You’re Advertizement Hear [sic]…
It is an unfortunate sign of the dismal state of education in the United States when you see rampant misspellings and grammatical errors every day in commerce, advertising, and the mainstream media.
Drive along any downtown street or business district and you will see errors left and right. In my own recent wanderings I noticed a medical facility offering “physiical therapy”, a hotel that advertised its hospitality in such a nonsensical way that it appeared that its complimentary breakfast cost $79, and even a Boston Market franchise that cooked “Home Style Meals” as opposed to grammatically correct “Home-Style Meals”. Another shop indicated that it was an “Indian Bazar”, rather than the acceptable “Indian Bazaar”. The funniest of the many errors spotted in less than a five-minute timespan was an establishment that called itself “Costless Furniture”. I have to assume that they meant “Cost-Less Furniture”, that the furniture “cost less” than normal or less than their competitors, not “free” as stated.
Worse yet is the fact that no one seems to really care about getting it right. If mainstream advertisers omit all rules on punctuation and grammar, and the educational system persists in its downward spiral, today’s ignorant children will grow up into tomorrow’s apathetic adults.
Editors, advertisers, business owners, teachers — pick up a copy of the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style and take it to heart. You’ll learn a lot and, better yet, you’ll communicate an important message about pride and attention to detail to the community you serve.
You can’t be serious ! Suggesting that people read a book to learn about writing better, spelling better, etc, is wishful thinking at best. However, I share your concerns. We’re really talking about the lack of basic skills: arithmetic (I have twin nieces in sixth grade, who haven’t yet memorized the core multiplication tables), essential history (what were the years of US involvement in WWII ?), penmanship, reading for pleasure (not really a skill.) It seems that, esp in the last five years or so, the majority of our fellow citizens seem to be obsessed w/ getting rich quick, becoming a fifteen-minute celebrity on ‘reality TV’, etc, but not developing basic knowledge. Sad. Guess maybe the human race won’t be going to the stars after all, cuz no one will know to build the starships. Later….Jet