Two recent blog posts from journalists bemoan the general lack of understanding of English language basics – namely spelling and grammar.
First up we have David Neal at IT Week bemoaning that: "With the proliferation of online and mobile blogs, and up-to-the-minute news
reporting it appears that correct spelling in communications is becoming less
and less important."
Then we have the the guys at Getting Ink railing against standards of grammar in PR: "I did some training with a London agency last week, and in a room of eight graduates, not one of them could tell me the definition of a noun, adjective or verb. To be kind, one of them did have a go at defining pronoun, but unfortunately she got it confused with an adverb."
(NB: this post had its fair share of typos).
So – are standards of literacy in such decline they threaten our ability to communicate? You could argue that this lack of language standards belies a more worrying inability to think clearly. Thinking and language are deeply entwined – poor language = poor thinking.
Then again, having the odd typo in a blog post I don’t think constitutes the end of civilisation as we know it.