Back To Basics
I am a bit, shall we say, “uptight” when it comes to the written English language. I like correct grammar. I like correct word usage and spelling. I like good syntax.
And I get downright cranky when I don’t get it.
Not long ago, I had a student who had me wondering if the world had gone mad. This student, a pleasant young man in his early 20s, never, and I mean never, used correct punctuation. For that matter, he didn’t capitalize his name. Or the first-person prounoun “I.” He wrote “UR” instead of “you are.”
It put me in a negative frame of mind. The Internet, I decided and not just because of Mr. UR, has destroyed our respect for our common language. The craft of writing has been replaced with lousy content copied and pasted from one site to the next. (We used to call that plagarism.) And it became increasing clear this attitude was creeping into even more mainstream forms of written communication.
But I’m beginning to change my mind. I’m beginning to see signs of a potential backlash against the slap-it-together, lousy-is-OK-as-long-as-it’s-cheap mindset that seems to have dominated web content over recent years. To that end, I’m going to explore this topic a bit further in subsequent postings.
It will make me happy.
