The Fate of Written English

Perhaps, it is the fact that I’m a nerdy English major. Perhaps it’s the fact that I’ve spent the last year and a half helping friends with their writing assignments. Either way, I must say that the more exposed to written mass media I am, the more horrified I am by it.

Typos are, hands down, the most obscene of said errors. What’s worse than the general lack of awareness regarding these errors, is the fact that they seem to have become an accepted fault in publications of nearly every type: newspapers, fliers, magazines, television news banners…

I’m sure that many of the readers of these publications may respond to this observation with the apathetic: “So what?” The naïve: “I didn’t notice,” The unapprised: “Who cares?” Or, perhaps, one of my favorites: “It doesn’t really change anything, does it? I mean, it doesn’t matter.”

I would attribute these responses to those readers who have also become so accustomed to casual (and often online) jargon, that they let slip a verbal “lol” as they laugh at a friend’s joke, use the term “u” in an academic paper, and have taken to adding emoticons to their professional emails and resumes. I’d like to make clear that this is not intended to be a patronizing or demeaning observation-rather, a general overview of what is happening to written (and apparently also published) speech.

Despite the fact that such colloquialisms are becoming more and more common, I beg to draw attention to the fact that these variations in language have not necessarily been broadly accepted by English readers-particularly when they are expecting proper, academic, or even clearly comprehensible writing. By making such cumbersome diction faux-pas, a large percentage (if not the majority of) readers are excluded from the comprehension, and therefore appreciation of the publications which make them.

And apparently, readers are not the only ones realizing the drastic effects and urgency of these errors.

In the Columbia Journalism Review, Neil Hickey references surveys composed by the Public Agenda; a company who questioned journalists across the country on their sentiments towards increasing fallacy in publications of mass media. An astonishing seventy (70) percent of those who responded stated that most organizations have “poor” abilities regarding their response/public correction of mistakes/typos/misleading before the public.

Another question on the aforementioned survey regards how journalists felt about the manner in which such errors were recognized in the newsroom. Ninety-one (91) percent of all those who responded believed that said errors should be more candidly and frequently addressed.

I suppose that the point of this blog is to draw attention to the changes in grammatical and syntactical severity in the present world of journalism.

What are American journalists/writers striving for? While said errors do not necessarily equate to an author being unintelligent, blatantly lazy errors do make the publication itself seem just that: lazy. Is this the image journalists and publishers wish to present to the country? To the world? Is the outraged reader really so scarce that these errors are to be completely ignored and overlooked? Or is this simply what the English language has become, and will remain?

Answers to these questions, I cannot provide. Hopefully thought-provocation, I have.