Have recent generations forgotten correct spelling and grammar?

SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN · Oct 25, 2009

If by "extraordinarily literal" you mean differentiating between "the world" and "the English-speaking world" -- then yes, that.

Okay, you're just being annoying. Gotcha.

allnurses Guide · Oct 25, 2009

Okay, you're just being annoying. Gotcha.

AAnnd, to drift off in another tangent-- there are at least two top 40 songs, "there's a kind of hush all over the world tonight" and that really popular Selena song I can't think of the name of, that include the assumption that "the world" is sleeping. They still made a whole buncha money.

Coffee Nurse, BSN, RN · Oct 25, 2009

Not everyone understands that there's a difference. Since I don't know you (and you don't know me, thanks much), I wanted to clarify.

Zana2 · Oct 25, 2009

Slightly out of context here...

My 4 yo is just learning to read and write. And we had a meeting with the teacher, in which it was explained to us, parents, how to teach them to read. Basically, I am meant to repeat the same sentence over and over again, pointing at the words, untill she memorises it. It's taken me slightly aback, I would have thought you're meant to read letter by letter (I agree, it doesn't always make sense in English, sometimes what you write and what you read is a totally different kettle of fish, but we're at the very early stages, 2-4 letters words max).

So what she does now, she reads/writes, she remembers the first couple of letters, but when it comes to the end of the word, she sort of makes it up as she goes along.

We're talking British English here, but I have friends who, instead of annoying themselves with 'definitely', they'll write 'defo', much less of a headache this way.

Could the problem be that they are taught to read this way?

SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN · Oct 25, 2009

Zana, I learned to read the same way, by my father reading aloud to me every night while moving his finger under the words. The first book I could read was "One Fish, Two Fish" by Dr. Seuss. And I still have it memorized. :)

allnurses Guide · Oct 25, 2009

Zana, I learned to read the same way, by my father reading aloud to me every night while moving his finger under the words. The first book I could read was "One Fish, Two Fish" by Dr. Seuss. And I still have it memorized. :)

Hmmm. "Cat in the Hat". :) Zana, you'll find there's sort of a tug of war between the phonics people and the word memorizing people. I always taught my kids phonics as an addition to whatever they learned in school. The best way to have kids read and love to read is the family culture. My son had a hard time at age 6-7. My brother had to have a tutor and he now has a Phd in Engineering and an MBA from Stanford :yeah:

blondy2061h, MSN, RN · Oct 25, 2009

I'm admittedly not a very good speller. I'm a bit better with grammar. I do feel spelling and grammar are important, particularly on a professional forum. Nursing school is hard. Nurses are smart. I don't want an outsider looking in on this forum getting the impression that we're dumb or lazy because of horribly spelling and grammar. I do try and spell check my posts (built in to my browser) and will correct errors I notice.

GeauxNursing · Oct 25, 2009

I've actually noticed typos and misspellings and incorrect punctuation more and more in the past months. In my literature, on CNN.com, in a nursing magazine, the newspaper, books I read. You can't escape it! It just means that people aren't taking their time anymore.

tewdles, RN · Oct 25, 2009

I don't worry too much about grammar or spelling on forums...

It is more of a concern in a legal document. I can only imagine that it might not be too much fun to have to interpret your spelling and grammar during a deposition..but then I am now officially "old" and probably don't have a clue as to what is fun today.

TigerGalLE, BSN, RN · Oct 25, 2009

Well, since I am probably in the generation that you are referring to, I'll comment. When I was in high school and college, all of my essays were typed on computers. The computer fixed my errors and I never learned the correct way to do it. I think if I had been forced to hand write all of my essays I would have learned more about grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Also being a nurse, I am a math/science girl. English is my worst subject and I loathe writing essays.

And when I came along text messaging and AOL instant messenger were my only mode of communication with friends. So then I learned a whole new language that many older generations would never be able to interpret. :)

TTYL

AlabamaBelle · Oct 25, 2009

I am of the old school. I had very strict English teachers. There were weekly spelling tests. There was the dreaded "diagramming of the sentence" exercise (yuck). Last, but certainly not least, the most dreadful of all mistakes, the comma splice. That offense would get the paper an automatic F, no matter how well thought out and researched it had been.

I see horrid mistakes in charting. Charting is a legal document. Personally, I try to make my charting as professional as possible. Having been on a malpractice jury, the lawyers latched onto anything and everything to lessen credibility of the doctors and nurses.

My 26 year old is horrified at mistakes made by some of her peers and some who are younger than her.

Just an old school fuddy-duddy.

llg, PhD, RN · Oct 25, 2009

I make a big distinction between casual "chatting" on a forum such as this one ... and more formal writing. Here, I am very tolerant of misspellings and typos as I know that most of us are typing quickly and not taking a lot of time to proof-read and correct all of our casual convesation here.

But I am bothered by the appearance we give of our profession when we nurses use poor grammar on more formal documents. It makes us look very poorly educated when others can see that we don't know how to write in complete sentences, don't know that every sentence needs both a subject and a verb, don't know the right words or meanings of common expressions, etc.

As a part-time faculty member in an RN-BSN program, I grade student term papers. These are formal papers written in APA style, etc. I am appalled by the poor grammar, awkward or incorrect word usage, wrong punctuation, etc. that I see in approximately 33% of my students. Not only is it "not college level writing," it is "not 8th grade level" writing. The same people seem to also have a hard time understanding the textbook and the nursing articles that we read in class. These students were obviously "passed along" in their earlier schooling without ever having to master the English language. they haven't forgotten it: they never learned it.

While such students may be adequate direct patient care providers, I am always conflicted about how to grade them. I am not teaching physical bedside care-giving skills. Their bedside clinical skills are irrelevant in assessing their academic skills. I am teaching them in their academic classes -- and that level of reading comprehension and writing is simply not at the college (BSN) level. I struggle with that.