Has the respect for proper spelling and grammar skills become obsolete?

Question

I've noticed, in scanning the questions and answers here at Yahoo, that many of the posts if not completely unreadable due to typos, spelling errors and incomplete sentences, are only borderline legible. What's up people? My eight year old son, reading and writing at a grade two level, with a C- grade, can put a sentence together with more clarity than most posters here. Now I'm all for 'netspeak' but even that type of slang chatting requires one to follow some sort of rules.

For instance,

i say same in next box ---- Us shud lern speek gooder.

Answer 1

Right on. Net speak is good for e-mail and txt messages and even chat rooms. Yahoo answers even has a Spell check for goodness sake. NOW i'll admit i'm victim of a typo or so but it's not like I reply to an answer on here with a lot of (ur so hot..........i wnt.....2 gt to no u) blah blah blah. It's borderline obnoxious.

Answer 2

I do agree with your point as far as incomplete sentences, but not so much for the rest.

While there are quite a few out there who do not know how to spell a word, I believe most of the errors arise from people typing too fast and not revising after they are done. Often I even have the feeling of "as long as they know more or less what I'm talking about," then what is the difference. If I were writing an actual essay/paper/speech of some kind I would most definitely put in the work of revising my words, but I'm just here to e-yell at people I disagree with.

In fact, the misspellings and such would suggest I'm typing very quickly (which would suggest an angry hand at the keyboard). So all these misspellings could actually be seen as better communication (since it might get across the feeling better). LOL.

Answer 3

I think it has! Reading so many of these questions is downright painful. And some are so poorly written one can't be sure of what the question really is.

I agree that netspeak is appropriate in certain places, but not everywhere.

Use spell check at the very least, people! It's time for a revolution. ; )

Answer 4

I agree with you. I'm beginning to wonder what business correspondence, web sites, newspapers and magazines, consumer user manuals, etc. will look like in a few more years. Already I've seen magazines in which the English makes me cringe. Maybe after my retirement I can make money cleaning up the marginal English of the Internet generation, editing their documents and/or teaching remedial English.

Answer 5

I agree with you. Being older....I can understand some of the netspeak....and understand why 'kids' do this. But, when posting on a baord such as this, you would think they would try to do better. This makes for bad habits following them through life. And it is scary when I actually see certain questions being asked. Is this where the system is failing them? Or do they, the schools and their parents just not care??

Answer 6

You are so right. Many of the people posting questions on this site are minimally educated and are barely literate. They speak and type in slang and often ask questions that are entirely inappropriate.

Answer 7

AMEN, AMEN, AMEN.... I just think people have stopped having any respect for the English language. Grammatically I am not as proficient as most people but the spelling thing, come on there is a button that says check spelling why won't people use it???

Answer 8

It's outrageous how ppl don't think it matters so much and it shows how we Americans r so prone to not care about our language and grammar. It's just deplorable.

Answer 9

Wit all doo respet I-DUNNO Wat choo sez u sez