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..

I don't know about 'dumbing down', but skills in different things certainly ebb and flow. One of the things I've found interesting in the creative writing books I've read recently is the discussion of how much more modern fiction readers are expected to read between the lines than in the past. Writers 150 years ago would spell things out more; readers now would feel patronised if you explained exactly what emotion your character was experiencing rather than sketching out their behaviour and expecting the reader to work it out.
Novels now are less demanding in things like sentence length and vocabulary, but they require an equally demanding set of other skills to follow a less spelled-out story.

Not the most constructive of comments, Frogman. It is such a shame that you 'can't be arsed to read all this thread'

meandmarius you fucked up in the first three words of your OP. I wouldn't offer a hostage to fortune but you did by starting one of these 'why oh why' threads. Look it up and start again. Or don't, it's up to you.

talkinpeace Yes Soap, the continuing story of two sisters. What was I thinking of?

Lou Grant inspired me to become a reporter.

For those who wonder ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_(TV_series)
was THE MOST wonderful TV when I was a teenager

Also talkinpeace I grew into a social life after Soap so missed Moonlighting and ThirtySomething. Besides I wasn't ThirtySomething when it was on.

I hated that convoluted language in Hill Street Blues like in Deadwood, which I think was the same writer, wasn't it?

habbibu Fantastic wasn't it? And from when Stanley Tucci had hair.

Firstly (cos its good innit)

The the Impotence of Proofreading
by Taylor Mali

Has this ever happened to you?
You work very horde on a paper for English clash
And then get a very glow raid (like a D or even a D=)
and all because you are the word1s liverwurst spoiler.
Proofreading your peppers is a matter of the the utmost impotence.

This is a problem that affects manly, manly students.
I myself was such a bed spiller once upon a term
that my English teacher in my sophomoric year,
Mrs. Myth, said I would never get into a good colleague.
And that1s all I wanted, just to get into a good colleague.
Not just anal community colleague,
because I wouldn1t be happy at anal community colleague.
I needed a place that would offer me intellectual simulation,
I really need to be challenged, challenged dentally.
I know this makes me sound like a stereo,
but I really wanted to go to an ivory legal collegue.
So I needed to improvement
or gone would be my dream of going to Harvard, Jail, or Prison
(in Prison, New Jersey).

So I got myself a spell checker
and figured I was on Sleazy Street.

But there are several missed aches
that a spell chukker can1t can1t catch catch.
For instant, if you accidentally leave a word
your spell exchequer won1t put it in you.
And God for billing purposes only
you should have serial problems with Tori Spelling
your spell Chekhov might replace a word
with one you had absolutely no detention of using.
Because what do you want it to douch?
It only does what you tell it to douche.
You1re the one with your hand on the mouth going clit, clit, clit.
It just goes to show you how embargo
one careless clit of the mouth can be.

Which reminds me of this one time during my Junior Mint.
The teacher read my entire paper on A Sale of Two Titties
out loud to all of my assmates.
I1m not joking, I1m totally cereal.
It was the most humidifying experience of my life,
being laughed at pubically.

So do yourself a flavor and follow these two Pisces of advice:
One: There is no prostitute for careful editing.
And three: When it comes to proofreading,
the red penis your friend.

Hill Street Blues : to me it sounds like Home - my Dad lives in the US.
Moonlighting : nope, I always hated Bruce Willis!
Thirtysomething : I was in my 20's
anybody remember Northern Exposure?

we are getting sidetracked, BUT, these are all series where a good memory and clear dialogue is ESSENTIAL

AND
I give you the page of CLASSIC British literature where the punctuation makes is a bugger to read (so I have to again and again)

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
When Lizzie is staying at Netherfield looking after Jane and Bingley and Darcy get into the spat about inverted bragging about letter writing.
I've read it hundreds of times and its still not always clear who is addressing who !!

Oh, yes! I think he looks better bald. Loved it, really did.

My errors are mostly bad typing, my eye sight degenerating and the old grey matter too - caused by that wretched inevitable 'ageing process'.

Don't care about the sin of 'splitting infinitives' , but still care about spelling, so bought myself a spellchecker to use when in doubt.

I am upset about the demise of my vocabulary memory though < sad face>

we are getting sidetracked, BUT, these are all series where a good memory and clear dialogue is ESSENTIAL

Yes. Good television. Comprehension skills are not only essential but commonplace in audiences of popular media IMHO. And interchangable. I don't know why you'd try to be elitist about it because that would be ridiculous.

I don't think it's unreasonable to hope/expect people to make the effort to write and punctuate or even speak properly! I hate text speak for example: like, 'l8r' instead of later. Or 'm8' instead of mate. Drives me nuts. And takes longer to write messages this way. I'm a picky bugger with it.

YANBU, OP, I think the problem is getting worse.
I was grinding my teeth at work today, three times today an email came out asking if the driver of such and such a car "could move your car as your blocking in a lorry".
My fingers were itching to reply!

Al Murray always replies to the 'your a cunt' messages on Twitter - 'my a cunt what?'
Still makes me laugh

YABU.
I'm in my late twenties. The people I've worked with (in teaching, admin or management) who are in their fifties or over have often shocked me with their grammatical inaccuracies. Far more often than those in my own generation.

I flit effortlessly between po and the ridiculous laQueen. BTW what are diacritics? It doesn't seem terribly relevant to the cut and thrust of everyday life but enquiring minds and all that...

LaQ I am the opposite. I mentally stumble on errors so can't help halting. Any mental correction is very conscious and deliberate.

Ah, do you mean like the accents I put over the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám? I just cut and pasted that to make sure I got the spelling right.

There are keyboard shortcuts - I used to have a fancy mousemat I bought from the LRB which told you them all.

Here's a link with some
It's a bit of a faff though, usually easier to copy and paste.