This is something my wife and I often disagree about (after 30 years there has to be something ), as a professional editor she tends to look for "correct" English, I'm rather less worried about it changing. But the thing we do agree about is "unambiguous" English. Apostrophes are a fine (and commonly used) example - used correctly they do ensure ambiguity is removed. It doesn't matter too much if you are putting a price on potatoes, it does when you're writing a safety case!


Which is why I personally like  emojis . As these forums show again and again,brief and rapidly posted writing can be easily misinterpreted - and yes we can (and I sometimes do ) use huge numbers of words to ensure - for example - that a joke  isn't taken as an angry slur . But emojis are SO much quicker!


And what I think is very often forgotten is that - and I think this is a very good thing - in the 21st century more people are writing more then ever before. In engineering as an example, when I started we had technical writers, we had typists, we had a drawing office, the actual engineers didn't actually have to write anything - or if they did it would get "tidied up" before anyone else saw it. In the computer age far more people are "publishing" (for want of a better word) their own words directly. So language is going to change just because of that. Better that most people can write something than writing just being in the hands of a few who understand the arcane (and sometimes randomly invented by the Fowlers for example) rules of English.


I remember a very elderly next-door neighbour saying "in my day everyone left school knowing how to read and write". We tried explaining to him that what he was remembering was a grammar school, which in the 1930s was definitely not typical.


So I feel democratization of language is good, and anything that combats internet flame wars is good, it's just a case of keeping enough knowledge of the useful bits of grammar - not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.


Re any and all "correct English" mistakes in this post - as I say, it's my wife who's the editor, definitely not me


And I was going to be so good and not let these forums distract me today


Cheers,


Andy

This is something my wife and I often disagree about (after 30 years there has to be something ), as a professional editor she tends to look for "correct" English, I'm rather less worried about it changing. But the thing we do agree about is "unambiguous" English. Apostrophes are a fine (and commonly used) example - used correctly they do ensure ambiguity is removed. It doesn't matter too much if you are putting a price on potatoes, it does when you're writing a safety case!


Which is why I personally like  emojis . As these forums show again and again,brief and rapidly posted writing can be easily misinterpreted - and yes we can (and I sometimes do ) use huge numbers of words to ensure - for example - that a joke  isn't taken as an angry slur . But emojis are SO much quicker!


And what I think is very often forgotten is that - and I think this is a very good thing - in the 21st century more people are writing more then ever before. In engineering as an example, when I started we had technical writers, we had typists, we had a drawing office, the actual engineers didn't actually have to write anything - or if they did it would get "tidied up" before anyone else saw it. In the computer age far more people are "publishing" (for want of a better word) their own words directly. So language is going to change just because of that. Better that most people can write something than writing just being in the hands of a few who understand the arcane (and sometimes randomly invented by the Fowlers for example) rules of English.


I remember a very elderly next-door neighbour saying "in my day everyone left school knowing how to read and write". We tried explaining to him that what he was remembering was a grammar school, which in the 1930s was definitely not typical.


So I feel democratization of language is good, and anything that combats internet flame wars is good, it's just a case of keeping enough knowledge of the useful bits of grammar - not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.


Re any and all "correct English" mistakes in this post - as I say, it's my wife who's the editor, definitely not me


And I was going to be so good and not let these forums distract me today


Cheers,


Andy