I mentioned that language is a communication tool, and I think appalling, ignorant corruptions like ‘could of’ are not evolution of language but rob meaning from it and reduce its utility. They are dysgenic.

In Students offered language lessons published yesterday, the BBC reports that “a fundamental lack of basic education was stunting students’ ability” and quotes Professor Joe Farrell, Strathclyde University, saying “Young people will not be able to contribute to national life in Scotland without these basic skills.”

And that is the point. English has become the de facto language of international trade, politics and IT, but if we in the US and the UK continue to allow increasing numbers of people to reach adulthood without basic competence in English we will end up with two versions of the language. The incoherent, garbled gibberings of mother tongue speakers, who will be progressively less and less capable of doing work of economic value, and a completely separate language used by everyone else. Which will be a real shame, because that language will not be a living language. Ask a German to explain the rule they aer taught which tells them how to pronounce ‘ough’ in any context (after the first fifteen minutes, I lost the will to live).

The error that I come across most often is ’should of’, ‘could of’, ‘would of’ … but like the rest of our (evolving) language … it is becoming so prevailent (sp?) that it will probably appear in the Oxford Dictionary within a generation!

‘Fraid you can’t stop the tide!
(Oh, lots of apostrophes too!!! and multiple !!!)

Dunno how many lines

How many did you put in?

Leanred? That would be the lean red meat, or the learned meet? Be fair, she is textbox challenged. Joyce, ages ago I supplied Jax with suggested code to fix your problem, unfortunately she still hasn’t got a round tuit.

?

I have huge mental blocks on the spelling of some very simple words.

However I do know it is peddling bullshit rather than pedalling bullshit.

Laugh at Joyce and her ‘leanred’.