It isn't just adverbs that we're losing. Simple, basic grammar and proper punctuation are becoming ever more scarce.
When I teach undergrads, I often give them a quick, 11-question grammar quiz, just to get a sense of their writing abilities. In 5 years, only one student got all 11 questions correct...and he was from Romania! As my sister, who is a grade school teacher, points out, a general shift to "whole language" English education about 15 years ago in American schools has created a vast chasm of ignorance to open up. For example, no longer are sentences diagrammed, so understanding the relationships among nouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, etc. is all the more difficult. It really is sad. And then, of course, phone-based interaction has only heightened the perceived need for brevity, so non-essential elements get dropped. Idiocracy...it's not just a movie, it's a prognostication. On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 7:53 AM, Michael J. Barnes <[email protected]>wrote: > Honestly, as a college professor, I can attest that the adverb has been > disappearing for about 15 years. I blame Apple for it. It seems to be > concurrent with their "THINK DIFFERENT" campaign. Since I'm a > dialectician, I'll stand in for Henry Higgins (and I've coached accents on > those shows five times). > > > > Michael > > > > > > > > Michael J. Barnes > Vocalease > Email: <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] > AIM: atremorer > YIM: atremorer > Skype: vocalease.michael > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > ------------------------------------ > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
