Spelling, conversation skills decline as Internet use grows

[BellisimaJ.]

The internet has just EXPOSED ignorance of the language

I agree.

I remember reading the 80s that the average television show was geared for 6th grade intellects. I read somewhere else recently (of course, I can't remember where) that today's average tv show is geared for a 4th grade intellect.

Newspapers are also geared to the intellect of the average 4th grader. Sad. Imo, this just contributes to the dumbing down of the population.

[thentavius]

Newspapers are also geared to the intellect of the average 4th grader. Sad. Imo, this just contributes to the dumbing down of the population.

100% agreement here.

If you look back at older catalogs, ads, newspapers, and such--say pre-1950, there's a lot of language that's considered "elevated" nowadays, which isn't really elevated at all. It's just normal.

As each decade goes by, ads get faster, content gets dumbed down, and phrases get shorter.

In several of my editorial handbooks, they do a survey of best-selling fiction and nonfiction titles. In the last 10 years, 2-word or 3-word book titles always headed the best seller lists; rarely bumped by anything with even 4 words--and almost completely excluding books with much longer titles.

Agents and publishers will tell you your book is more likely to sell if it's got a simplistic 2-word title (or 1 word).

Simply amazing.

When I read our local newspapers, I find all kinds of errors--and that's not even including the dumbed down, elementary school language and kindergarten sensationalism.

Do you ever feel very, very alone out there? Like you're the last person in your area who knows more than two 4-syllable words?