See Jack write – or not

IN another one of its dubious “trend” stories, the New York Times reports Americans are moving away from e-mail to chat and texting. “The problem with e-mail, young people say, is that it involves a boringly long process of signing into an account, typing out a subject line and then sending a message that might not be received or answered for hours.” (Gmail usage is actually up 10% this year, but never mind.) If e-mail is really in decline, then the culprit may have more to do with basic grammar than instant gratification. The fact is that fewer and fewer people know how to write competently. Just witness the daily destruction of the King’s English in any comment section on any news site. It is a horror to behold, like some post-apocalyptic Mad Max landscape where wild, roving bands of English speakers do unspeakable things to syntax. The emoticon-heavy verbiage used for texting and tweeting is, if anything, worse. One observer told the Times, “We’re going down a road where we’re losing our skills to communicate with the written word.” Let’s hope, nay pray, somebody will devise a solution at one of the remaining road exits because we’re rapidly running out of drivable asphalt.