Re: Re\: Asimov - Assumptions, the audience and arithmetic - Rant?

[Jo Francis Byrd <jbyrd -at- byrdwrites -dot- com>]

Not to burst your bubble TOO awful much, BUT!!

Both my daughters (ages 25 and 21) have excellent writing skills, and they are
US born and educated. Both were often asked by high school classmates to edit
their English papers because they could write and write well. Part of it is
genetic. I am a writer. My mother and both my sisters are excellent writers as
was my paternal grandmother and my maternal grandfather (I did NOT inherit my
father's writing skills, thank God! The man thought in mathematical expressions
and the written word eluded him). The kids' father has excellent writing skills
as did their paternal grandfather (he was a newspaper reporter for 40 years).
Only part of it is genetic; they were also taught to write in school. They had
to write many, many papers.

No way you're going to convince me they are anomalies. There are plenty in the
under 30 crowd who can write and write well.

I will agree with you, though, about the gross spelling and grammatical errors
encountered on a regular basis on TV, the newspapers, and on web pages. There
are plenty of people out there writing who need to be told, "don't try this at
home, kids, leave it to the professionals."

Jo Byrd

"Stegall, Sarah" wrote, in part:

> I have not seen a US-educated person under the age of 30 in a long, long time
> who could write worth a damn.  In fact, I have seen very few *school teachers*
> in my kids' public schools who can put together an entire paragraph without at
> least one error in spelling, grammar, usage or punctuation. It's a disgrace.
> I am constantly having to correct my kids'
> teachers' "corrections"!  It goes way beyond schools: I cannot read a
> newspaper, magazine, or even read something off the TV screen without finding
> gross errors in spelling and grammar. Apparently the people who write for
> nationally known newspapers can't even use a spell checker these days.


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