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The english language (or the lack thereof)

In my K-12 system (that's the United State's primary & secondary schooling; you graduate high school in 12th grade) the English teachers really cared about what they did and tried really hard to teach "proper" English. There's two problems, though: one is obvious. Most kids don't care that much. The other is probably a personal thing of mine: they focus too hard on proper English and forget about how to speak/write naturally.

I think it's just the fact that they don't care much about class and that they can communicate fine with their friends over Facebook or Twitter with shoddy English that results in a lot of people learning it speaking it better than natives. Most of them probably know that they're being idiots, but they're too lazy to fix it or change.

First semester of college everyone had to take a Writing course. We would often write up our stuff then come in to class and do peer editing/peer review (this wasn't in a lecture hall). Now this is student writing that they would conceivably turn in for scoring. Most of it wasn't bad, in terms of grammar and spelling. They knew that much, at least, even if online those same kids did text-speak. I had more of a problem with the sentence structure and overall flow of the writing. Need to read more, I say! Even a Cracked.com article is going to have coherent writing that you can read and learn from. :(


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hF06A9062
 
Everyone has derps sometimes, but I believe the root of the problem is that most people now are honestly just too lazy. Especially fat, lazy Americans (I can say this cause I am one.)
 
I'm not going to say I'm a grammar Nazi, but for the love of God and country at least know the difference between waist/waste and wait/weight.
 
Keleynal said:
If the apocolyptic scenario you described were to occur, "proper English" wouldn't be dead, just changed. Remember, the important thing is that the message is received. If speaking with perfect grammar would cause confusion to your message's recipient, then it isn't "proper" at all. You may have to resort to slang, jargon, grunts, or bodily functions. We may recoil at the thought, but that's just because of our perspective and preferred way of communicating.
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I can see changes in German. But usually they are vocabulary wise, which is fine for me. For example we have the word "googlen" pretty new in our vocabulary. But the German grammar is applied to it. So there is a past perfect tense called "gegoogelt" or the normal past tense "googelte". For me this is no problem, it just shows, that a word was missing or no longer up to date and we replaced or added it to our vocabulary.
But Their and There are two different words with different meanings and different usage in a sentence.

Sasquatauch said:
I'm not going to say I'm a grammar Nazi, but for the love of God and country at least know the difference between waist/waste and wait/weight.
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This reminds me of solvent/solute/solution, chemistry english was hard (had to do this as job education)

ps just read the poem, can somebody tell me how to pronounce "similes and reviles" or should i just check google?
 
SIM-uh-leez

ruh-VILZ

(that's a long "i" sound, like the letter "i" or the word "eye")

"Simile" is a noun, the literary device of comparing something to another thing ("Her hair was like silk"). "Similes" is the plural form of it.

"Reviles" is the present tense form of the verb "revile" (to speak about with hatred or contempt). "He regularly reviles people who use mayonnaise on sandwiches."
 
Red Omen said:
SIM-uh-leez

ruh-VILZ

(that's a long "i" sound, like the letter "i" or the word "eye")

"Simile" is a noun, the literary device of comparing something to another thing ("Her hair was like silk"). "Similes" is the plural form of it.

"Reviles" is the present tense form of the verb "revile" (to speak about with hatred or contempt). "He regularly reviles people who use mayonnaise on sandwiches."
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Never heard of these before, but I guess they are not that common anyway.
 
similes are commonly used but not talked about much out of english class. Revile is a fancy word for strong dislike.

Strong like bull. That is a simile. people will say it without even know that they are using a simile.
 
was that the ironic song? the one that wasn't ironic just things that suck. Ok it was maybe 1/10th ironic stuff.
 
I understand what you are saying but here is my take on it. My days in school were horrible and i failed a lot in school, because of this my English is pretty bad and my spelling is horrible and i have always been nervous to write to people and its been a problem of mine because i don't like people thinking I'm stupid. this is actually the first time i have made an effort to write on forums because i have always been to nervous to, its also very hard because i cant get my mind to stay focused on writing, even writing this i am getting distracted.

Now i have tried to learn how to spell and have proper grammar and what not but i just seem to not be able to get in trough my head. So that's why my spelling and grammar sucks! i know i have Defiantly gotten better at it than i used to be! So thank God for spell check and I'm sure other people have had the same problem as me so they might not be lazy but just get as smart as some people!

Writing this i did try and get the phrase 'I'm a smart fellow not a fart smeller' but it didn't seem to fit anywhere and i really wanted to say it!
 
ThatOneGuy said:
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I beg to differ.
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Ugh... speaking of GoT...
I was pretty upset during one episode when Jamie used the phrase "I could care less".

Wait, you could care less? So what you're trying to say is that you do care, and by the logic of your statement it's completely open to interpretation how much you care? Maybe what you're saying is that you actually care a lot, considering that you could easily care less?
If you're trying to state that you couldn't care less, then please, use the correct words!
George must have cringed when he heard that line on air.
 
For me the use of the word irregardless is a God Damned Crime.

Regardless
Adverb
Without paying attention to the present situation; despite the prevailing circumstances.

putting an ir- at the front of a word makes the meaning the opposite. People still use both of the words to mean the same thing. I hate it.
 
Jia said:
Ugh... speaking of GoT...
I was pretty upset during one episode when Jamie used the phrase "I could care less".

Wait, you could care less? So what you're trying to say is that you do care, and by the logic of your statement it's completely open to interpretation how much you care? Maybe what you're saying is that you actually care a lot, considering that you could easily care less?
If you're trying to state that you couldn't care less, then please, use the correct words!
George must have cringed when he heard that line on air.
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