
Is Our Children Learning Enough Grammar to Get Hired? - andrewl
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/08/13/is-our-children-learning-enough-grammar-to-get-hired
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billswift
Pendarvis Theory of Technology: _"..., it is my theory that everything wrong
with everything is the fault of language teachers.

"If a child is taught that it is all right if you mis-spell a word
occasionally, or don't always punctuate exactly correctly, then you are
teaching that child that small mistakes are okay, as long as people know
pretty well what is meant. I feel this is a dangerous attitude to foster in a
highly technological society."_

from William Tuning's novel _Fuzzy Bones_

He goes on with an example that could have come from what I have read about
one of the difficulties that contributed to the problems at Three-Mile Island;
not paying enough attention to what the instruments were saying (as an example
of inadequate attention to detail).

Steve Allen's _Dumbth_ ( [http://www.amazon.com/Dumbth-Thinking-Reason-Better-
Improve/...](http://www.amazon.com/Dumbth-Thinking-Reason-Better-
Improve/dp/1573922374/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344942834&sr=8-1&keywords=dumbth)
) discusses how things have broken down in general over decades; and it long
pre-dates the texting and Twitter used as excuses for sloppy grammar several
of the essays' writers fall back on.

~~~
gte910h
To this I retort with Steven Fry's piece on language pedantry:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY>

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gte910h
I think that older generations are unaware the current generation's grammar
skills are not particularly bad or good, just more likely to be explicitly
tested. I know plenty of 30 and 40 year olds who write like crap, with
horrible grammar.

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lutusp
Obviously one can make too much of bad grammar and spelling and misjudge an
applicant, but there's another angle to this -- good grammar and spelling send
a clear signal that the applicant probably reads a lot.

One cannot easily learn good English grammar and spelling by rote, because
there are too many pitfalls and exceptions. My favorite example is "I before E
except after C". It turns out that more words in a typical dictionary violate
this rule than obey it. My next favorite example are those who, over the
years, have written me to comment on my ... choose one ... Web
site|sight|cite. (This specific example shows the risk of relying on audio
media rather than print.)

I recently visited a bookstore and saw this poster: "The Tragedy of Illiteracy
-- now available as an audiobook."

By reading, one grasps the subtleties of grammar and spelling through example.
More reading, more lexical seasoning.

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jack-r-abbit
ok... I'm no grammar expert but isn't the article title using improper
grammar? With _children_ being a plural form of _child_ I would have started
that question with _are_ not _is_. _Is children..._ doesn't sound right not
me. If you rearrange the words so it is a statement and not a question ( _Our
Children Is Learning Enough Grammar to Get Hired._ ) using _is_ sounds bad to
me. Is it trying to be ironic?

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Kronopath
Yes, it's being ironic. It's also a reference to this infamous Bush quote:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ej7ZEnjSeA>

~~~
jack-r-abbit
oops... totally forgot about that gem. Now I just look like an idiot.

~~~
Kronopath
Happens to the best of us.

