Anthony Spano on: Spelling and Grammar

Hello, my good friends.

The command of the English language of American citizens is appalling. High school and college students bastardize the English language every day. I understand that English is easily the hardest language in the world to learn and master, but you hear it every day. Please learn to speak in a way that doesn't make you look like a total asshole.

I blame social media. One person speaks like an idiot, and it spreads like an STD. Now we actually have people saying things like "swag" and "doe" and "What's gucci?". ("Doe" is said in place of "though". We aren't speaking about female deer...)

Your = possession
You're = you are
There = over there
Their = possession of them
They're = they are

Supposably should almost never be used. You mean to say supposedly.

Spelling in this country is horrendous. Admittedly, I am a dominant speller. In seventh grade, I won my class, grade, and school spelling bee. I went to Brooklyn for a district-wide spelling bee, and won that. I went to the citywide spelling bee and placed in the top 50. I even got a lovely jacket for going so far that I promptly threw away because it was pretty embarrassing. I'm not asking for linguistics majors, though. I'm just asking people to learn how to spell routinely used words.

Nobody is asking you to spell antidisestablishmentarianism.

Thanks.

Anthony Spano