OT - What ever happened to "AND?" - OT

[Captain Neon]

I've been noticing a disturbing trend. I began noticing it when the article "an" started to disappear from written communication and phrases like "an apple" became "a apple." I noticed a bout a year ago, on social media statuses, phrases of the type, "went to the pawn shop an the bar." I wrote these off as I knew those that wrote that way got their public high school diploma by right of showing up enough times and not due to any academic acumen.

However, the other day, I got a professional e-mail from some one that to have gotten her job had to have a higher college GPA in our field of study than I did. Instead of "and," she repeatedly used "an" in its place. This could not be a typo, and I see it all over now.

Did the English language change in the 15 years since I was a traditional college student? Was "and" abolished and "an" put in its place? There is no way that I could have possibly passed the English and Writing courses that I was required to take in high school and college with out knowing the proper use of articles and conjunctions. I was even graded for grammar and punctuation on my research papers in my other classes. Confuse "an" for "and" and use "a" when "an" was supposed to be used a few times, and there is no way that I would have gotten passing grades in my science classes either.

Is Idiocracy more prophetic than I had feared?

[Plymouthy Adams]

with texting so prevalent these days, you were lucky to get two letters out of three..

[Big_John]

I'm afraid to say it, but there is a general dumbing down of America and Idiocracy may be a true prediction of things to come.

Last year, we had a local business journal do an article on our business. The "journalist" (note quotations) was an older gentleman, seemed reasonably intelligent and asked a lot of the right questions. When the article came out.... Well..... It looked like something a seventh grader would write for a class assignment.

[Paul Beard]

Has anybody noticed that everybody goes to "Prom" not to "The Prom" or that everyone mostly says that something was "so fun"\ not "was so much fun or wa such a fun tnie". Welcome to the dumbing down of America. Now as everybody never says anymore I hop everyone has a nic eDay.

[greg g]

e mail, instant messaging, texting, and now unfortunately message boards have become the greatest forces in the decline of personal communication. The telephone, was probably the last electrically operated device that actually enhanced the quality of distant interpersonal communication.

The other places feeling the effect of the dumbing down of level of communication are news papers which used to be written at a 7th grade reading level but are now about 4th grade ( or is 7th grade teh new 4th grade?) magazines, and now TV and Radio.

Used to be that when folks went to journalism schools they wer taught inunciation and pronounciation skills, ow they all soud like text messages.

We have a local dialectical thing here lately that is really irritating. the city of Fulton

when covered on the news becomes Fult-in, and the town of Eaton becomes Eat-in. which is what you do at a restaurant, Other wise "T"'s in middle of words become "D"'s, it is irksome to have to listen to these professional communicators to slaughter the language.

So let us here, resolve to within the best of our abilities uphold the tenats of the language when posting or responding to post here.

[RobertKB]

Don't get me going! I am a retired junior high (Grades 7-9) Language Arts teacher. Language Arts includes reading comprehension, writing skills, spelling, communication, and other word related studies.

Teaching a lot of the old skills such as spelling, correct sentencing, and grammar are now frowned upon. I still taught a bit anyway and the kids really didn't mind it. I retired six years ago so the modern forms of communicating mentioned above were not as rampant as they are today.

Journalists are some of the worst because they really should know better if they have gone to any kind of journalism school. My biggest pet-peeve is the use of it's and its. It's is a contraction for it is. Its is the possessive form of the pronoun it. No pronoun takes an apostrophe to show possession. There are many, many other incorrect usages that are prevalent out there and I fear it will only get worse. I believe we are headed back to the pre Dr. Johnston days where many words had two or more spellings. Dr. Johnston, who was an 18th Century Londoner whose house still stands, http://www.drjohnsonshouse.org/ compiled the first dictionary to standardize English spelling amongst other things. As a society we are taking steps backward because English is no longer taught properly and nobody bothers to check his work. I will get off my soap box!

Edited January 6, 2012 by RobertKB
Grammar

[T120]

...What happened to the "bell curve"? We pass them regardless.

[pflaming]

In the recent past I was given a copy of the eighth grade test required for graduation in the 20's and 30's. WHAT an eye opener!! Wish I had a copy to share.

I have a big problem with the 'exact same' combination used by many:

[John Mulders]

I share your frustration !

In the Netherlands the general writing is so poor (papers included) it is scary.

Then when people are talking they make major mistakes (not sure whether these will translate properly but the 'if' and 'when' would be the same in English.

I had the experience with a flight attendant who said "if you arrive in Amsterdam" which made me worry a lot because the flight was delayed due to technical problems!).

Where I live now, in Curacao , it seems worse, everything is pronounced phonetic and I really have problems understanding....

But I guess it is something of our time, languages evolve and I comfort myself that the current generation that has trouble with languages will probably experience sort of the same with the next generation !

Just my 20 cents (inflation!).

John

[Plymouthy Adams]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was

the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity......

C. Dickens...

and we laughed when reading the classics..

[greg g]

further or farther, among or amongst, weather or whether, there or their, bring or take.

regardless or irregardless, flamable or inflamable, refute or rebut, fewer or less, disinterested or uninterested. Emigrate or Imigrate, effect or affect?

Ultimate, the end or the best??

[BobT-47P15]

Not only is spelling and word useage going to h---, but paragraphs and

capitalization seem to be disappearing too. It's rather difficult to read

a whole page of stuff that is one big paragraph with few, if any, capitals

(or is it capitols:D), periods, or other punctuation.

[PatS....]

"Fitment" is my pet peeve. Along with "pleaded" as in he pleaded guilty. It was always "he pled guilty" in my day.

Did you know it is frowned upon to teach the times tables??? My 17 yr old nephew has no idea about what they are...never heard of them but he is a straight "A" student!!

Edited January 25, 2012 by PatS....

[Big_John]

"Fitment" is my pet peeve. Along with "pleaded" as in he pleaded guilty. It was always "he plead guilty" in my day.

Did you know it is frowned upon to teach the times tables??? My 17 yr old nephew has no idea about what they are...never heard of them but he is a straight "A" student!!

We recently hired a young man that could not subtract 2 from 10 without a calculator. In fact, he did not believe that anyone else could do it either! I showed him two numbers, .0001" and .001" and asked him which one he thought was larger. He didn't know.

He also didn't think it was a big deal to show up an hour and a half late on his third day either and didn't understand why I fired him the following day.

[58prostreet]

I agree about the times table. My oldest grand son is in 8th grade and they have not been required to learn them. I challenged all 4 grand kids to call me when they learned times tables. I gave them a quick 15 problem quiz.. If they got all 15 I gave them $50.00. It is a matter of memorizing, but the two boys are too lazy to memorize the numbers.

If you want a real eye opener, get them to count back change from an imaginary sale. I got an bunch of change and we practiced. When they started to understand and get why I wanted them to learn it, I let them keep the change. Without a calculator, they are lost.

Bob

[Dan Hiebert]

The dumbing down of America - due to laziness, "everyone's a winner", auto correct, instant messaging, need for instant gratification, selfishness etc. The teachers (in the holistic sense, not just the professionals) are afraid to correct. I've only a high school education, but I deal with people that have masters degrees and some doctorates on a regular basis - and some very high level folks like Representatives and Senators. I find myself constantly irritated by their poor grammar, spelling, syntax, etc. Mine's not the best, I've been influenced by many cultures over the years from working in several geographic locations and find some idiosyncrancies so amusing that I use them myself just for kicks, as well as my own bad habits, but I know enough to write a professional document that withstands scrutiny. I get stuff on a constant basis that I could swear were written by kindergarteners, even though we have explicit correspondence manuals, style guides, and professional writing training. I guess I'll do my part and hope it has some influence on someone.

[Robert Horne]

e mail, instant messaging, texting, and now unfortunately message boards have become the greatest forces in the decline of personal communication.

So let us here, resolve to within the best of our abilities uphold the tenats of the language when posting or responding to post here.

Greg has very good points here, in that, we on this forum can do our part

to communicate with a little more effort. We as Mopar cars guys do

seem to understand each other, even when we do not use the correct

words or phrases. I think of our Mopar friends in different parts of the

world that would have more difficult of a time to understand communications

if we did not use proper English....

[Chester Brzostowski]

Besides death and taxes you can be sure that language will continue to evolve. As far as I am concerned the technique of communicating is much less important then the thought being shared.

Chet…