Some musings on the death of the English language from The Baltimore Examiner. Some of the best takeaways:
Watson taught English at Catonsville Community College ? now the Catonsville branch of the Community College of Baltimore County ? and through the years was occasionally amused and sometimes appalled at his students? writing. Eventually, he started jotting down their sentences and holding onto them.
?Understand,? he says, ?this is not just Catonsville I?m talking about. Through the years, I?d talk with colleagues all over the state. They all had the same stories. We?d ask each other, ?What?s happened to writing? What?s happened to language???
You want more examples? How about these beauties:
?The person was an innocent by standard, who just happened to be the victim of your friend?s careless responsibility.?
?Society has moved toward cereal killers.?
?Romeo and Juliet exchanged their vowels.?
?Willie Loman put Biff on a petal stool.?
?Another effect of smoking is it may give you cancer of the thought.?
?The children of lesbian couples receive as much neutering as those of other couples.”
Or, when asked to use the past tense of ?fly? in a sentence: ?I flought to Chicago.?
Some sentences reflect a lack not only of basic thought, but also of historical awareness. Such as:
?Benjamin Franklin discovered America while fling a kite.?
?Christopher Columbus sailed all over the world until he found Ohio.?
?Many attempt to blame Kurt Schmoke for the decline in the population, yet Donald Schaefer suffered the same oral deal.?
?Michaelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sixteenth Chapel.?
?All these sentences,? Watson says, ?were written by college students who were not intending to be funny. But they don?t read much any more, and they haven?t had much exposure to language. And it?s gotten worse over the years.”
