On 16/10/2013 17:27, David Hill wrote:
On 16/10/2013 16:41, Another John wrote:
The language is going to hell, thanks to generations of young
illiterates who are now actually working, and (e.g.) writing newspaper
articles, having been brought up with an education of dubious values,
and receiving a "further" education in Facebook, Twitter, and the
internet in general, from their fellow illiterates.

Compared with all the fpelling miftakef of old I think you fhould count
your blessingf. Even the Grauniad these dayf contains correctly fpelled
wordf although not alwayf the right onef to make any fenfe.

I'd say that one of the worst things with papers and publications in
general is that they are no longer proof read, just have spell checker
on the computer scan them.

I expect you will enjoy the "My Pea Sea" poem then (RHS of page).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spell_checker

And then has an American designed grammatical style checker applied.

I don't believe that they teach English grammar and things like clause
analysis in schools nowadays.

One of the more curious things is that English as a foreign language
teaches the unfortunate recipients grammatical stuff that is not taught
at all now in English lessons. Subjunctives and precise meanings of
could, would and should for example. Even when I was at school this sort
of hard grammar was only dealt with in Latin classes. eg

I should be obliged if you would vs I would be obliged if you could

One of them (now the more commonly heard form in native English) has a
veiled insinuation of incompetence of the person being asked.

Conan Doyle has Sherlock Homes typically get it exactly right. The
strict grammatical correct form now sounds stilted to modern ears.

Language evolves - get used to it. Preserved in aspic it is useless.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown