Ha ha, it's nothing new, and I took great advantage over my peers in the early '80's at college in their inability to write properly.

Many papers I wrote were woefully short of actual content, but because I wrote them using correct grammar and spelling - and with an informal voice - they received much higher marks than they warranted. In fact, I had professors tell me that they were complete crap but got an A because they were easy to read and not in any way irritating.

My Psych professor actually kept my paper on fear and learning to use as an example of how to write a paper because, not in spite of, the fact that I used a clearly bogus reference of Grandpappy Morris and his folksy sounding sayings to back up my thesis. The inclusion of obscure French philosophers that in the pre-Internet days were almost impossible to back check for accuracy in what they said versus what I cited them as saying was a brilliant way of cranking that sucker out in an afternoon, if I say so myself.

Of course back then it was considered appropriate for "math" people to be damned near illiterate and "English" people to rely on math skills that were restricted to counting on their fingers.

Man, the whole Reagan generation sure was screwy....but it didn't matter because we'd be crushed by the demographics of the Baby Boomers and the Millenniums in the work place, even if we were unaware of it. Baby Boomers refusing to retire until well past their prime, which meant we were too old for the promotion when they left, what with all these younger people with more "long term leadership potential" ready to take their positions.

It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely when there is no right or wrong with gravity apples. - Jean-Francois Lyotardsteinton

I laughed at my teenage nephew for purposely spelling "was" w-u-z a few days ago. He was posting something on Facebook. I told him he actually had to work harder to spell it wrong as the W, A, and S keys are right next to each other on the keyboard.

My favourite this week? Lose/loose.

If people don't start checking their spelling I'm going to loose it!

What I've been hearing lately is young people
talking about people swearing, and treating
"swear" as the noun, as in "he swore a swear".
I had heard small children talking this way
starting probably 30 years ago, but I never
thought it would persist to adulthood.

Another nasty one I've been hearing lately comes
from broadcast journalists, who seem to be all
starting to say "incidence" when they mean an
incident. "Lately, there have been several
incidences involving drivers who..." They seem
to be muddling incidents with instances and
getting incidences as the result.

OH yeah, and have I grumbled here before about
making "known" a two syllable word, or
"quadriplegic" a five syllable one?

By the way, regarding the positioning of periods,
relative to closing quotes and also closing brackets,
someone did a study of usage about 20 years ago,
and found that well educated tech types dialed in
to the rigorous logic of writing computer languages,
were fully aware of the accepted rules for such
instances, but consciously eschewed them in favour
of constructions that honour the logic of construction
over accepted form. So, if a full sentence is to
be in quotes or brackets, the period, being part of the
sentence, must be inside the closing quote or bracket,
but if only a phrase is being encircled, at the end of
a sentence, then the period does not belong to it, and
so should appear outside. That seemed to me to be an
eminently logical way of doing things, and so I have
adopted it.

If YOU bend the rules, it's creativity with words. If THEY mangle grammar and spelling, it's a lawless youth.

There are some rules that seem to change over the years. For instance, to show ownership I remember using, "s'". As in, "We climbed into Jakes' car and sped off." Now it's, "'s". As in, "We climbed into Jake's car and sped off."

It should only be Jakes' car if you have more than one Jake, or if his normal name is Jakes.

If he is Jacob/Jake then the correct form would always have been Jake's.