Dear Editor:
Kate Zimmerman's Oct. 7 column, I'm Taken Back by Bad Grammar Everyday, is very interesting and I have a lot of sympathy with her views on grammar. I cringe when I see "off of" used when it should just be "off" and many young folk print "your" when they really mean "you are."
However (I was taught never to start a sentence this way), she must also realize that things change. If the English language had never been challenged we would still be speaking and writing in middle English. That was revised to Chancery Standard at the invention of the printing press. Since then many changes have occurred and many words have been added to suit the times. "Blogging" and "tweeting" I am sure will be included in dictionary updates if they have not been already.
Less emphasis is put on mental arithmetic today and students are allowed to use calculators in class which has made mental arithmetic almost redundant.
In the same way women are working and the days of wives sitting around on Mrs. Smith's estate drinking tea and speaking very properly about whatever, have long gone. Conversation unfortunately no longer needs to be an art form. When teenagers text their friends short forms such as "u r" save time and often money, but convey the same meaning. I believe it will not be long before this appears in books together with other modern abbreviations, that is if books actually survive.
The generations coming behind us are not going to be interested in the beauty of putting words together to describe a scene or an adventure - they will want a story with excitement expressed in précis form and grammar will not be of any importance.
I'm with you Kate, but we are on a losing side!
John Spender North Vancouver
