Decline of Language

[cry4eternity]

Surely we've all noticed the recent decline in the ability of the general public to discern between "your" and "you're." I can't help but think that any typical third grader faced with the same dilemma would make the correct choice more often than many people in my age group. If you haven't noticed this, go to your facebook. You might not even have to scroll down at all. If you still fail to find any problems, start reading flyers around your local college campus or public library. You're bound to find something. Flyers for fraternity events seem to be especially problematic.

The obvious culprit for this seems to be txtsp34k. People have become accustomed to typing and writing things in a way that is convenient rather than correct. I also partially blame spell check and the lack of grammar in public education curricula much past elementary school. Just last semester I was taking a required university level writing class. At one point our teacher, who was a grad student in english rhetoric, made us fill out a sheet with a few basic grammar rules. I thought I found a typo in her answers and pointed it out, but in the end she ended up not knowing the difference between the more obscure meanings of "affect" and "effect."

Maybe I am a bit of a grammar nazi, but should it really be this common for people to be this ignorant? When I make a big deal of this and point it out, is it me that cares too much, or is it truly a sheer display of ignorance to take a dump on language? Is there something to be said for people who can form a coherent sentence with all words spelled properly while still choosing the proper form of "two," "too," or "to"? In my experience, those who can are *usually* more intelligent in general.

So I guess my question is this: Is this phenomenon actually a problem? Do people still need to know how to spell? If you take this point up with a linguist, they'll probably say that it's just the language's way of evolving. I've even heard some say that as long as the message was understood, the language was properly used.

Additionally, if this truly is a problem, what do you think should be done about it?