When I was little and not feeling well, it wasn't chicken soup that made me feel better. It was grammar. Ok, so that's a lie.
The only thing that made me feel better was watching my favourite cartoons and sipping on some Canada Dry Ginger Ale. Although I did like Alphabet soup. Mmm...
Anyway, at some point in my life, my relationship with grammar changed. I don't think I can pinpoint the exact moment, but it probably began when the world started 'talkn lyk dis.'
Here are some of the more common grammatical errors:
I before E except after C - How hard is that to remember? Here are some common mistakes: beleive, theif, neice and recieve. Here are some exceptions to the rule: efficient, weird, height, neither, ancient, caffeine, foreign
Except and accept - Accept means "to receive." Except means "to leave out." Capish?
Their, There and They’re - Again, please think before you write or type
Then and Than - Seriously? Do I really need to explain this?
Your and You’re - Or this?
Unfortunately, there are far worse crimes committed in the English language than these examples listed above. I'm referring to the horrendous language that began not too long ago, courtesy of Gen Y, or I or whatever the hell they are calling themselves these days. I'm talking about knoe, aight, wat, fwend, pritty and wit...Arghh! The list goes on. Don't get me started on FML, PSML, ILY, TY, STFU and IMO. It seems like these punks want to spell these words incorrectly on purpose! It's blasphemous! If it can't fit in a 140 character tweet or a Facebook update, they don't want to hear about it.
As I type this, I'm ashamed to admit, I have one of my Facebook friend's profile open for inspiration. Without disrespecting this 'friend', I would like to know how the education system failed her. Seriously, what are they teaching kids these days? Gen Y or I (from here on in, they shall be known as texters) will find it difficult to find a job with email addresses like sexibabbii, gorjusslut and hot12fak. I kid you not. These are actual email addresses. I will refrain from giving you the full address because even I am not that cruel. Texters refrain from using spell check. Texters will purposely spell words with double letters, i.e. thiss, yeaa and weatherr. I also don't get how they add the letter 'z' to everything, i.e. agez. It can't be to save time, because it takes the same amount of time to spell the word ages correctly as it does to spell it incorrectly. And for God's sake, can we please stop using the word 'youse'. It doesn't exist. It's you. YOUSE IS NOT A WORD IN ANY LANGUAGE I KNOW!
I'm not suggesting we go back to speaking Shakespeare's English. But what happened to the English we were taught at school? Surely, elementary school teachers will not start teaching children acronyms, whilst teaching the ABCs? 
Arguments over spelling and grammar are often as passionate as those over things like McDonalds versus Burger King, Coles versus Woolworths or even PC versus Mac.
But there is just one difference: those items are a matter of choice. With grammar there is only ONE option - the right way. Or as some of you might put it - the 'rite' way.
No comments:
Post a Comment