I’m not sure it has changed that much, to be honest. I think there have always been people who couldn’t put a good sentence together to save their life. The difference now is that the internet allows people who can’t write to put their words into the public conciousness. In the old days, only people who could write well would ever be read, because you had to be published for numerous people to read your work. I’ve had the opportunity to read many personal letters written between common, uneducated people from one hundred to three hundred years ago, and let me tell you, the average grammar in those letters isn’t much better than what you find on the internet. We think people one hundred years ago wrote better because we only ever read the best writings of the time, but there were some real abominations then, as well. As long as there has been grammar, it has been used poorly.

wow speaking of poor grammar use and spelling. Thank you for proving the point of this post buy replying to it. (Kevil)

Yes spelling and grammar seem less important as a focus these days in education. Of course in the past 30 years our country has shown significant growth in our population, , especially in large cities. This means more urban public schools, and more teachers that are not as interested in development but rather just getting through the year. I have had numerous people work for me that earned teaching degrees and I would not let them babysit my children for fear that some dim witted accident would occur. My wife attended a public school in a large city, and I must say that her studies there are almost a joke compared to the high school I attended (not that I attended any private school, just a smaller city/town with a better education system). I will also agree that the use of the Internet and text messaging has some play into this, even though they are conducting studies that reveal it takes more creative thought than actually writing out an entire sentence. As far as questions here that you cannot understand, I would check where the post is coming from, more than likely it is a foreigner of the USA which would explain the broken sentences that borderline confusion. I am by no means a English major, so I am not perfect but I can use spell check when I am not sure 🙂

I think you can truly thank the public education system for the state of grammar these days. Although I don’t have kids, I vote at a local elementary school. While waiting in line during the most recent elections, I happened to read some of the essays written by the 3rd and 4th grade classes. Needless to say it was evident that the school emphasized phonetic learning. As far as I can tell, it really doesn’t matter if you spelled the words correctly as long as you were close. It’s a shame that the kids of tomorrow will in effect have been given a green light to illiteracy. It’s no wonder that remedial classes in college have no shortage of students.

A) There are a lot of children on the Internet. They have not learned all the grammar and spelling rules available to them, so they are also not aware of English rule exceptions, either.

B) Some (okay, many) people use informal language to compose their communications online, rather than using formal language.

C) They are writing with dialects. Ghetto talk, Southern drawls, etc., could be what you are noting as…BAD.

D) People sometimes forget to proofread their writing before they hit the submit (or send) button. Or, they look at the keyboard while they type, and they never look at the text they penned before they send it.

E) Much like a game of telephone goes awry, people sometimes repeat the terrible grammar and spelling they note on the Internet, often with a worsening effect.

I hope this helps.

There are two things that happened to good grammar and spelling. The change in the American public education system and technology. American education has moved to new priorities or standards, one is higher level thinking, which has shoved basic grammar to the background. In addition, State level standardized testing with an emphasis on higher level thinking also placed grammar and spelling in the background. Language arts which included the component of grammar now emphasizes literature in later grades so that by middle school students are not taught grammar skills independently, they are incorporated into writing and reading. Thus, high school students are expected to know the basics of grammar and how to use it. As we know, that is not happening. As well, technology – email, on-line communities, and text messaging – has developed it’s own language with it’s own rules. Let’s not forget that we can use “spell check” and other grammar features with the click of a mouse.

Our society still admires and respects those who have mastered the King’s English and can display such in writing. Parents and other community stakeholders need to impress upon legislators and other law-making bodies that children still need to be taught grammar and spelling during most of their K-12 school career.

Schools are supposed to be run by the local community, according to the standards *they* have established. As our nation’s population increased, the local community definition expanded to include counties, parishes and boroughs. So, tests and standards became more uniform. This was still a reasonable philosophy and means of education, as was the expansion to individual State and Commonwealth standards and uniformity. In those days, school children were *still* taught the “Three ‘Rs” (READING, ‘RITING & ‘RITHMETIC)! Kids were actually taught proper grammar, capitalization, sentence structure, punctuation, spelling, penmanship, multiplication tables (in the earlier years of the last century, my mother had to learn multiplication up to 12X12). However, when the Federal Government and the NEA began to get more and more involved, the standards began going down, porportionately.

The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, part of the original Bill of Rights, specifically prohibits involvement of the Federal Government in public schools, to wit: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Since the operation of the public school system is not *specifically* delegated to the United States by the Constitution, it is *specfically* *prohibited* – i.e., the Constitution mandates “Separation of School & State”!

One of the primary purposes of the Federal Department of Education, athough not openly admitted, is the “dumbing-down” of school-age children. That is one of the primary reasons why Phonics was dropped from the Govt. School curricula! Also, because of the PC agenda of “inclusiveness”, children are passed on to the next grade on a social basis, instead of a learning basis. “Mainstreaming’, while it may have removed the stigma of children being in Special Education and Special Needs classes and schools, meant that the special education needs of these children were not being met, as well! Instead, learning and teaching standards were lowered, partially to accomodate these children; but also to accomodate the less competent, card-carrying NEA member! For example, if a child come up with something “close” to the right answer, such as: the “almost correct” spelling of a word, or 2+2=5, he or she is told that he or she did well in making the effort (in some cases, the teacher doesn’t know the right answer)!

The primary purpose of the largest labor union and largest domestic terrorist organization in the United States, is protection of jobs for unionized teachers, regardless of their abilities to teach or their competence to do so! That is why unions and their sycophants in Congress are so opposed to (in the 1950s, Amish Schools), home schooling, school vouchers, Christian, Catholic and private schools, and even Charter Schools! One of the unconstitutional U.S. Dept. of Education’s and NEA’s ploys to counteract the flight to these viable educational alternatives is the Target School.

I agree with Mashiara; as long as grammar has been around there have been people who butcher it. But I can also see your point that there are people–even teachers–who are so terrible in their grammar and writing skills that it’s a wonder they ever passed high school English. I once had to grade entrance essays for a business school, and I kid you not, there were prospective students who had three sentence fragments, complete with misspellings, as their complete essays! I don’t know how these kids got out of high school. I think there’s probably too much emphasis on who knows what in schools these days, at the expense of necessary basic skills.

Diane -B

i am a writer and still need to check my dictionary on some of the most simple words. Some people are foreigners who have a limited understanding of the English language but i think they should not be discouraged in participating on this site. Others i think are writing as fast as possible and dont think to re-check what they have typed, why should they?

I think this is the problem we have today in society. Eveybody is segregated and find reasons to think they are superior and above everyone else. (This comment may sound bitchy but really should they have a grammar test before a computer sale?)

It is because people are stupid. Parenting needs to improve. I feel like someone can go to a public school and suceed, however if the parents let them slack then they will.

Also I know that if I hurry then sometimes I miss a letter and spell wrong, nut I know my stuff is nto that bad.

RELAX A LITTLE. iT IS OKAY IF the questions are not perfect, but damn there are some people who are just way way off.

Spelling and Grammar have gotten worse simply because the English language is changing it is not always necessary to speak or write properly and it can be a real pain sometimes but that life