Literacy is a lost cause

[dieseluphammerdown]

[occasional thoughts]

I might have thought that "a proud old stock Canadian" might support efforts and comments resisting the debasement of the official language of the bulk of Canadians, not ridicule it.

[dieseluphammerdown]

I might have thought that "a proud old stock Canadian" might support efforts and comments resisting the debasement of the official language of the bulk of Canadians, not ridicule it.

Well you'd be wrong. My Father was the most honest, hard working, straight shooter you'd ever meat. He provided for his family and we kids never wanted for anything , and he managed to do all that with a grade six education due to having to quit school to work my grand fathers farm during the great depression.
But by all means continue on your grammar crusade to help make yourself feel better. You have no idea why certain people struggle with what you consider proper grammar. I myself have struggled my whole life with written English for one reason or another yet I managed to earn a university degree.
Why don't we get into discussing numbers and mathematics, or formulas ? then we'll see he comes up short.! You up for that challenge?

[occasional thoughts]

I accept your struggle, I myself am not perfect and I'm learning all the time, which I enjoy and look for, and don't put down people who want to see English preserved and improved, not debased. Frankly, diesel, I am dismayed at what I didn't learn in or remember from Ms. Monroe's English 8 class at McPherson Park Junior H.S. in South Burnaby many years ago, but I am comfortable with my knowledge of words, proper word usage, and most (but not all) spelling. Congratulations on your proficiency in arithmetic/mathematics.

[Lady tehMa]

Well you'd be wrong. My Father was the most honest, hard working, straight shooter you'd ever meat. He provided for his family and we kids never wanted for anything , and he managed to do all that with a grade six education due to having to quit school to work my grand fathers farm during the great depression.
But by all means continue on your grammar crusade to help make yourself feel better. You have no idea why certain people struggle with what you consider proper grammar. I myself have struggled my whole life with written English for one reason or another yet I managed to earn a university degree.
Why don't we get into discussing numbers and mathematics, or formulas ? then we'll see he comes up short.! You up for that challenge?

Diesel, you strike me as a hardworking fellow. I myself am in great lack when it comes to facility with numbers. I was not gifted in that area, and have had to work very hard to develop any proficiency. I had to work hard.

How do you feel about people who have the capacity to learn proper grammar or mathematics but simply can't be bothered to do so? That is what I feel the bulk of the problem is. People don't care. People can't be bothered. They've become lazy and complacent.

I had a brain injury this past year. As a result my ability with language is starting to slip away from me. I make more mistakes, spoken and written (I've always made mistakes). This really concerns me because I believe clear communication is essential to understanding. I added an app to my brower called "Grammarly". It is free, and it helps me. This help is available to everyone. But few enough care to install it. Few enough care to be understood.

[dieseluphammerdown]

How do you feel about people who have the capacity to learn proper grammar or mathematics but simply can't be bothered to do so? That is what I feel the bulk of the problem is. People don't care. People can't be bothered. They've become lazy and complacent.Being a person who has always struggled with proper grammar I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would simply be to lazy to apply it if they don't legitimately struggle with it .People are lazy with a lot of things in life, however being lazy or not caring about grammar and proper English is a mystery to me as apposed to those who truly struggle with it. At the end of the day there is more to life than proper grammar, and there are a lot of smart people in this world that are less than grammatically gifted. There are better ways to judge a person then by how many spelling (grammar) mistakes they make.

I had a brain injury this past year. As a result my ability with language is starting to slip away from me. I make more mistakes, spoken and written (I've always made mistakes). This really concerns me because I believe clear communication is essential to understanding. I added an app to my brower called "Grammarly". It is free, and it helps me. This help is available to everyone. But few enough care to install it. Few enough care to be understood.

I'm sorry to hear about your accident and wish you well. While I don't know you outside of posting here I'm sure you have a lot of good qualities as a person, and you shouldn't be judged or thought of as uneducated simply because you struggle with spoken or written English.
There are a lot of bright gifted smart people in this world who are not highly educated but rather have skill sets that many of the rest of us don't.

[Graham Adder]

I cdnuolt blveiee that I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd what I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in what oerdr the ltteres in a word are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is that the frsit and last ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it whotuit a pboerlm. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

7H15 M3554G3
53RV35 7O PR0V3
H0W 0UR M1ND5 C4N
D0 4M4Z1NG 7H1NG5!
1MPR3551V3 7H1NG5!
1N 7H3 B3G1NN1NG
17 WA5 H4RD BU7
N0W, 0N 7H15 LIN3
Y0UR M1ND 1S
R34D1NG 17
4U70M471C4LLY
W17H 0U7 3V3N
7H1NK1NG 4B0U7 17,
B3 PROUD! 0NLY
C3R741N P30PL3 C4N
R3AD 7H15.

[occasional thoughts]

Further vs. farther? A highly popular error in the continuing deterioration of the English language.

I opened my email this morning and there were two commercial missives.

One, from BMO, "Make your credit card go further."

The other, from Hudson's Bay Financial, "Make your loonie fly further."

Ford Motors has had big ad campaigns about going further in a Ford.

From google, "The quick and dirty tip is to use “farther” for physical distance and “further” for metaphorical, or figurative, distance. It's easy to remember because “farther” has the word “far” in it, and “far” obviously relates to physical distance."

There is obviously a dwindling number of people who care, and some posters on here who ridicule our concern. Pity.

[youjustcomplain]

There are a number of people who would ridicule the point of your concern. I really don't see it as a pity that others don't feel the same way you do. The world is full of different people, and some of those people are like you, the rest aren't.

That aside, I, too, feel a sense of frustration when I hear words and phrases misused, but I remember that I likely make as many mistakes as the people who I could judge. Maybe not just in grammar but in many other facets of life.

[Nomaster]

A good start to rectumfying the problem.

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/commun ... wrong.html

[Glacier]

[Silverstarqueen]

I think that when Carlin is going to go on about correct English usage he should clean up his language.
It's a little different when he is trying to do his comedy routine, but here he is supposedly making a serious statement.

[oneh2obabe]

Carlin wouldn't be Carlin if he had cleaned up his language. These were performed before he died.

[LANDM]

You should hear the language he uses *after* he died!

[oneh2obabe]

I know - image Carlin and Pryor having a beer together.