Me fail English?

[pokerfan]

That's unpossible!

"30% of freshman university students fail a 'simple English test' at Waterloo University. Academic papers are riddled with 'cuz' (in place of 'because') and even include little emoticon faces. One professor says that students 'think commas are sort of like parmesan cheese that you sprinkle on your words.' At Simon Fraser University, 10% of students are not qualified to take the mandatory writing courses."

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2010/01/31/12686831-cp.html">Students failing because of Twitter, texting

[MissHoneychurch]

1. They are misunderestimated

:D

[JCMach1]

2. Another blame it on technology thread...

There has always been a certain number of students who just can't write.

It's the literacy, stupid! (not meaning the OP, but the article)

[pokerfan]

5. To be fair

the professors also bemoaned the apparent lack of grammar teaching.

[JCMach1]

7. Every 25 years there is a Johnny can't read movement like clockwork...

We are probably just about due.

As for grammar... all of those diagrammed sentences sure helped! Not!

What's missing is literacy. And yes, that also means media literacy these days.

[hunter]

3. It's because the USA is stupid and semi-literate.

Anti-intellectualism is nourished by our mass media and in our homes and the public school system is an underfunded mess.

[pokerfan]

4. Canada, actually

but our idiocy seems to rubbing off on them.

[hunter]

6. it's rubbing off on me too, it seems...

:blush:

[Iggo]

8. That's okay.

For a run on sentence, that one is pretty mild.

[hunter]

10. I luvs my parmesan cheese commas.

My words come out of my brain in bursts, and I punctuate those bursts with commas.

[unpossibles]

9. that's where I got my username!

:)

For what it's worth, this debate has been going on since the telegraph if not longer, where each generation bemoans the language (and music and art) of the next. That said, a LOT of people really do suck at English, but I think the main problem is not technology but that our nation not only does not respect learning, but actively ridicules it. I know many tech-savvy people of all ages who use English perfectly.