dumming down

all right, i've just about had it.

either the internets are making people stupid, or i just have a lot of f-book friends and chat buddies who are grammatically retarded.

i ain't tryin to get all preachy here, but there are some important distinctions that need to be communicated, since apparently high school english teachers across the country failed to do so.

i'm talking about serious public health concerns such as:

then v. than
to v. too
its v. it's
your v. you're

not to mention simple spelling. how many times have you seen the word "definately" on a facebook update or in a blog? it makes my grey matter fart.

the baffling part of this entire crisis (yes, it's now at code orange, in my opinion) is that my f-book and real life friends (excluding most of the ones i know from high school) are smart -- no, more than smart! my friends are overachieving, creative, talented, and detail-oriented. some of them are veritable wordsmiths!

so what's the malfunction?

my theory? maybe the fast-paced world of words that exists inside all our laptops is the problem. maybe people are "thinking" and communicating and acting so quickly to keep up with blogs and twatter and news and editorials that they don't have the TIME to pause and google a word like "epiphany" before blurtyping it out. maybe the second it takes to ask, "is there an apostrophe between the 'it' and the 's'?" is simply too long to wait.

i don't want to sound judgmental. the truth is, i'm just as guilty as everyone else. because one time, in college, i misspelled something. (i know, right? mortifying.)

i just want the world of words to be a better place -- not only for those of us who read it compulsively, but also for for the younger generations, who experience the world through a screen and who see no need to pick up a book.