A flaming arrow came inbound tonight, and I just had to post it for the amusement of all. It's the last (at least, at this time of night) comment in my posting about the "Square is not your bedroom" of last Wednesday.
How is illiteracy viewed in Woodstock? When a person cannot express himself in writing, use correct forms of grammar and choose the correct words in a sentence, he tells the world just what his level of intelligence is. And it's not a level to be bragged about. Perhaps the author of that comment has a nice job in a factory somewhere, where he won't have to use pencil, pen, typewriter or computer on his job.
Unfortunately, our schools have contributed to this in a huge way by not insisting on correct grammar. The standard should be kept him from the earliest years right on through high school. Of course, it is impossible to insist on correct grammar from your students when you don't know better yourself. And it's hard to combat what the child is hearing at home.
I was appalled when I visited a third-grade classroom a few years ago and heard the teacher say something like, "Him and I went to the library." A few weeks later, this same teacher said something to the effect of "He gave the book to him and I." And that was in front of about six teachers, the principal, various other staffers, and the attorney for the school district.
If our students don't learn good grammar early, they will carry poor language habits right on into their adult years, as did "soccerxc44" in his comment tonight.
It's too bad that they don't even hear what's wrong with their speech or recognize what is wrong with what they have written. They don't even know it's wrong!
Good grammar should be automatic, just like "Please" and "Thank you." Hmmm, well, I guess that explains why it is what it is.
Should we dust off the stool that is over in the Dunce's Corner?
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3 comments:
It's the age of instant messaging Gus. Punctuation and grammar are out the window. The education level of the author has nothing to do with the message-just read some of your pivot man, Dr. Gorski's stuff!
How is illiteracy viewed in Woodstock? When a person cannot express himself in writing, use correct forms of grammar and choose the correct words in a sentence, he tells the world just what his level of intelligence is. And it's not a level to be bragged about. Perhaps the author of that comment has a nice job in a factory somewhere, where he won't have to use pencil, pen, typewriter or computer on his job.
In this paragraph you use the word cannot. It should be can not as a person either can or can not do something. Only when someone can not do something no matter how much they want to do they use the word cannot.
meant to say, I agree with you about punctuation and grammar in the age of IMs. Not knowing the difference between "your" and "you"re" or between "there" and "their" is a different story.
Some accept the hurried typing that results in typos and capitalization and punctuation. Perhaps it's generational, but I don't accept it.
If one is careless in his written expression, in my book he's careless in many other areas of his life.
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