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Journalists no longer know how to use grammar

10K views 183 replies 31 participants last post by  1SweetRide 
#1 ·
This is just one example of dozens I see everyday now.

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#3 ·
i have a theory about this. maybe it's wrong, but maybe not:

back in the day, there were proof readers. i only know about them, because my cousin was one. i don't remember now who she worked for, but when ever anyone wrote an article, it was passed to her for grammar, spelling and punctuation, sentence structure, etc. at some point, someone developed software to do this. of course the software isn't going to get it right all the time, it's not human, and can't make decisions the same way a person might.


some of you may notice a certain irony here. me of all people commenting on a thread about this subject. for the purpose of clarity, i do it deliberately. i always go back and check my spelling. it's rare to find a spelling mistake in my post.
i'm not a fan of capitol letters or punctuation, and let's be honest here - i've turned run-on sentences into an art form.
but my spelling is almost always good.
 
#9 ·
I think people started noticing bad spelling & grammar in the mid-90s when things started to go online. Most errors these days aren't grammar or spelling, they're typos or substitutes that computer software either can't pick up or it subs in itself. AI is slowly fixing that.

But the majority of readers can get the gist of your meaning just using the first & last letters of most words.

Yio kiuw wkit I mien?
 
#11 ·
I'm not usually one to nitpick over grammar or spelling. Especially not in a text message or even a forum post. But if I see a news article with a typo in the headline, I can't help but think if they are that lazy with correcting simple spelling errors then how lazy are they with the reporting. A lot of online news articles these days seem to be clickbait. Even when it's an article about a serious event or issue I frequently get the impression it's being written by an unpaid intern who is basically copying and pasting from other articles found via a Google search.
 
#12 ·
Who ever does the captions at the bottom of the screen for my local TV station is poorly read.
You know the ones, it has the news stations logo and colour scheme and has type to say what city, or the reporter, the name of the person being interviewed or a catchy headline. It’s a bit of a joke.

While we’re on the subject… has anyone else noticed the new batch of reporters don’t use “T” anymore? They pronounce it as a “D”.

As in: “Impor-dand” WTF?!?!?
 
#15 ·
We can read same flaws in Quebec most popular French newspaper...
As I do learn more English words and phrases in most popular French TV soaps these days...
Do you know that it is in office officers that write article headlines and cut texts ?
It says much !
I often get a better picture of a news after reading two newspapers : Is it the writer's or the editor's falt ?
 
#25 ·
A lot of times it's auto-correct, and the author being too lazy to re-read what they wrote after that step. Predictive text is another one that can cause these issues.
Mostly boils down to people working gadgets with their thumbs (rather than keyboards) and the short cuts that this requires. And that goes beyond grammar problems to the entire dumbing down of the internet.
 
#33 ·
1) They say that anyone who tries to act as their own lawyer and defend themselves in court has a fool for a client. I think a similar logic applies to anyone who feels they can rely on spell-checking software. To put it mildly, you get what you check for.

2) When I was completing my M.Sc. in the early '80s, the running joke in our department was that one shouldn't use the word "causal" in one's thesis or dissertation because the secretaries (who typed out manuscripts as a side-gig) would invariably "correct" the word "causal" to be "casual".

3) I suppose we can attribute some of Mark/1SR's gripe to the decline of attention to spelling in the education system. But I suspect a bigger share of it resides with the general decline of proofreading, and allocating resources to it by publishers. I would be remiss if I did not mention the role that I think mobile devices and rapid two-thumbs typing plays. So-called smart-phones and services like Twitter, encourage quick impulsive messaging, much of which circumvents rule of spelling in order to stuff more "content" into a modest character limit. As great a musician as Prince was, he didn't help either with his constant substitution of numbers and individual letters for words (R U 4 real?).

4) As I feel compelled to do here, once every few years, I present to you an unaltered ad, that appeared in the Pennysaver here some years back, for what has to be the BEST apartment ever. If you have ever had an absolutely desperate and urgent need for, um, "service", this was the one. Well, not unless there was a spelling error of some kind.
White Black Font Publication Newspaper
 
#37 ·
I'd go more towards college/uni grads that made it, not through accuracy and rules of language, but what felt good about what they wrote and how much time they spent in the safe space cry closet.
 
#41 ·
I don't think the cause in the younger generation is autocorrect or typing on small devices. It's the lack of care for getting it right. All the big stars they admire twist words around to make them "cool". It all started with that popular movie Happyness. Now every kid thinks that's how you spell it.
 
#48 ·
I think we can go several decades further back than that. Think about how many products, services, and retailers spelled "and" as "N" or "right" as "rite", and so on. Even ToysRUs is in on the subversion. No, it goes back a lot further than recent pop culture.

A lot of this is a sort of extrapolation of Grice's conversational maxims, but in written form. In other words, by diverging visibly from how something should be, and is expected to be spelled, one conveys surplus meaning in a sort of "hidden code" form. So use of "-n-" instead of "and" is intended to convey "we're not like those other products or vendors; we're on your side". There's a fascinating semiotics of deliberate language corruption. I was introduced to it by this book: Cool: The Signs and Meanings of Adolescence: Danesi, Marcel: 9780802004673: Books - Amazon.ca

I've been blathering on for years about what I call the "adolocentric society", that has increasingly adopted the norms and objectives of adolescence as some sort of de facto standard for how we should behave, and what we should aspire to. Sociolinguists will note that a big part of how adolescents talk is intended to differentiate themselves both from their parents and from other social groups. In other words, misspelling and misuse of words ("that's really sick") has the purpose of aligning oneself with age-mates and differentiating oneself from older persons. It becomes their "secret code" for communicating with each other in a way that an older generation wouldn't (and shouldn't) understand. The purpose is ostensibly to forge a sense of identity through group membership. I.E., "We understand each other, so we're not like them, which means I know who I am - I'm one of us and NOT them". It's an understandable and important aspect of adolescent development; likely observable for centuries. It becomes problematic when it extends well beyond one's teens and early 20s and is carried over into one's 40s and 50s, which is the trend and scenario I refer to as "adolocentric".

But, all of that being said, I think it unwise to attribute the decline of "proper" language to any single thing. This is a mountain being eroded by many different factors on all sides.
 
#42 ·
I just had an email from my bosses boss that was so devoid of any grammar, punctuation, or appropriate capital letters at the beginning, or used in the names of people in the email. They are in their 50’s. It’s complete laziness.
I was taught email protocol at my very first job I needed it daily. I’ve taken it with me. Flippant correspondence now is the norm.
 
#43 ·
I just had an email from my bosses boss that was so devoid of any grammar, punctuation, or appropriate capital letters at the beginning, or used in the names of people in the email. They are in their 50’s. It’s complete laziness.
I was taught email protocol at my very first job I needed it daily. I’ve taken it with me. Flippant correspondence now is the norm.
TLDR :)
 
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