The Profound Illiteracy of Facebook and the Web. Don't miss the Canon Shooting!

One of the not entirely unexpected revelations of the endless posts on my Facebook wall, is just how the grasp of the English language by friends and acquaintances has disintegrated. Judging by the near non-existence of proper spelling, grammar and punctuation, one might conclude that we are all suddenly living in the late 19th Century before the advent of Public Schools and education and dictionaries despite the spectacular availability of online resources and spell checkers.

Creative spelling is astonishing as is the equally adventurous ignorance of punctuation.

Here's a "sentence" (paraphrased so as to disguise its origin) that comes directly from a FB post.

time to learn my part I'm performing tomorrow!!!

Now this could be interpreted in a number of ways.

1) It is now time to learn my part which I am performing tomorrow.

2) There is time to learn my part which I am performing tomorrow.

3) It is now time to learn my part. I am performing tomorrow.

4) There will be time to learn my part. I am performing tomorrow.

I sort of think number (3) was intended, but without talking to the person, I have no idea.

I'd be tempted to write it as:

It is time to learn my part: I'm performing tomorrow.

From a journalistic viewpoint, this is highly speculative, but, hey, you've got to take a chance sometimes.

I've changed "I'm" to "I am" since the extravagant use of apostrophes (and commas or the non-use of apostrophes and commas) is a new aspect of modern creative writing.

The favorite trope is the addition of an apostrophe to nearly everything that has an "s" at the end of it.

The previous sentence using this remarkable linguistic revelation would include:

"... the extravagant use of apostrophe's... " to indicate more than one apostrophe. [If there was such a thing, it would be correct to say that "I am visiting the apostrophe's new house."]

The distinction in the mind of many between possessive and plural has vanished in the wake of the eradication of the distinction between "less" and "fewer." Perhaps this has to do with some unknown additive to highly sugared breakfast cereals (or is that cereal's ?) or some other more pernicious plot. Oops. Sorry. That's "perhap's" and "Oop's" isn't it? Or is it Thats' perhaps's and oops's, ain't it?

"I went to visit the Smiths" becomes "I went to visit the Smith's." If it was "I went to the Smith's house" all would be well, but this puts us back into the realm of speculative journalism.

There seems (ummm seem's) to be no cure for all of this. All of my friends (er... friend's) in the educational professions (ahhh... profession's) tell me that high school students and college students come to them unable to write clear sentences (sentence's). Instead of advancing the knowledge of students, these hapless educators slave at getting the kids to disentangle themselves from their IPods and smartphones long enough to consider history or philosophy or home economics. (Do they actually teach Home Ec any more? I wonder.)

I'm going to go right out on a limb here and state the obvious. The majority of this linguistic chaos originates with texting. Now just why any sentient being would want to spend more than a nanosecond informing another sentient being that "hey whoa it rocks" in the midst of watching a movie or eating or taking a dump is totally beyond my compreshension. But, hey, whoa, different strokes... .

The need to contract words so that one's thumbs don't fall off from exhaustion is crucial. T nd 2 contct wds sew tht my thmbs r stil hr iz imptnt. Or something like that with the addition of lots of smileys and other strange symbols alien to my aging eyes, but highly meaningful to those under 12 years old.

There is more at stake here than the generation gap: The continuity of civilization depends upon the communication of various forms of knowledge.

There is a genuine difference between "It's here" and "Its here." The former means "It is here," the latter means "This 'here' belongs to It" (whatever that means).

A sign in the New York City Subway reads "Haircut's." Haircut's what? The Haircut's dog? The Haircut's life insurance policy? You can argue that everyone knows what they really meant. I can argue that this requires lots of unnecessary speculation and that it panders to ignorance.

Indede y bother spelin nething kurectlee in the furst plaze. We kin awl figyour owt whut I mene neeeway, kan't weee?

The world has not collapsed yet, but when I view a subway car full of grown people so plugged-in to their electronic devices that they don't even notice where they are, that they are shoving their backpack into the eyes of some hapless old lady who is blissfully IPod free, that they miss their stop and curse because they weren't paying attention, that they stand in the middle of the door unmoving because they are so involved in whatever music is playing far too loudly into their ears that they haven't noticed that the door is open, that the chime is ringing, that seven people are trying to shove them out of the way to escape, and then, that it's really everyone else's fault for interrupting, bothering and annoying them!

Steve Jobs and colleagues have provided the world with the finest excuse in centuries for rudeness, inattention, small-mindedness and unnecessary redundancy of function with those cute little IPhone thingies. A great, elegant toy. A great, inelegant time waster. A great distraction from the reality of where you are. If you looked up from your smart phone for just a moment, you might see where you are instead of having to call up a GPS application that pings three satellites in orbit around the earth, pings your phone back and displays a map that shows you where you already should have noticed that you were standing in the first place. (Okay, it is convenient to be standing on a strange street corner in heaven only knows what country, to be able to push a button and find out how many steps you need to take to reach the nearest McDonald's. Don't know how I lived for decades without it).

My favorite Facebook malaprop this week is a notice for the "Canon shooting" as part of a Pirate Week Celebration. One wonders what crime the poor Canon committed to be shot! Was it Pachelbel's Canon? Whatever did Pachelbel do to deserve this? Obviously, they meant "cannon," didn't they? But this is an event put on by a government agency and promoted by, oh I don't know, the agency director's sister's son's girlfriend fresh out of fourth grade. I'm pleased to know, in retrospect, that pirates were deeply into Canons. It shows that they were not all lowly, child-raping, thieving scumbags. Some of them appreciated the finer things as they pillaged and burned with their IPods blasting in their ears.

Sew, eye xstole tha vertewz uv lerning how 2 spel ahnd punkyewweight if ownlee owt of consideration to us awld fokz hoo r stuk withe Inglush az it yewst 2 b b4 yew kreeyaytive kidz fixed it 4 us awl. :-)

Oh, wait! I'm sorry. I forgot the punctuation.

S'ew, eye xstole, tha vertewz uv lerning, how 2, s'pel ahnd punkyewweight, if ownlee owt of consideration. to us awld fok'z!!! hoo r, stuk, withe Inglush, az it yew'st 2 b, b4 yew kreeyaytive kid'z, fixed it 4 u's awl !!!! ;-) :-D :-P~~~

That's better, isn't it?

Thank you.