To think that grammar/spelling standards are not what they were?

[Meandmarius]

I'm mid 30's and have noticed that most of my friends/peers are able to distinguish between 'your and you're', 'where, were, we're' and using the words 'have' and 'of' correctly.
I've noticed that in younger generations there just doesn't seem to be the same standard anymore and I wonder why that is.
Not saying for one minute that my own sp. and grammar is perfect - it isn't. I just wonder if there is as much emphasis on it nowadays as there was back in the day..

Good grief, if you are addressing me LRD, I am not offended in the slightest. I'm just trying, albeit in a rather clumsy fashion to demonstrate that true dyscalculia is really quite rare and doesn't usually affect other abilities. I know one or two people with it and we are all of the David Mitchell school of grammar.
The spectrum point is an interesting one, certainly two of us with 'real' dyscalculia are on the ASD spectrum. Hmm, think I may have to do a little research.

Whew!

I worried, as I really was just thinking out loud. I do wonder about it a lot but it's not something I know enough to talk about properly, except to know what 'some people think'.

I've certainly heard that dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD, and the ASD spectrum are increasingly thought all to be somehow interrelated.

I do think it's fascinating how much more we're learning about what makes it difficult for some people to cope with these skills that others manage easily, whether it's spelling or numbers.

FWIW, I can't hold more than two/three digits in my head at once, which is monumentally annoying but to do with short term memory. Quite a lot of people want to tell my I must have dyscalculia. I am pretty sure I don't!

I thought the Germans were keen on efficiency

Dawndonna, that's really interesting. I can have some hope for little DS. The eldest is a whizz with all things maths, the youngest struggles with magnitude, spacial relation and has a problem with working memory. He is brilliant with sequencing and written work is fine. Numbers orientated and ordered correctly. Could it be as LRD suggests that over time the Dx change according to new research or changes to the tests administered and the criteria.

It interesting. I am in my fifties, so of course Asperger's Syndrome was neither noted nor used as a diagnosis in my teens. Yes, there are theories that ASDs are related to other things across the board. I have four children, three with with Asperger Syndrome, each one presents differently. One has dyslexia. Not one of them shows an interest or an aptitude for things numerical. The one that doesn't have a diagnosis of any description (he doesn't need one) is a bank manager!

It's

That is fascinating! It is really interesting how things present differently in the same family.

Marking place as I must get to bed (been up far too many hours)

See that I have a lot of reading to do, to catch up, but have to give a general view that standards have slipped, and while I don't remember being taught much in the way of grammar, and while I hated studying Latin, some of it must have "rubbed off" on me.

Was never very interested in literature, have read very few of the "classics" (or even popular/famous books/authors), but could dedicate 2-3 days on a sci-fi book if I found it of interest, with only the odd interruption such as having to sleep, or eat, or answer a call of nature.

I'm coming up to mid-50s, have been in IT for more than half that, and while I am keen to see computers enhance lives, I consider there to be no good reason to drop standards completely just because someone is writing on a forum, rather than a letter to an employer. Here's an example of the sort of thing I've seen very recently, which hardly saved the poster time, but mean I'd hesitate even mentioning which website it was on, when discussing "useful sites" with friends, relatives, or professional contacts:

"I think it can b expensive if u go over ur £4.50 or make ..."

"I think u r missing my point when some1 just joins up to ..."

I know comments on a forum aren't going to need the preparation or quality of something formal, but come on, while the above sentences are understandable, they look like rubbish from a young bright teenager wanting to appear 'thick'. Fortunately it was only one person who was doing that, and as I know I'm far from perfect, feel happy to overlook spelling and grammar mistakes for the most part, but not descending to text speak!

Right, off to bed before I get much closer to 24 hours awake!

I work with children with dyslexia and other learning difficulties. Bright children who for one reason or another don't read well or spell well. My job is to help them with the visual difficulties; some of the children, however, have difficulty with auditory processing.

What I feel is, that year ago these children were not recognised as the bright, capable human beings they are. They were shoved into a corner of the classroom and it was made known to them, subtly or sometimes, unfortunately, not so subtly that they were not fit to express their opinions on paper and that they might be better to "do something with their hands" which generally meant that they should clean or garden for those with excellent grammar and spelling.

Now, when their IQ's are tested, it becomes apparent that they are as bright or in some cases brighter than those administering the tests. That, shock and horror, sometimes the rocket scientists are brighter than the teachers and pedants and that their contribution to society IS worthwhile. And their parents and the good teachers are aware of this and they don't tell them to shut up and sit in the corner.

So they don't feel embarrassed to post on Facebook and text however they are able to.

Personally, I think it's a good thing.

Chipmonkey it's just as tough not having a high IQ/not being intelligent but personally feeling you want to expand your mind and you are bright and capable and worthy of development too? If you are, to put it bluntly, perceived to be less able (or dim as they called it in my day) isn't it a very difficult nettle to grasp to think a certain glittering career is permanently out of your reach (if you want one) because you just don't have the requisite intellect? Sorry a bit of an aside.

YANBU
Just look at this headline on today's Daily Fail website...

Charles Dickens? or the world's worst writer? Blind reading test found 48% couldn't tell difference between literature great and ridiculed novelist
By MARK HOWARTH

Daily Fail It's so sloppy! I read it for work not pleasure BTW.

I am the same, LeQ, your English was obviously very good (as was mine comparatively- she says modestly) but for some reason there was this HUGE disparity and my Maths was remedial. They just assumed I was dim and I found that school wasn't set up to deal with children like me - we were streamed and I was in the bottom stream. I spoke like an adult at 11 and could write well. A few teachers were utterly bemused and assumed someone else was doing my work for me.

I work a lot with older texts and I am really not sure how much abbreviation and textspeak dumbs you down: St Bernard seems pretty bright to me. But I wonder if he or his generation ever wrote a complete sentence without txtspking it in some way. No evidence of it in the manuscripts (MSS).

Yes, me too :)

We were streamed rather than set, banded if you like - lower and upper band. Being so poor at Maths I was in the lower band.

That makes a great deal of sense to me "feeling as though the numbers were skiding off my brain" LaQueen. I struggled in primary where the emphasis was on mental arithmetic. I couldn't hold the numbers in my head, poor working memory when I had to break something down into various steps to reach an answer. I think this is probably what DS2 is experiencing too because on paper he is fine. New concepts and anything theoretical.....great, easy peasy just give me a calculator for the numerical stuff.

I used to run after school maths clubs in key stage 1 and the emphasis was on fun, so many children in primary struggle because they can't do mental arithmetic they come to hate maths. We taught them short cuts for quick mental maths but also gave them a taste of things like Mobius, topology and string theory with no numerical maths involved and a different group of children flourished.

I've yet to meet a Maths Kumon child that doesn't do very well in primary Maths - even though it's so controversial. Perhaps early speed and agility with numbers can breed that confidence?

Sorry to read you've a problem with numbers, LeQ, yet clearly (if you can do a 15% calculation in your head, it's more complicated), and can see that with such a DH it kind of 'rubs it in'

Everyone has skills and most have some weaknesses (if they'll admit to them) so don't feel alone - I remember being embarrassed in one of my first jobs when, in a staff meeting of some of the senior managers and the 'upper floor' (it was a bit 'upstairs, downstairs')staff.

I didn't know what a 'non sequitur' was (despite some Latin, which ended with 'unclassified' at O Level), and continued to blunder on while my boss, a slightly stuffy geek (IQ off the scale by comparison to myself) was getting redder and redder, fit to explode (it was he who had wished to silence me or justify my request with a clearer argument when he'd said one of my comments was a 'non sequitur').

I checked later, of course, and wondered how come I was the only one in the room who didn't know... perhaps because at the time, I was the only one who had left school at 16, left college before the end of the course, and found a job on the basis of aptitude (good maths, programming and analysis skills) rather than paper qualifications in something less beneficial to an IT job.

Network What a shame your boss at the time wasn't a 'gentleman', he would not have been so rude.

LeQueen. The fact that you can do numbers in your head would demonstrate that you very probably have dyscalculia. Those with it are not incapable, as demonstrated by the fact that when given tasks to do verbally are more than capable of processing the information given and providing a correct answer. Time to tell your dh that you ain't fick when it comes to maths!

The skidding away from the brain thing is very common. Those with dyslexia will often talk about letters not just moving around, but dancing off the page.
Out of interest, do you have an address book and can anyone else use it?

What diagnosis would you give to someone who couldn't do number in their head either, Dawndonna?

That would be MariusandI, OP, surely?

Are you using the worldwide sample of MN for your hypothesis?

A last question... if you accept that our own spelling and grammar isn't what it should be then why would you have the expectation that the next generation would have improved on it?

These threads are tedious; they serve no purpose other than to do others down.

Sorry, numbers!

That would be MariusandI, OP, surely?

got to laugh ! I only joined MN when I found a thread about London area code being 020 (guess which section of MN it was in...) !

OP YANBU

At work we need science graduates who can write with a good standard of written English for report writing. A typical recruitment process will ditch a good percentage of applications in txt spk or poor spelling/punctuation/grammar .

The successful applicant (usually in early to mid 20s) will have a good degree from a top university and often a Masters as well, along with the obligatory string of A*s at GCSE/A-Level. More often than not when set off on report writing, the results are like they have been written by a 10 YO whose first language is not English.

It's got so bad that we now carry out a written test at the interview as it is clear that their Mum filled out their application form. I can't believe how far standards have slipped in a generation. I am 39 and only got grade Cs for English GCSE and even my written English is much better than these new graduates.