I have spent much of my career assessing and correcting poorly written reports. It has become nearly impossible for me to read anything without wanting to mark it up for correction. My wife says I will likely take a box of red Sharpie markers to my grave just in case St. Peter (or more likely, the other guy....
) can't spell or punctuate.
About 30 years ago, the Ontario government introduced a new philosophy of language education called the "
whole language" approach. The idea was the children would "
discover" the language in their own way and so teachers were forbidden to correct spelling and grammar.
What an utterly idiotic concept.
The result is an entire generation of young people, many of whom cannot spell, punctuate or communicate an idea in a cogent manner and some of whom cannot even read properly. What a crippling lack of ability to have in the modern world. In other countries, young people can read, write and speak in their own language
AND usually in several others as well. If you go to Holland, every kid in every gas station can speak English about as well as I can and German too - along with, of course, Dutch.
The point is that there is only one way to spell every word (well, two for certain words like colour, odour and labour if you count the correct and American spellings) - and if you are not spelling them that way - then you are doing it
wrong. What the f@ck is the point in encouraging people to learn to to do something incorrectly.
We were all corrected when
we were little kids - and we somehow survived the ordeal FFS.
...an increasingly grumpy....
Pete