I’ve hemmed and hawed on this before, I’m sure, but I can’t help but notice that, despite my best efforts, spelling and grammar in America have gotten even WORSE. I was on the internet this morning (I know, it’s very out of character for me) and surfed over to the website of a major company that will remain nameless to examine a home theater system about which I had heard good things, when I was presented with the following sentence:

To see content that’s relevent to where you are select your country from the drop down below.

Are they kidding me? This is a major company, and the fact that it is owned by nice Japanese businessmen should not change the fact that a company employing thousands of Americans should be able to find somebody that knows how to spell “relevant.” Am I right? Is it too much to ask? How is it that no one has commented on this? AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO CARES?

Apparently so.

When I was going through school, it seemed like every time I took a breath, someone was telling me how important it was that I be able to write. Even if I took a job in computers, they said, I’d better be able to communicate via the written word. In college, I had a professor get into a screaming match with one of my snide classmates who didn’t believe that writing was at all important in the real world.

Now that I do indeed work in the computer industry, I’ve discovered that the ability to write, or at least spell and use correct grammar, isn’t nearly as important as I’d been led to believe. Few people in my line of work seem to really care about it, which of course makes me freaking INSANE, but I’ve long gotten over the urge to correct people. (They already think I’m a jerk. No need to make them want to kill me.) So I’ve learned to take it in stride.

But that doesn’t mean I’m letting the above-quoted company off the hook. Oh man, the emails they’re gonna get. I figure I’ll start with a nice, polite tone, like this:

To whom it may concern: have you been lobotomized, or are you just retarded?

If that doesn’t have any effect, I’ll move up to the more pointed criticism:

Dear Sir: I am going to drive to your house and pee in your linen closet.

Hey, I’m fighting for the English language here. There’s no line that I won’t cross.

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  1. Jinga-Dad
    June 29th, 2005 at 13:10 | #1

    Yeah, I’ve given up trying to explain correct usage of “affect” and “effect” to my co-workers. I now just correct it in everything I’m asked to review. It’s so lonely on the top of Mt. Olympus!

  2. Dean
    June 29th, 2005 at 14:16 | #2

    Very good point. A book that explores this in great depth is called Doing Our Own Thing. It was written by John McWhorter who is a professor of speech at Stanford if I recall correctly. Needless to say it is a quality study of the relation between written and spoken language and how they have changed dramatically in the last century. All in all it is a good read.

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