Why do so many people these days have such poor spelling?

Answer 1

I blame text messaging and IM for this. People are too lazy to spell things CORRECTLY so they make (not)cute little shortcuts--like U for you and all that crap. No one respects the fact that when you spell things correctly, you look intelligent. When you don't, you look stupid. Same thing goes for the way people talk.

Answer 2

There are two types of bad spellers. Type 1 confuses simple words like "to" & "too" and "there", "their" and "they're". They just didn't pay enough attention in elementary school. Annoying, yet forgivable.

Now type 2 are the bad ones. They are the ones who think it is "cool" to spell words wrong on purpose. Such as "Dis iz kewl" instead of "This is cool". Now sometimes people shorten words to save time, but type 2 will sometimes make the word LONGER with their alternative spelling. Definitly not cool.

Type 2 commonly RiTe LyKe DiS, which is also not cool.

Answer 3

It is because of the worthless, useless, cry baby, overpaid, underworked public school teachers. They receive full time pay and full time benefits...pay and benefits unheard of in the private sector and do a lousy job. They are off June, July, and August, come back to "work" in Sept. and start burning up their paid vacation days, paid sick days, etc., then start whinning that they are under paid, over worked, their class sizes are too big and they need more money and more benefits and their buddies and the teachers union buddies---the Democrats, keep giving them more and more and more. Well, what do we have to show for it?
People that can't spell and have lousy grammar and the proof is right here at Yahoo Answers. They should all be fired like Regan did with the Air Traffic Controllers and replaced with competent non union teachers.

Answer 4

Gosh, that's a great question, and I thought it was only me that noticed this? On yahoo answers - even with a spell check built in there are so many questions that are near impossible to even understand!

I think I would contribute that to two different things.. Number 1, I would imagine that there are simply so many ill educated people out there... For the fact that they are either too young, or maybe just educationally challenged? The second reason I would imagine is PURE LAZINESS! If you can't even click the spell check button before you send.... Doesn't that spell LAZY?

Answer 5

I don't think the percentage of people who can't spell has increased, but their access to a written mass medium has.

In the past, if you had poor spelling or were a terrible writer, no one but those to whom you wrote letters knew it.

I can't spell, by the way, but I'm pretty handy with a spell checker.

Then, of course, there are people like amy, who can only spell one word, and use it to demean strangers.

Answer 6

I think since computers are now another form of communication, there is computer spelling and proper language spelling. So, people are mixing the two up???

Answer 7

Spell Checkers...

Answer 8

I am also frustrated at the fact that people have poor spelling and that your encouraged to talk like this:
OMG...LMAO...LOL...IDK.
Also, why do people no longer capitalize the first word of a sentence and use proper punctuation when talking online?

Answer 9

I don't know. But it drives me insane. Who is teaching these kids? In my day you had to learn to spell. And don't even get me started on the subject of grammer. Glad I'm not the only one who's noticed this problem.

Answer 10

I believe there just isn't enough emphasis on it anymore.

I cannot stand it either.

Especially when most programs have a spell check that takes hardly any time to use.