Dittos, Warsaw Will! That was an ideal idea, to respond thus.

So, daniel owens - what's YOUR excuse for being on here?

I don't (find it unbelievable) - sorry to say, but I just think that "Frankly, my dear, they don't give a damn." Just look at some of the notices sent home from school with the kids, written by teachers, worse yet, administrators! Horrendous grammar and spelling.

It all went to hell when someone convinced the Geography/History/Science teachers that they did not have to mark students down for poor spelling/grammar, as long as the content was more or less on the mark. Beginning of the end.....

Here's how/when I think it all began to go awry: I will celebrate my 70th next month, so you know where I'm coming from. I can remember in Mrs. Thompson's 4th grade geography class - when we turned in a written assignment, or a written/essay test question, we were graded not only on content, but on grammar, spelling, punctuation - the whole nine yards. Because Mrs. Thompson knew all of those rules herself, and knew they were important.

Today's teachers (last 20 years) not only don't know the rules; they don't care, and if they're teaching geography, e.g., they feel it is not their responsibility to teach grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. Hell, they CAN'T teach what they don't even know themselves. Sad state of affairs. But then, they're unionized now....and that's a whole 'nother can of worms...

Nope, not just a Southern thing. (does "southern" have to be capitalized? we could drive ourselves crazy with all this nit-picking!) I have grandchildren who attend one of the top 3 rated public school systems in all of Hamilton County/Southwest Ohio. The communiques that come home - under the signature of teachers, secretaries, even the Principal - are appalling - spelling, grammar, punctuation - "that" where "who" is correct - ad infinitum.
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Which tells me that in college, no more was expected of THEM! Trickle down, and too late to stop it, because so few of us care. And I am not an intellectual snob; I just had teachers who cared, and it stuck with me.
To be honest, a number of my profs in college "commented" on my "casual" style of writing (translation: they didn't like it). Sorry, it's just me, and while I often write in the "bullet points" style, i.e. incomplete sentences - works well in marketing and advertising - I know when it is acceptable and when it's not..
I still hold firm, though, that some of these things are with us and we can't change them, so we need to grow up, lay back, and not get out drawers in a wad about every little written or verbal transgression. We can enjoy one another, and commiserate, but jeez, we don't need to "seethe."

OMG, I just noticed the punctuation error in my post of seconds ago - now some of you will declare that I am ignorant - another glass of wine is in order!

You folks all have too much time on your hands! But if we're gonna pursue this subject (which became a curiosity to me when I, too, moved to the south (barely - Kentucky), let's look at how easily we accept regional idioms, which surely make no sense to those learning ESL! And regional pronunciations, such as JFK pronouncing "idea" as "idear" and words like "beta" as "baiter." Me, I think I'll pour a relaxing glass of wine and lament the disappearance of the subjunctive mood - I still say, "if I were...." And we could go on and on....