Is good grammar in the United States on the decline, and what is the cause?

Question

Is it because of a poor educational system? Are people just lazy? Maybe it is related to chat room etiquette and slang usage.
Whatever your take, I'd like to hear it.

Answer 1

Of course its on the decline. Partly because of the educational system, partly because parents aren't demanding it in the home, and partly because of the internet influence. But I believe the biggest contributor is Apathy.

Answer 2

Go read the letters of US civil war soldiers, the footsloggers in the field. Many would quote poetry and had read many novels. Even at the turn of the 20th century when a grade 12 eduation became mandatory, it was sufficient for anyone to succeed in business and not need a university degree. Today, one can graduate university having not read any literature nor able to compose a proper English sentence.

The standards, spending and expectations of the US educational system have been gradually whittled down over many decades. The intent almost seems to be a return to the age of the "industrial revolution" when the masses, most workers, lived in slums and were often illiterate. The slow but steady destruction of the educational system is an attempt to eliminate the middle class, leaving only the poorly educated poor and the well educated and wealthy elite.

Answer 3

I believe it is not due to the educational system. The system itself has not changed in a way to match the decline in respectable grammar. Part of the problem is the internet and the means of communications that it provides. Many people fail to use proper punctuation, grammar and spelling out of laziness and because it is not as fast when typing in a chat. There is no online reward for the use or advocacy of proper grammar.

Answer 4

I think grammar, the educational system, etiquette, respect are all in decline in todays youth. ITs so sad to see teenagers speak so badly and it seems as if they're even proud of it. They have no shame speaking or writing badly. I have a friend who's a teacher and working on her masters, she told me some of the material they cover in class shows how poorly todays youth do in tests in comparison to kids in europe-where their native language isnt english. Its very sad. I'm sure a lot also has to do with the fact that some parents are not as involved in the education of their kids as well.

Answer 5

Not sure the poor grammar is due to our educational systems, but you might be right about the laziness. Our youth has created a whole new language on their computers, phones, television, ect. It has picked up quickly by many, and has become the new "cool thing".

Answer 6

Personally I think it's a mix of all 3. For example:

In terms of school and education, the schools are being to lazy and incompetent with the way they treat irrational behavior in kids. I've seen kids never change for gym the whole year. All they got were detentions and it didn't bother them. Now the school system is going through preparations to un-districtize with the neighboring town (my own town thank you very much) and they're already making drastic cuts from the Board of Ed budget. this includes at the high school I attend 6 para professionals, 2 out of the 5 janitors, and about one teacher per department, or about 7 teachers total. The school is really lacking too much.

Whether people are lazy, it all depends on the market and economy. With technology and instant gratification (see my best answer to a question on that at http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AjEUsedvIsNoImpPKt94_2bsy6IX?qid=20060615163648AANqJj6 ) the world is just all about "now" and not having to do anything. In fact I've seen sites that PAY you to post educated thoughts. It's ridiculous. You can order groceries online, get your income that way too via inter-computer networking, pay your bills, and never leave your chair for about a year. And with conveniently located cooking equipment and a telephone they're all set. Plus the fact that people seem to think that sparring 2 seconds by writting in shorter forms can lead to more time to correspond with other people, but in the end it becomes confusing and has been proven to lower test scores in people from middle school on. I've actually seen it in my own father's resume which he recently re-did because he was laid off due to an unstable company income at his last job. He works with computers and I saw such abrviations such as h/w and s/w. I knew these meant "hardware" and "software" respectively but it was his RESUME. I mean sure, the company he was applying to (and accepted to) would have known what it meant, I knew it was one of the most important documents you could ever write for your career.

And lastly, instant messaging is a HUGE factor in this. The small window messeging services provide to correspond with many people at once makes it almost a necessity to type in abreiviations and shorthand forms of things. But the fact that it's "new" and interesting makes it extremely popular too. Because of it, you have of course the monkey-see-monkey-do process, where the MSMD process is faster than the actual aging process. Like back in the mid 1990's when everyone was stil using dial-up connections the only people you would really see using instant messeging services were those in college or about to become a freshman in college. But then in the late 1990's your average high school kids got into it, and that leads to now, where you can frequently go online and find several real-life 12 year olds who aren't undercover police officers or anything like it. Sure, they might be getting some great experience with computers, but in the end they could be endangering a lot of people, especially themselves because it's been found that the sooner a person uses shorthand on instant messenging services the lower their test scores are going to be in the future and more likely they will get into trouble.

Plus, being a teen myself leads me to see how much it can affect people. I've been in plenty shorthand conversations online before (suprisingly, I know) and no one really seems to ever talk about anything. It's all "hey" "hey" "wtz up" "nutin" "OK col" kind of stuff. It also makes me see the person as more uneducated being unable to type corectly. I mean, if you know how to write English the characters on the keyboard should be fairly recognizable. Even if your words per minute is 5, it's still something.

Answer 7

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Answer 8

Poor educational system. You shouldn't be able to pass in school unless you pass English. It's pathetic. My cousin barely passed English class, she passed with a D, and she graduated. It's sad. It's your own language!! You should know it. But yeah, I think our educational system needs to improve.

Answer 9

I blame the increase in use of Instant Messenger type programs by the younger crowd. In chat people like to use shortcuts instead of typing the correct word or whatever.

Answer 10

People have laziness when it comes to type complete sentences or words.
That is why they say 4 instead or "for", or they say "don't" instead of "does not".
Or the infamous LOL: they hate having to type laugh out loud.
Norteamerican english will disappear if it keeps going as now.