The Evolution of Language

I saw this yesterday. Being a pendant with an iPhone and a social media presence, I took a photograph and shared it on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. There was outrage in the comments, even calls for a sacking at Sainsbury's. I wouldn't go that far, but there does seem to be a decline in the quality of written English.

Let's ignore txtspk (and hope it goes away). I can understand the need to abbreviate when you have limited characters to play with, or you are learning shorthand (If u cn rd ths msg u cld bkm a...), but when you have unlimited characters there's no need to shorten anything.

My English isn't perfect, clearly. This is a blog, however, and I write as I speak. I use my blogging voice to convey my message. Sometimes I start sentences with 'and' or 'but'. I must be part of the decline.

Perhaps this is not the end of days though, perhaps it is evolution. Language has evolved slowly, over hundreds of years. When I was at school I was taught to use 'an' in front of words beginning with the letter H. I was also taught to capitalise the names of the seasons. This is no longer required, apparently.

I guess with the explosion of communication that the internet brings there is very little proof-reading. Some people really need to self-edit, but that's another blog post. Like a stream trying to carve a straight line to the ocean, so complicated grammatical rules are abandoned in favour of getting a message across.

Does it matter how we write so long as we are understood? I'd like to agree, but I can't. I'm with Lynne Truss. I just searched Amazon for her book on the zero tolerance approach to punctuation, 'Eats, Shoot and Leaves' and saw that the people working there are confused about where to put the comma.

This book is fantastic if you want to know why the sign should say Greengrocer's Apples, not Greengrocers Apple's.

The top five most common crimes against grammar:

1. Confusing your with you're
2. Confusing there, their and they're
3. The plural of mum is mums, not mum's
4. Using should of instead of should have
5. Not using a capital I. I'm looking directly at you, CBeebies. It should be 'I Can Cook', not 'i can cook'.

What would you add, or do you think it really doesn't matter?

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The Evolution of Language