to me, the real problems start a couple or more generations
later. I note this coincides with the introduction of comprehensive
education and the general run-down of the UK manufacturing industry.
You might also add in the BBC allowing the introduction of regional
accents and the trend to pass students if they had a grasp of a
subject, although not being able to spell for toffee. Move on to the
current time and text messaging, tweeting, etc., has dealt the death
knell to good grammar and spelling skills.

Even serious political debate is now primarily confined to 'sound
bites' - nobody wants to take the time to read or even listen to
anything that can't be contained within a single paragraph.

I know we Brits talk about ourselves and the Americans being divided
by a common language - and I can be the first person to point out the
differences - but standards seem to be falling rapidly in both places.

As it happens, I live in Spain and the general standard of both
written and spoken language (allowing for local differences) has not
dropped by anything like the same degree.  Maybe this is because the
'family' element is still strong here.

I'm not painting myself whiter than white and I can end a sentence with
a preposition with the best of them. I do understand that all living
languages evolve and one has to evolve with them.

However, I moderate several forums and - quite honestly - I really
struggle to understand what some of the members are trying to say. No
punctuation, no capitalisation, incomplete sentences, no paragraphs
and abysmal spelling all combine to turn it into another language
altogether.  That's not evolution, just plain ignorance!

Graeme Jaye

graemejaye at iname.com

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