Theory about Poor Spelling, Grammar

I watch a lot of TV, far more than I probably should. But growing up, I was an avid reader, too. I would participate in the MS Read-A-Thon, and just generally enjoyed a good book. I was an early reader too (around two years old), and wasn't really taught how to read ... I just sort of figured it out on my own. There was something about a book that intrigued me enough to want to puzzle it out.

Of course, reading is one way that we pass language on to each other (the other, of course, is speaking). And I think that's why the following statistics shocked me:

• One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.Many do not even graduate from high school.
• 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
• 42% of college graduates never read another book.
• 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
• 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
• 57% of new books are not read to completion.
• Most readers do not get past page 18 in a book they have purchased.
• 63% of adults report purchasing at least one book during the previous three-month period. (Most were probably exaggerating).

Now, I've heard of people buying books just to show that they have it, recognizing that the right book says a lot about your taste and personality. But the fact that people are just not reading them really surprises me. However, I think this explains the trends I've seen where people on the Internet are misspelling, misusing, and generally abusing the English language.

So my theory is this: While we used to have two primary forms of passing on language, a written and oral tradition, the advent of the television as entertainment is causing most people to receive their primary language education only in audible form.

Ah, but you might say, "What about the Internet?" I struggled with that for a bit, but I finally settled on a rationale. The Internet has a lower barrier to entry than book publishing. Books are subject to strict editing guidelines, while a web page could be published by anyone. As abuses of language have crept into the Internet, others read them and if they don't know that the words and phrases are incorrect, they will accept them and proceed to spread them around as well.

No where is this more prevalent than in colloquialisms that are primarily heard (or misheard, as the case may be) instead of read. While these can be pretty funny, it truly surprises me to read some of these in an Internet forum, and find that they are rarely challenged by anyone. People probably think that they, themselves, are the ones that are wrong, rather than the poster. One of my personal favorites is someone who wrote "for all intensive purposes" as opposed to "for all intents and purposes". If you misheard this, you probably wouldn't think twice, but the error is quite glaring in print.

It's not just Joe Internet, either. As the statistics above show, adults just aren't reading as much (or at all), and the education they received starts to erode. I've seen executives make similar mistakes to the ones above, as well as falling into the typical grammar traps (multiple versions of Their, Its, etc). I have to assume that when you stop seeing the words used correctly on a regular basis, it becomes easy to forget about them. It's sad because there is a massive amount of credibility that comes with a mastery over language that many people just don't have (or lose the moment you see them misuse a term or phrase). Then again, if the people they're corresponding with don't know the difference, is there really any effect?

I think a significant part of the problem could be what I'm seeing as the "Dumbening of America". Kids are no longer encouraged to succeed in school, and are even encouraged by their peers to go out of their way to avoid looking too smart. Our culture holds vapid personalities like Paris Hilton on a pedestal, and we're more interested in the social exploits of Lindsey Lohan than we are with current events. Even the evening news is pandering to the lowest common denominator by becoming more entertainment than information, more concerned with telling you what happened on last night's hit reality series than what happened in reality.

Is there a solution? Besides becoming your friendly neighborhood Grammar Nazi, I'm not entirely sure that there is a solution that doesn't start in our homes and schools. I was hoping that books like Harry Potter would start a reading renaissance, but even Harry Potter was a fairly easy read. I think that our schools need to push standards more ... the language abuses I see in college papers are astounding ... and I think that parents need to push their kids to excel.

Maybe I should write a book ...

Technorati tags: English, Grammar, Books, Reading, Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, News, Internet