Amn't I Intelectal?

A long time ago, written language was not well documented. People would spell things as they saw fit, sometimes spelling the same word differently several times in one document. Then, one glorious day, Thomas Blount made a comprehensive dictionary. No longer would there be confusion over homophones in writing; now, steak was something you eat, and stake was something you put in the ground. Life was good.

Sadly, we are reverting back to our less educated selves, falling into a state where thiss iz exeptable.

The amount of sheer stupidity in the masses never fails to disappoint me. Granted, I'm a bit of a stickler for grammar, but the utter lack of recognition for the most basic rules of the English language is simply unacceptable. There are times when I want to sit people down, give them three hundred sentences with one word missing (the word being either "its" or "it's") and electrocute them every time they get one wrong. I was living in something of a bubble until last year, when I had to read a script a high school freshman wrote. I thought people only used horrific grammar and spelling in online chatting out of laziness, and they would take it up a notch for a paper. Here is the character synopsis from said script, exactly as I received it:

Characters-
Jade - anger management problome brown hair and blue eyes. Short about 5'2 ½, very sophisticated looking always dressing in something presentable. Very pessimistic person. Mike's sister and Jess's sister

Jessica- jade's sister and mike's brother ditzy blond, sorta tall about 5'5. Doesn't have a clue with what going on half the time.

Mike- normal guy, dirty blond hair, very optimistic. Has two sisters jade and jess.

Therepist-

Mrs. Sampson 68 yr old women who lives next door. Walks with a cane. Always bothers mike and his family

All in late early 20's live together

Now, since the situation allows for sentence fragments and comma splices, I won't count those types of errors. The above passage contains seven errors related to spelling, and six capitalization errors (the correctly capitalized words were most likely a result of Word's autocorrect). But those aren't what makes this unreadable. The wording, if it can be called that, is abysmal. "All in late early 20's live together." I seriously can't understand how this thought made its way through the author's brain. First, it's a run-on. Second, "late early 20's" do not exist. Third, Mrs. Sampson is not in her 20's at all, nor does she live with the others. I don't need to elaborate on all of this, but, all in all, it is poorly written, gives too much specific information with far too little real information on the characters, and sounds like it was written for a chat room. Here's another passage from this epic play:

Mrs. S- go see dr. solver on problome st. He does sibilibg therepy my sisters and I did it after not speaking to each other for 3 years and it worked were like best friends now we've joined the knitting club the sewing club, (Keeps going on and on)

Mike- ok well I might I'll see you later. Goodbye. (Shuts door in her face)

Mike- glad that's over. Jess I'm going to bed I have a major headach.

Jess- ok see you in the morning

Mike- yeah not looking forward to it.

Aaagh. It burns my eyes. Sibilibg? What the hell? The entire first line is two sentences. It should be five (or fewer with semicolons). Eight commas are missing from five lines. Four, actually, since the second and third should be the same line. When I see something like this, I can't but wonder: has this person ever read a script? And if so, did she pay one iota of attention to it? If not because of the poor execution of the plot, then because of the formatting. Here's the last example:

Jade- NO!!!!! NO!!! NO!!! (stomps her foot down) I'm am not going!! Not at all!! (Turns the other way)

(Jess's narcallepse kicks in and falls to the ground. Right beside the car) (jade and mike don't even notice)

Mike- (tries to pull her in)

Jade- NO!!! NO WAY!!! I'm not going and you (pointing a finger at him) can't make me.

(Mike walks toward her and drags her in) (With jade kicking and screaming

OK, people, listen to me carefully. This is important. You never, ever need more than two of the same punctuation marks next to each other. In fact, the only time you should have two punctuation marks next to each other is a question mark followed by an exclamation point (?!). Adding exclamation points does not add any more emphasis to the exclamation. Do you think doing that helps make it clear that you're asking a question??????? No!!!!!!! The only time this is acceptable is when you're mocking the people who do it seriously...........

I'm not trying to be a nazi about this. I don't mind if you relax your grammar in casual situations, or if you don't know the difference between 'farther' and 'further', but when people just don't care about the easiest facets of the language, ("its" and "it's" leap to mind) I just want to punch someone, and it usually ends up being whoever's closest to me. So it's probably beneficial that I have no roommate.

Comments