Why can't people write?

[Dan Friedrichs]

I realize not everyone is gifted in the art of writing effectively, but in the last week alone, I've seen the following:

I test drove a car at a dealership whose slogan was, "If you buy somewhere else, you paid too much!". How can not a single person who works at this huge dealership see the mismatched verb tense in that?

In a fairly-upscale restaurant, I saw a sign for the " RESTROOM'S ". I'm curious what it is that the restrooms own.

In a letter from a car dealer I found this gem of a sentence: "If you loose these documents they will need to be replaced this is expensive and you will have to pay for them." Hopefully my new car will "run on" for as long as that sentence did...

In the catalog for a smaller woodworking tool supplier, I barely made it 3 pages in before setting the catalog aside in disgust with how poorly written it was. The little bit that I read was rife with usage errors, punctuation mistakes, and misspellings.


Is it just me, or are these sort of things appearing more often? I fear that a generation of functionally illiterate citizens will leave us with no one to correct the mistakes.

[Prashun Patel]

your absilutly write;

[John Coloccia]

your absilutly write;

Stop making fun oh him pRashun hes a nice guy thats pretty funny about the restrooms maybe they own the coat hook ha ha

!

[Tom Winship]

The goal of our education system is to bring everyone to the same level, so we can communicate.

[bob svoboda]

Never could figure out how to loose a document.

[Chris Padilla]

Not a spelling/grammatical issue but the slogan:

"We'll beat anyone's price or it's free!"

The only way they'd give away something for free is if the price to beat is 1 cent.

[Dan Hintz]

The goal of our education system is to bring everyone to the same level, so we can communicate.

Unfortunately, that level is riiiiight above my kneecap...

[Dave Anderson NH]

Tom has hit the nail on the head. In arithmetic it's called the lowest common denominator.

[Joe Leigh]

The dumbing (I know it's not a real word) down of our once great nation reaches far beyond grammatical errors. When's the last time anyone under the age of 25 wrote in script? Is it still taught? We are raising generations of kids who cannot tell time on a wristwatch, much less construct a legible sentence.

[Chuck Wintle]

I realize not everyone is gifted in the art of writing effectively, but in the last week alone, I've seen the following:

I test drove a car at a dealership whose slogan was, "If you buy somewhere else, you paid too much!". How can not a single person who works at this huge dealership see the mismatched verb tense in that?

In a fairly-upscale restaurant, I saw a sign for the " RESTROOM'S ". I'm curious what it is that the restrooms own.

In a letter from a car dealer I found this gem of a sentence: "If you loose these documents they will need to be replaced this is expensive and you will have to pay for them." Hopefully my new car will "run on" for as long as that sentence did...

In the catalog for a smaller woodworking tool supplier, I barely made it 3 pages in before setting the catalog aside in disgust with how poorly written it was. The little bit that I read was rife with usage errors, punctuation mistakes, and misspellings.


Is it just me, or are these sort of things appearing more often? I fear that a generation of functionally illiterate citizens will leave us with no one to correct the mistakes.

the english language is easy to learn but difficult to master and the ability to write effectively is not a given.

[Mike Cruz]

I've said it before, I'll say it again...

Think about how stupid the average person is...half the population is dumber (like that? ) than that... Makes you sad, doesn't it?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Technology will add to the problems too!

JMHO.........DAMHIKt........CUL8R

[Don Alexander]

we embarked on a very treacherous journey when English class "evolved" into Language Arts; at first it was just a name, but the farther we travel down that slippery slope the less it resembles English and the more it resembles Art

communication may be the single most important skill for people to master , however that requires a few simple concepts that have been scorned ; such as sentence structure, grammar and vocabulary. To use a building analogy vocabulary is the footing upon which the foundation (grammar) and the building itself (sentence structure) depend.

Communication is a 2 way street; the person speaking or writing needs to know what the words mean in order to say what is meant and just as importantly the person/people hearing/reading it also need to know what the words mean in order to understand what is being communicated.
When neither side the equation have a good grasp of the basic meaning of words then what you end up with is chaos instead of communication.
This is a very disturbing trend if you stop to think about it for a minute. As the father of a college freshman and a high school senior i find that getting my kids to understand what i am saying to them often is an exercise in making sure they understand what the words mean. I shudder to think just how poor their communication skills would be had we not insisted from the start that they learn the meaning of the words they use.
Communicating with their teachers and school counselors over the years has been enlightening as far as just how badly communication skills have eroded over the years

ok enough of ranting i'll step off my soapbox now

[Chuck Wintle]

don't forget that English is the dominant language of the planet...yet it is one of the most flexible languages so it is adapted locally to make it work. Pratt and Whitney use English exclusively in all company communications. They issue a small dictionary of about 800 words so those whose first language is not english can make themselves understood when communicating. That said, where i live the English language is almost outlawed...i hope to live to the day when this is no longer the case.

Long live the Queens English and all those who use it!

[Roger Newby]

i spik 3 language....inglish best