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How well do you spell?

Is it ridiculous to pose such a question to an adult?

I think not!

Misspelled words and grammatically incorrect sentences really bother me. The thought that they are more widespread than ever is like nails on the chalkboard of my life.

I have often wondered how children turn into teenagers who turn into college students who still do not differentiate between there/their/they’re, to/too, you/you’re.

In the past, I’ve received a negative response to my rantings about the inability of Americans to spell simple words correctly. I’m not somehow trying to support my position as an aspiring intellectual. I actually believe spelling is a basic skill that cashiers and CEO’s alike should possess.

People are laughing at us! MedIndia published this article, earlier this year it reads, “The study also showed that nearly 78% of the men surveyed were unable to spell “friend.”

The question is: who’s to blame?

You could blame video games or the internet. After all, I’ve never seen creative spelling quite like that of the internet. You could blame parents, teachers or students.

I say it’s the system.

There are definitely crappy teachers, preoccupied parents and lazy students out there, but the system employs those crappy teachers and enables lazy students. The system allows children to graduate from high school, despite a mess of spelling errors on their college admission essays.

Individual teachers could start raising the bar, but that wouldn’t solve the problem across the board.

All “the people on top” need to do is raise the bar. Tell the teachers that their students must consistently spell [insert set of words appropriate for grade level here] correctly to graduate. If only they would do this, it would rid the world of misspelled tattoos and prepositions where they just don’t belong (e.g. Where are you at? What’s with the at? It’s not like it’s easier to add a word to your sentence.)

Who are you blaming? What’s your solution? A penny for your (correctly spelled and punctuated) thoughts!