Academic

On Grammar, Usage, and Style

By Calvin Massey

I cannot resist seconding Nancy Rapoport's observations about student literacy.  I am tired of student inability to distinguish the possessive from the plural, with consequent butchering of the poor apostrophe.  I bemoan the failure of students to understand the difference between principle and principal.  I deplore the inability of students to appreciate when one should use effect rather than affect.  I am distressed by the rampant misspellings that dot student papers.  I am pained by awkward syntax, incomplete sentences, non-parallel constructions, the failure of verbs to agree with subjects, and myriad other floggings of English usage.  I blame the sorry state of elementary and secondary education.  With some exceptions, I think that American educators fail to teach grammar, spelling, and proper usage.  Does anybody use Fowler anymore?  I doubt it.  I suspect that the abysmal state of spelling may be due to a combination of modern methods of teaching children to read, coupled with a decline in reading (television, Nintendo, and the internet having displaced the book), and a failure to require schoolchildren to write and write again to correct their errors.  Lawyers use language as their toolkit, and language is our medium of thought and analysis.  What kind of lawyers are we creating?   

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on June 10, 2009 (boomark / email).