Some of my online time is spent using forums and messageboards. The quality of forum content is variable, but on the whole it’s readable and understandable. However, some younger messageboard contributors seem to have the intelligence and writing capability of a tin of spam. I regularly see badly written and badly spelled incoherent dross and it’s getting on my nerves. Not because it’s low quality, or even because it’s ignorant, but because I think it shows how the education system is failing our children.

The first of my two pet peeves is bad spelling. The second is ‘text speak’. I can forgive poor spelling where the first language is not English, or for those who are very young. I can’t forgive ‘text speak’ at all: it’s lazy and often loses it’s entire meaning. ‘Text speak’ came about because of the restricted number of characters you had to send a message. The web has no such restrictions, so why do it online?

Here’s some recent examples, culled from various forums. I’ve only posted samples where the person’s first language is English:

“i dunno lol she looks cool but i think the outfit aint that bad coz lets be honest we do need a change once in a whil” – male, 18, Cornwall UK — wants to be a writer!

“thanx again! its kinda hard 2 do that cuz hold on let me get the tab for u.” – male, 13, America

“o…m…g… That is so disguisting! This is so popostrious!” – no profile info except that this is a teacher!

“im sure this game would have been amazing by the time it would have been realised, surely their is no way they would have realised it with the bad animation that was their.” – male, 21, London

These are by no means the worst offenders, but it’s pretty sad to see such bad spelling from people who are teachers! Now, I realise that I know nothing about these people and that there is the possibility that all of them may suffer from a learning difficulty. I also understand that some people think it’s not important to spell well, type accurately or use good sentence structure while conversing via the web. These examples may simply be people who can spell perfectly well, but choose not to bother on informal messageboards. But I doubt it.

I, along with my brothers and sisters, could all read and write before we even went to school. We could all spell very well by the age of 8 and by 10 would have easily outsmarted all of the above when it came to spelling. I am not claiming superiority or greater intelligence, simply making the observation that that was simply the way things were ‘back then’. I don’t know anyone who by the age of 21 still did not know the difference between “there” and “their”.

Some people would say that English is too complicated and it’s to be expected that people get confused over similar sounding words. I agree that it’s a complicated language, but that’s not really the point: the fact is, it exists in its current form and people need to understand its nuances to use it successfully.

So why are people leaving school not knowing the differences between “their,”, “there” and “they’re”? Is it, as we are often led to believe, falling standards? Is it lack of attention span due to outside distractions? Has fear of violence in schools meant that teachers simply do not reach out to the children who need the most help?

I don’t pretend to have any answers, but would love to hear your thoughts on this. Maybe you’re a teacher and can shed some light on it? Or maybe you’re a pupil who doesn’t understand why I’m making a fuss about poor spelling? Having no first-hand experience of modern schooling, I’d love to get some insight into this, so please comment below.

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