Reedikyoolis

Ahem. Sorry my post is late.

I could give excuses and say how my life has been a whirlwind since my return from the Iberian Peninsula, but I'll spare you.

Revisitation
I'd like to revisit for a minute a previous post that I wrote entitled "Non-Grammar Lovers Anonymous." I posited that a more effective way to teach grammar is in context and to focus on "big picture" elements like content and coherence when children are learning to write instead of redlining every grammar mistake and staking their grades on them. Note that I did not say finicky things like grammar and spelling mistakes don't matter at all, and note that I did not say these mistakes shouldn't be corrected. I just don't think they should factor in as heavily as they traditionally are when grading papers. Also note that this approach applies to children who are still learning to express themselves through writing.

Extremities
However, there is an extreme to this type of approach that I wholeheartedly do not endorse. Read this article. It's flabbergasting. Basically, a British professor has gotten so fed up with reading his students' atrociously written papers due to spelling mistakes that he suggests accepting the mistakes as "variant spellings," to make them therefore legitimate:

"Instead of complaining about the state of the education system as we correct the same mistakes year after year, I've got a better idea," Ken Smith, a criminology lecturer at Bucks New University, wrote in the Times Higher Education Supplement.

"University teachers should simply accept as variant spelling those words our students most commonly misspell."

To kickstart his proposal, Smith suggested 10 common misspellings that should immediately be accepted into the pantheon of variants, including "ignor," "occured," "thier," "truely," "speach" and "twelth" (it should be "twelfth").

My (Correctly Spelled) Rant
I protested against the cranky curmudgeon image of the English major in my previous post because my inner English major is usually conciliatory, ameliorating. Just let them express themselves and we'll worry about the mistakes later. Plus, it's just annoying when everyone assumes you take glee in jumping all over everyone's grammar mistakes. But reading that article awakened my dormant inner curmudgeon. Sorry, but what this professor is proposing is ridiculous. Number one, he isn't talking about children still learning to write, he's talking about supposed adults in college. Didn't they have to write a statement of purpose or some such essay to get in? Secondly, he's not complaining about their inability to write coherent papers, he's complaining about their awful spelling—which is one of the easiest things to remedy for anyone not too lazy to hit spell check. Just because you get tired of reading your students' awful spelling doesn't mean it's okay for you to have the audacity to suggest that everyone accept their ignorance as legitimate.

The Curmudgeon's Last Word
Spelling, annoying as it can be, isn't just spelling. It takes on additional weight as one becomes an adult. It is an indicator of intelligence. For example, if I read a blog post, say, about a letter Kenneth Haney wrote, and then scroll through the comments to that post, I notice an interesting trend (and yes, I admit, perhaps it's somewhat subjective): There is a directly proportional relationship between spelling and rationality. The better the spelling of a particular comment, the more reasonable the argument. The worse the spelling, usually, the less rational the argument.

And the Moral of the Story Is . . .
Well, I was just reminded of complaints about the hot new site, Everyone's Apostolic. On a Collideoscope post describing the site, I thought it was interesting that a few of the comments addressed the site's presence of spelling and grammar mistakes. I don't want to ask this question for fear of sounding like the haughty grammar fiend that I never wanted to be, but is that cause for concern? That the supposed "it" site for connecting Apostolics is riddled with spelling and grammar errors?

Jesus told us to let our light shine. Paul says we are ambassadors for Christ. Would that include maintaining a gramatically correct front?