I thought I’d share an article from the Washington Post that a friend sent to me in the correct belief that I would find it amusing. It exposes the comedy of errors littering the news media with illiteracy. As I read this piece I found myself weeping for the demise of our shared Anglo-Norman tongue even while laughing at the illiteracy of modern journalism. As with so much more of our culture, it’s being killed by a combination of the inane and the ignorant. It’s death by dumbing-down.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/13/AR2010091304476.html
DUMB-STRUCK: THE DEATH OF THE LANGUAGE
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About the Author: Joseph Pearce
Joseph Pearce is a Catholic author and biographer who has written about subjects as various as GK Chesterton, economics, and Shakespeare.
Very amusing. (frag)
In public schools, instruction in English grammar and conventions became de-emphasized from about 1980 onward. Educating students in grammar hurt their feelings, donchaknow. In Education courses intended to qualify teachers, correction of students’ English usage was officially condemned. This development was welcomed by most English teachers since it made grading students’ writing much easier. (Besides, by 1985 or so, teachers themselves were barely literate.)
Somewhere, some old-fashioned professor of rhetoric must have mentioned, however feebly, that grammar is the foundation of logic, but if so, that unfortunate person was probably silenced very quickly. Politically incorrect, donchaknow. (frag) That’s why no one can think rationally any more.
There is one sign you can look for from any newscaster, politician, or commentator of any kind. If you hear that a thing is “different than,” you can know with some certainty that the speaker is probably a product of post-1980 American public schools and is therefore not completely capable of rational thought.
Their is more better weighs to spend you’re time then buy lerning English.