Spelling & Grammar - There's hope yet

A fair point Big Red, but you are guilty of the same generalisation when you suggest that the older generation have misconceptions about the youth of today. Most of this 'older generation' are intimately invloved with the 'youth of today'; they raise them in fact.

Matt.

The youth of today, hooning, drinking and getting into fights, lucky we oldies never did anything like that when we young L.O.L.

haha yeah but you didn't have a pretty newsreader on today tonight making into a bloody soap opera ;-)

When do the media focus on anything other than the negative aspects of anything ? Bad news sells, good news bores.

I would add that the young writer of that article was also an avid reader.
I don't believe that anyone can write well unless they ARE readers!
Those who read a lot have a predominant left brain ie., language, as opposed to right brain ie., mathematics. I would surmise from this that most of us have no choice in what our strengths or weaknesses may be.
Our weaknesses can be strengthened by motivated teachers and parents.
Without one or both of them we are cheating our children of the right to fulfill themselves to their maximum potential and that is criminal in this day and age!

OzeSheila.

Ozesheila,
Have you got your left and right mixed up? Otherwise, I agree with you.

Actually, if "your" and "you're" were always used correctly, the grammaical errors on this very fine site would be about halved! Without any doubt, "your" when "you're" should be used is by far the most common (and often confusing) error. Your shout, your GQ, your SWMBO ... You're a member, you're coming round the mountain, you're a smart a!se .....

Fizz, don't loose site of another frequent one or two....

Oops Fizz, I do believe you're right.

I Googled that info too! Now, after Googling once more and being side-tracked into doing a test, I find that I am a right-brained individual, that's probably why I made that mistake. Well, that's my excuse and I am sticking to it.

On the subject of grammar and spelling; every child should have a little Irish grandmother who will not allow any sort of mistake or slang to be used within her hearing and then you would see the quality of this nations language improve 'outa sight.' (I can feel her ghostly presence, hovering over my shoulder, trying to rap my knuckles for that last uncouth utterance.)

OzeSheila.

Geoff

My second last apprentice (now 4 years in the trade) won WA apprentice of the year (hole hog play offs) and came second in QLD top apprentice of Australia was beaten by a Queenslander (RIGED)

Yes there are a lot of good young people out there (And I was one of them once) LOL

It obviously is of interest to people on this site, judging by the responses to the post to which I referred.

Who appointed you the site policeman?

I think it's cyclical BIG_red87, like global warming.

The same subject was raised on 4wd monthly forum last week and it went for quite a while. I think we oldies get tired of slogging through the verbal vomit which is becoming the common form of communication these days.

So off we go on these tangents, hoping against hope that the people who write in this manner just might pick up some 'keyboard manners.' If they do it's probably more by osmosis than effort on their own behalf. Certainly they won't/can't learn through the education system that has ruled for the past 20 years or so.

OzeSheila

Au-2

As long as the general meaning is there then who cares about the fine tuning... I don't really think we can blame the education system for people making a few errors on an online forum.

Au-2
I wouldn't worry to much about the spelling, when some people use non-exictent words like "ain't" That to me is a bigger worry!
Dave..

it aint a problem i reckon that yous are all using non-exictent words

Um . . . excuse me BIG_red87, did you fellows get some new words out of the dictionary? I can't find them in my 50 year old version or my new Collins edition. See. . . this is what happens when you get old; you don't know if your memory is failing or people are inventing new words because they don't know any old (appropriate) words.

When I see what some of the young 'uns write and how they write it these days, I am reminded of being shown a picture (scribble) drawn by a two year old and not being able to see what appears to be so clear to the artist. One tries not to hurt their feelings by offering encouragement, only to find that you have hurt them because you have suggested something is a tree when, according to the artist, it is a house.

When I was told by a teacher 20 years ago that it was only important that the student understood what he had written I was, to say the least, gobsmacked! I was also heartily thankful that I had sent my child to this school, fully able to read. In fact, this same teacher used my son to help her teach his peers. This stuffed up his motivation, as he wanted to finish set tasks so that he could go to the Leggo corner to play. He didn't want to teach the other kids, even if he was good at it.

Maybe the system has changed, if so, I hope for the better, because it could not get much worse than it has been.
OzeSheila.

Oh how mistaken i am - we should all rely on 50 year old reference material to guide us through the world today...I'm sure it wasn't illegal to talk on a mobile phone whilst driving, how appropriate ;-)

That was poor performance by the teacher in your case, however i think it's a bit excessive to extend your one experience as a representation of the education system as a whole. Like any industry there are good and bad employees.

Haha exploroz has turned into a primary school classroom with all this discussion of spelling and grammar - bloody GoneTroppo ;-)

Cheers
Big Red