[quote=UCGal][quote=flu]
3) Third, formal documents no longer undergo scrutiny as much as before, because it is assumed there are technology tools to automatically correct, such as a spell checker. Unfortunately, spell checkers/grammar checkers can’t always detect “theire” as “their” or “there” and ends up making educated guesses sometimes. When you see your MS Word document without any more red underlines, you sort of assume it’s “ok”.[/quote]

I have to agree with this big time – and it’s a battle we’re fighting with our 3rd grade son. He’s a terrible speller and lazy about the grammatical rules.

After discussing it with his teacher – we’ve turned off the Word spell and grammar check option on the computer he does his book reports on. We’ve gone old school (and tree killing)… he prints out his report – I make grammar spelling checks – he looks up the correct spelling in the dictionary and discusses with me the grammar corrections. I’m hoping it will make it sink in more.

They have to know spelling/grammar on the STAR tests/benchmark tests/etc… So it’s our job (teacher and parents) to make sure he learns it rather than letting the “tools” correct his mistakes.

Even in tech based jobs, you still need good writing skills.[/quote]

in tech jobs, my experience has been, if you don’t want to be at higher levels, you don’t need perfect english.

But I think those spell checker/grammar checkers are equivalent to calculators. You wouldn’t give a kid a calculator without them knowing basic math first.

Or maybe our species has evolved such that progress is more important than grammatical accuracy…Afterall, language does change too. Maybe grammar isn’t as important anymore as long as concepts are correct.

Btw: this always throws me off…

“He didn’t do anything.”

versus

“He didn’t do nothing.”

I’m assuming in English, it’s one typically doesn’t use a double negative.

In Spanish, I recall proper grammar is double negative = negative. ie: no me gusta nada.