Year of the Code Monkey
Because Jonah Bishop Said So
The English language has been sliding down the quality charts for a number of years now, and today it’s at an all time low. People’s grasp on grammar and spelling is tenuous at best. Take this story, for example. Note the sign in the picture (”Let are kids walk”). Are people really so ignorant that they would confuse the words ‘are’ and ‘our’? Sadly, this isn’t just a problem that surfaces in the general public. Professional editors are letting more and more errors slip by as can be found in this New York Times article on Jonathan Coulton. One sentence in the article reads “They pore over his blog entries…” Do you see the error in this sentence? I certainly hope so. I got this one wrong folks. Thanks to Kip for correcting me! 
The very next sentence should explain why I made the mistake.
I was taught somewhere between little and no English grammar in school. At certain points, I’ve tried to better my use of the language on my own, through books like The Elements of Style. But self education for this kind of thing just isn’t good enough (at least for me). I really wish I had been given a decent education on this stuff, and judging by the way people are failing to use English every day, I really wish educators took it more seriously.
May 29, 2007 at 9:39 am
One that I’ve seen on the internets a lot lately which really bugs me is when people confuse “‘ve” and “of”. For example, “I could of gone to the store, but I would of had to put on pants”.
May 29, 2007 at 9:59 am
I have to admit, I don’t see what’s wrong with that sentence.
May 29, 2007 at 10:24 am
Well blow me down! See what I was talking about when I mentioned not getting enough education? I had no idea that “pore” was the correct word (I was certain it was pour). I clearly need to hire an editor for this blog.
May 29, 2007 at 10:36 am
Me fail English? That’s unpossible!
May 29, 2007 at 11:07 am
Pore is a perfectly cromulent word.
May 29, 2007 at 12:39 pm
This comes to mind.
How were you never taught grammar in school? I think I had English class (focused on grammar) in at least 2nd through 6th grade (after that the focus changed from grammar to literature, though still called “English”).
What always bugged me was when I was taught a rule in English class, but I’d see it broken in a magazine. I guess historically newspapers and magazines had to be concerned with each millimeter of print used, so they bent rules to save a character here and there. The example that comes to mind is when something is singular but ends in an “s” (i.e. “Jesus”), and the possessive is needed, they’ll write “Jesus’” instead of what was in my English book (”Jesus’s”). Worse than that, was commas in a series. In a magazine or newspaper, they always leave off the comma before “and” (i.e. “A, B and C”). That causes a parsing error in my brain. Especially when you can have something like: “A and B, C and D, E and F, and G.” If that last comma is omitted, it’s not clear where the grouping is.
May 29, 2007 at 1:37 pm
I probably got the basics of grammar in elementary and middle school, but as you pointed out, “English” class later became more of a literature-oriented subject. Shakespeare has yet to do me any good. Why couldn’t I have been learning how to speak properly instead?
Or maybe doing math homework in English class wasn’t as good an idea as I thought.