LizzieMaine
Bartender
- Messages
- 33,761
- Location
- Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
I don't much care about the technical niceties of grammar and punctuation, because they've evolved thruout the history of language and will continue to evolve. The English spoken and written in 2022 in many small but legitimate ways, is not the English that was spoken and written in 1942, nor was the English that was spoken and written in 1942 identical to the English spoken in 1862. And so on back to the days of Chaucer.
The whole concept of "standard English" is a social construction, not one bound by immutable linguistic law. What is "standard" evolves based on where and when you are.
As far as literacy goes, the literacy rate in America, despite internet panic to the contrary, is considerably higher today than it was during WWII, when illiteracy made it difficult for Selective Service to fill military quotas. A ruling that 10 percent of selectees could be "illiterate if intelligent and trainable" had to be cut in half after a year's experience proved that widespread illiteracy in the ranks was compromising the efficiency of troops in the field.
The whole concept of "standard English" is a social construction, not one bound by immutable linguistic law. What is "standard" evolves based on where and when you are.
As far as literacy goes, the literacy rate in America, despite internet panic to the contrary, is considerably higher today than it was during WWII, when illiteracy made it difficult for Selective Service to fill military quotas. A ruling that 10 percent of selectees could be "illiterate if intelligent and trainable" had to be cut in half after a year's experience proved that widespread illiteracy in the ranks was compromising the efficiency of troops in the field.