somethin too consider

we right different from what we talk this much i no to bee true, i've even saw it with my own to eyes. in this age of text messaging instant messaging and emailing we always are in such a hurry that it becomes two timely to apply the rules are grade school teachers tried so fervently to instill in us. butt what does that suggest of us what is it about our lives that make them so complicating that we ca'nt construct our writin proper?

HAPPY NATIONAL GRAMMAR DAY!

In the spirit of what has quickly become my favorite (technically) unofficial holiday, I've decided to remind myself of why I do what I do. I take consolation in the difficulty of composing that first paragraph. It took nearly thirty minutes, and it was a profoundly difficult undertaking. The final question, however, is perfectly legit and concerning. Why can we no longer be bothered with proper writing? What happened to the formally composed letter? What happened to the ability to write a draft then a second draft and finally a third? I don't want to get carried away and blame the total dissolution of concern for the mechanics of language on the word processor, but there is something disconcerting about a word processing program that thinks it's smarter than I am.

I find it disheartening that so many people seem to lack the fundamentals of English grammar. Are schools not teaching it anymore? Why have we forgotten why it's important to actually write the word you instead of typing the letter u? And why have we started using commas as breath marks, as opposed to their intended purposes?

We used to tell children to mind their ps and qs. We always make sure we dot every i and cross every t. Is it too much to ask that we put the comma in front of the coordinating conjunction? Has the task of properly placing a preposition become so arduous we can't even bother ourselves to do it anymore?

This post is full of questions to which I will probably never have answers. Maybe I'm one of the few remaining grammarians who think these things are important. Maybe grammar is a dying art. Or maybe not. (Yes, that would be me making full and glorious use of the sentence-fragment-for-emphasis rule.)

For my part I am trying to rid the world of its lack of concern for all things grammatical one student at a time. I firmly believe that being able to express your opinions and thoughts articulately on a page is a valuable skill in every arena of life. And as long as there are those of us who still believe in the importance of communicating in complete sentences, grammar will continue to wield power over the written word.