As with many persons who have grown up in literate households, all through teens, twenties and thirties, I corrected grammar, spelling and syntax errors everywhere I found them. When I was younger, I was brutal, not caring how I might have embarrassed anyone. Since I had been a teacher, I tried to be more tactful.
But I'm beginning to realize that the problem is becoming enormous. People who post on popular media don't check what they post; they use 'he' as a pronoun for a woman; they leave out words, most commonly articles (the, a, an)—but in some foreign languages I have since come to know that articles actually do not exist (Russian, for instance), so sometimes posts with that sort of omission could originate from people of foreign origin, or indeed from abroad.
Articles on sports, particularly, are incredibly chock full of jargon, and are difficult to read, unless one becomes accustomed to reading sports News. I think that those who aspire to becoming sports commentators learn to talk that way, as a means of establishing their credentials, and naturally write that way as well. It could be that men are not as careful about their language as are women, and most sports writers are men.
Also, I have noticed that sports articles on Fb are filled with prejudice.
My Facebook feed is now redolent with articles about old- time movie stars. Fb loves those sorts of posts, and probably pays whoever posts them something. If I happen to like (or love) those posts, I will soon get a million of them, all poorly written.
Similarly with stories of aging rockers.
No comments:
Post a Comment