On a daily basis I laugh at the emails I receive at work. How does a person get through high school and come out not knowing basic grammar and punctuation? I mean, in the span of 12 years, I could have a doctorate for goodness sake. Can you not learn your own language in 12 years? And does no one read through their emails before hitting the send button?
Here is a good example:
"Attached is my thoughts for the basement. Let me know with and thoughts or suggestions on my design,"
Correction: Attached are my thoughts for the basement. Let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions on my design."
I also have people who add extra spaces into their sentences randomly, and use double punctuation (either repeat punctuation like double or triple questions marks, or like below):
"did we lose them. ?"
And of course, typos abound.
"We're a bit concerned about storage room in the kitchen (panty stuff)."
Hilarity. Obviously the word pantry was meant, but I still had a good chuckle. You store panties in your kitchen? Kinky.
I don't expect people to write perfect, 'Linguistics honor student' emails, but seriously people...is it that difficult to put a teensy bit of effort into the written language?
It seems like ever since letter writing has become virtually extinct, so has proper grammar.
I know Professor Higgins was referring to pronunciation, but I still think it applies.
*flounces off to look up Linguistics classes at U of C*
The chaos doesn't end there unfortunately. My favourite is when students and professors give powerpoint presentations with blatant spelling errors. That just makes me question whether they shuffled together this crap the night before. In the case of students: almost always yes. UGGH.
ReplyDelete*sighs*
ReplyDeleteLaziness and stupidity abound.