[78-L] Grammatically incorrect

[Julian Vein]

Graeme Jaye wrote:
  > 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
==========
Graeme,
What upsets me about the youth of today in Britain is their poor 
diction. They appear not to be able to sound their consonants properly, 
with the beginnings and ends of words getting chopped off. They 
pronounce their words deliberately, but badly. The worst example is 
their pronunciation of "like" as "lak", as in "Mighty Lak A Rose", with 
the final "k" barely sounded. The crispness of speech has been 
abandoned. It sounds like very much like a speech impediment.

Your comments about poor communication on some of your forums, is 
probably due to the fact that they barely know how to use the keyboard, 
and don't bother with the spellcheck.

I used to subscribe to a forum where communication skills were 
appalling. I thought about criticising the culprits, but thought better 
of it; perhaps English wasn't their first language.

I agree that language evolves, but we shouldn't let it dissolve. If 
people want to change language, then they should argue their case for 
doing so. In the meantime I shall stand my ground and refuse to be 
dragged down into the abyss of incomprehension. Perhaps we should speak 
Latin, and we (hopefully) wouldn't have that problem!

      Julian Vein


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