Why can't people write?

[John Coloccia]

John,

Get a sundial... it never needs winding and always goes in the right direction ;-)

Very cute

[Kent A Bathurst]

While it's funny (and easy) to call kids today lazy and not so smart, I'd like to pose a different side of the equation. Who raised all those kids to be like that? Other kids? Nope. Parents who are in their 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's now. So want to call them out, stand in front of the mirror and take responsibility for what your generations created!

No kidding - that took me back. A "B" required [a] explanation, and [b] discussion on how that was going to improve next period. A "C" got extended grounding to free up time for monitored "study hall" - very, very few of those - 1? 2 maybe?. Screwing around with grades was absolutely not tolerated.

[Stephen Tashiro]

Unfortunately we have allowed internet speak to invade every realm of our society. .

I'm glad the internet has taken over from television as the primary cause of the decadence in youth. I've stopped watching television and would feel left out if TV was the only place to get the good stuff.

As far as written English goes, I think that texting will have more of an effect than the internet. It will be hard to get used to seeing words like "u" and "plz". However, we have been able to accept "Ok" and "thru" (as in "drive-thru pickup window"). Plus we accept countless acronyms like "SOP".

Speaking of spell checkers, the one I'm using with the Opera web browser at this moment doesn't like the spelling of "internet" or "texting" or "online".

Members of the Spelling Police can enjoy submitting "product information" corrections to the Amazon website. I periodically try to correct the misspellings "Gaugin" (for the artist) , 'definately", and "extention" in product titles.

Too lazy to use spell check is real lazy and not funny at all.

As complaints by old timers go, that's a relatively modern one . You're not going to complain that kids don't learn to spell for themselves these days? The true state of spell-for-yourself skills are revealed in the titles of posts. On my browser, the spell checker doesn't automatically catch misspellings in the titles. I'm too lazy to highlight them and run it manually -yes, too lazy to use a spell checker.

[Jim Koepke]

Oops I didn't even read past this to the very next post!

A very human experience.

So often done by so many.

My thoughts didn't take the minute/degree relationship into account until after posting. By the time I got back, others had.

jtk

[Pat Germain]

I work with some very intelligent people. Most of them have a Masters or PhD in engineering. But many of them can't write a complete sentence, let alone a coherent paragraph. Apparently, if you can do math well, schools don't care if you can write.

As a parent, I put forth a lot of effort making sure my son and daughter could read well, spell well and write well with proper punctuation. (Even after my daughter's school started a "Whole Language" program where all rules of English are completely ignored.) This made my kids very unique among their peers. I attended a Freshman orientation with my son as he was starting college. There were a few hundred new students in a large classroom. A guidance counselor asked, "Do we have anyone taking Remedial English?". All but my son and a few other students raised their hands. As I understand it, the vast majority of college Freshmen today must take Remedial English. My son often takes some ribbing for being an English major. But I dare say most engineering students couldn't have done it!

[Larry Frank]

I am an engineer with a Masters and can do the math and write sentences. I do not know where the idea comes from that they are mutually exclusive. As an engineer, it is important to be able to write updates and reports. The schools that I know about stress the importance of writing and reporting.

[Gordon Eyre]

Irregardless, they are doing there best.

[Dan Hintz]

Irregardless, their doing there bestest.

Fixed that for ya...

[Jim King]

Having lived in several countries and using several languages non of which I mastered to the point that they could be considered first language level I see this a bit different. Our fore fathers came to the States with a variety of languages and dialects and they put it all together to make a great country. Most were not educated.

Today it is different and with a special program in the schools for any type of problem there is little or no excuse for improper language skills. The exception to the rule is the many students whom have another first language of which many are backwords in form to English. Just one example, in Spanish you don´t have a "black cat" you have a "cat black". These things are hard for many to over come and more so with age and accent.

What is amazing is that foreign students that are not speaking a native language are showing up at the top of the rank in the University systems thru out the US. Having been trained as a designer I changed from writing to printing at about 19 and now cannot write at all. My signature has even turned to a hybrid printing form but legible. Complicated subject.

[John Coloccia]

I work with some very intelligent people. Most of them have a Masters or PhD in engineering. But many of them can't write a complete sentence, let alone a coherent paragraph. Apparently, if you can do math well, schools don't care if you can write.

As a parent, I put forth a lot of effort making sure my son and daughter could read well, spell well and write well with proper punctuation. (Even after my daughter's school started a "Whole Language" program where all rules of English are completely ignored.) This made my kids very unique among their peers. I attended a Freshman orientation with my son as he was starting college. There were a few hundred new students in a large classroom. A guidance counselor asked, "Do we have anyone taking Remedial English?". All but my son and a few other students raised their hands. As I understand it, the vast majority of college Freshmen today must take Remedial English. My son often takes some ribbing for being an English major. But I dare say most engineering students couldn't have done it!

I know a lot more engineers that can write well than English majors that can engineer well

[Jim King]

Probably another subject would be why many people that can write well cannot write anything intelligent.

[Dan Friedrichs]

I know a lot more engineers that can write well than English majors that can engineer well

Ha! Very, very true!!

BTW, John, I know what a Smith chart is, although I've never used one

[Montgomery Scott]

I know a lot more engineers that can write well than English majors that can engineer well

Plus an engineer has much more opportunities in the job market. What is an English major good for except teaching English?

[John Coloccia]

Plus an engineer has much more opportunities in the job market. What is an English major good for except teaching English?

I tell you, there are many many times I've wished we had hired an English major who had some technical savvy as well. Documentation is very difficult to write clearly and correctly. Pat is sort of right, and my comment was kind of tongue in cheek. I've read through some pretty horrid documentation and have spent many hours praying the author would walk into my office so I could strangle him.

[Darius Ferlas]

There have been many valid and funny points in this thread. While I would agree that there are many children who end up with a poor education, there are also many that get an excellent education. There are students leaving high school today with almost a the equivalent of the first year of engineering college.

An excellent point. Where I come from you could not pass a final high school test with 3 (or more) spelling errors on a written essay. Three punctuation errors were equivalent to one spelling error. At least 10 pages were expected. But that was only one type of high school, as the educational system was quite different, so there was still a decent number of people with questionable spelling skills.

What I found fascinating in the US is that I met a fair number of people who were completely illiterate. Actually, I found that shocking. At the same time the nation boasts most of the top universities around the world.