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College: And The Future of Spelling and Grammar

Patches

Klingon Warrior Princess
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Hah. I'm in Grad school, and I had a Chem lab professor inform the students today that if he sees one more person spell "Separation Funnel" As "Seperation" in their lab notebook, he's docking points. Apparently nearly 50% of the students cannot spell separation. Spelling =/= intelligence.
 

Jaguar

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Hah. I'm in Grad school, and I had a Chem lab professor inform the students today that if he sees one more person spell "Separation Funnel" As "Seperation" in their lab notebook, he's docking points. Apparently nearly 50% of the students cannot spell separation.

I like your professor. :solidarity:
 

Octarine

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Is it because the younger generations have been taught to value the message over the form? Is it due to excessive reliance on electronic aids?
Is the change in college experiences due to the huge increase in the number accepted to enrol in college classes?
 

Thalassa

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Ok I'm not sure of your type OP, but I've seen a lot of this from INFJs, especially. I majored in English Literature and maintained a 3.9 GPA, belonged to several honor societies, and minored in French. However, I really am not a grammar maven. I value content over form.

I am disturbed when people are so ignorant that their writing is illegible or apparently illiterate (excepting cases of people who have a different mother tongue, particularly when that mother tongue utilizes a different alphabet) but I consider Southern dialect and Internet speak valid forms of language.

I'm not offended by the degredation of language in chat rooms or even what is spoken by lolcats because those are simply dialects, and all languages have various dialects. Languages also tend to change form, shape, and spelling over time.

Have you taken the history of the English language? Did you know we share a common ancestor with Slavic languages? It's absolutely mind boggling. If you go past middle English to old English it's shocking, let alone tracing our linguistic roots to parts of Iran and Russia.

Anyway, sure, it sucks when people are completely ignorant of how to properly use their own language in the written form. However, remember it's just your skill set, and the people who don't know how to properly use "your" and "you're" might excel at maths.
 

Thalassa

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Is it because the younger generations have been taught to value the message over the form? Is it due to excessive reliance on electronic aids?
Is the change in college experiences due to the huge increase in the number accepted to enrol in college classes?

You left an l out of "enroll." :coffee:
 

Orangey

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Grammatical errors can be ignored, for the most part, when they don't interfere with the meaning of the sentence (e.g., misused commas, typos, some spelling errors if they're not too egregious.) Confusions of their/there/they're or your/you're, however, inevitably interfere with meaning. That a set of differently-spelled words are homophones does not give one leave to use them interchangeably. For instance, the sentence - "I am allowed to go to school now" - makes no sense if the homophone is used - "I am aloud to go to school now." Is it really too much to expect that people who call themselves literate be capable of properly expressing what they MEAN in writing?
 

Orangey

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Doesn't the title of this thread have a grammar mistake?

"College: And The Future of Spelling and Grammar"

Either the colon is unnecessary or the first "And" is superfluous.

Actually you're wrong. "College: And The Future of Spelling and Grammar" is a title with a subtitle, not a sentence. The rules for colon usage in sentences therefore do not apply. It may be ugly and awkward, and it could probably be formed better without a colon, but there is nothing technically wrong with it.

Also, even if the thread title were an attempt at a sentence, it would not only be wrong because the colon should replace the coordinating conjunction, as you said, but also because the colon can only follow a complete sentence, and the single noun "college" is not a complete sentence.

Also, as a title with a subtitle, "The" is capitalized, and title/subtitle rules state that all conjunctions, prepositions, and articles, unless they begin the subtitle, should not be capitalized.
 
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