I weep for our language (part 1)…

From an Associated Press story on the death of Ike Turner:

But over the years they’re genre-defying sound would make them favorites on the rock ‘n’ roll scene, as they opened for acts like the Rolling Stones.

Who the hell wrote this? A third-grader?

Comments

  1. Hmm…I get the impression that this will be a frequently recurring feature.

    Anyway, to take your last question semi-seriously, this AP writer clearly never sat through the Grade 4 EQAO testing here in Ontario. They’d kill you (bureaucratically, of course) for that misuse.

  2. I think they meant “there”.

  3. Their obviously not very smart.

  4. Spell check is the death of spelling and grammar in this country. People have come to rely so heavily on it that they can’t catch mistakes like that which spell check isn’t capable of picking up. It makes me sad. There are so many things that drive me up a wall – your vs. you’re, the there/their/they’re set, its vs. it’s, “would of” instead of “would have”, people who put apostrophes into plural nouns as though they were possessives… the list goes on in depressing fashion. When even the New York Times starts letting stuff like this slip through (and they have), you know it’s out of control.

  5. 900 exceptions to the grammar rules, texting language (or whatever its official name is, ie. wOOt, l8r) and lack of quality grammar education (and funding) is why we should weep for our language.

    Proper American English is the single hardest language to learn (let alone write or type).

    Although to many may rely on Spellcheck, it is very ignorant if not tweaked properly

  6. Sometimes I wonder how painful it must be for you to read the comments to your ESPN blog, which constantly feature the three most common grammatical violations these days:

    1. Your (instead of you’re, e.g. “Law, your an idiot”) as well as their/there/they’re problems.

    2. Apostrophe-itis: the Astro’s, the Yankee’s, the Steinbrenner brother’s.

    3. i.e. constantly used in place of e.g.

    Of course your example is egregious because it is an AP story, but the problems are pervasive – check out many espn “breaking news” stories that are posted on the site with the aforementioned problems throughout.

  7. Keith, this type of writing is what happens if schools have no legitimate criteria for a.p. programs. There used to be a legitimate process in place to “weed out” the average student. Now teachers just “cave in” if a parent argues that rejection will ruin a child’s self-esteem. And the article in question is the finished product.

  8. It is not just spell check; among the younger (my) generation, text messaging and instant messaging has completely destroyed the necessity of being a good speller; rather, everything can be shorted. It is astonishing how many of my friends are completely lost when it comes time to write a paper, trying to figure out the proper ways to spell even the simplest of words.

  9. Your not kidding, that was horrible.

    Seriously, though, you’d be shocked how many people don’t know the differences between the versions of “there” and “your.” I tutored for English in college and couldn’t believe how many students had no idea which form is correct.

    Baffling.

  10. All of the items listed by Windier above are pet peeves of mine. And you can add to that people who don’t notice when they’ve used “quiet” when they meant “quite” (and vice versa).

    I don’t think it’s entirely the fault of spell check, though. One of the requirements of my job is to review reports written by other analysts. I can’t count the number of times that I have noted a grammatical change to be made, only to be told that it’s “a minor thing, I’m not changing it.” So laziness and lack of interest in using proper English come into play, as well.

  11. As I learned in journalism school, obituaries are the easiest place to find work if you’re trying to break in to more mainstream journalism. Maybe that’s the reason I changed majors after that class.

  12. Actually, if you really want to get technical, the use of “over” in that sentence is also not correct. Over is a spatial term.

  13. actually, I think they meant to say “their.”

  14. Funny story…there is someone in my office that sent a few emails out thanking everyone for their patience during an exercise, except they spelled patience as “patients.”

    Me, being the sarcastic person that I am, copied both emails, removed all identification terms (personal or employer) and posted a humorous myspace blog on it. All was well until 2 weeks later when I was called into the assistant branch manager’s office as someone ratted out that I had posted the blog and it was not encouraging a friendly work environment…yeah, I laughed too.

  15. The problem lies with the editor. Testing has nothing to do with it. I guarantee the person that wrote that passage knows the difference between they’re, there, and their. The mistake is a function of typing quickly. Perhaps some of us are more susceptible than others, but I find myself doing it quite frequently. And it’s all homonyms. I find myself typing “won” instead “one”, for example. Obviously if I take the time to proof-read, I’ll catch it. But if I’m just typing up a quick blog post or comment, it might slip through.

    It should have been caught at the editing stage, though.

  16. Keith,
    it is quite sad, you are right. I have to say that I am very much in favor of relaxing the rules of language in the informal settings. Obviously, such philosophy would not apply in cases like the linked AP story.
    I think the problem is rooted much deeper… I remember back in my college days (early to mid 90’s) there was a report that close to 70% of first-year students at 4-year colleges did not have the required level of writing and/or reading comprehension. Something makes me doubt that things have gotten any better since that time…

  17. At least they’ve fixed the article now.