The Oatmeal recently posted a funny/educational piece on his website called "Ten Words You Need To Stop Misspelling".
It's actually a comic that everyone who speaks English should print out and keep by their desk or area where they write. I loved it to be honest because one of my pet peeves is bad spelling. It's quite unnerving.
So, print it out. However, to get to my point, when The Oatmeal published this comic, he received an e-mail soon after from a Ms. Kim Steinhaus. She criticised him (I know some people spell this with a "z" instead of an "s" but I use the British spelling... You know, the place on the map where the language was spawned) because he might be discriminating against dyslexics and "dysgraphics". She then likened him to a Nazi and claimed that they castrated dyslexics back then. Apparently, if we publish a comic such as The Oatmeal's, we are encouraging fascist policies. Who knew, right?
Anyways, last Tuesday, The Oatmeal published an entry on his blog with a link to this article to inform us that Ms. Steinhaus was arrested for child neglect. I guess she not only neglects her spelling but her kids, too!
So, please, spell correctly. We need to encourage reading (of which I personally should do more, as well) and proper spelling in schools. Texting, chatting and e-mail are ruining English and other languages. Newspapers are full of mistakes. When will proper writing and spelling skills be taken seriously again?
C'mon, grammar is hard. Can't we rewrite the English language just for me or something? Tailor it to my Euro-centric heritage? I feel my self-esteem being damaged as we speak and will no doubt require compensation. Next you're going to tell me 2+2=4 and that my post-modernist narrative is invalid.
ReplyDeleteWhat's funny about that is the fact that English grammar is easy to learn. Try French or Spanish!
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