You can't have too many apostrophe's

Paul- I'm not the one that has trouble understanding, or that's bothered in any way by context error. No need what-so-ever to "clear things up" for me, Thank you. As I mentioned; It's obvious you can't contain yourself. SEEK HELP, and ADIOS! =8^)

9999,

Getting' off th'e subject' her'e but is the Siemen's CCa *D* getter better? than the O getter!

We do have entertainment such as "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader", which, of course, is not nearly as entertaining as the latest blockbuster with gratuitous violence (deceptively called "Action", as if there's no action in a movie without gore). If we were to actually assess skill level, Paul might be correct.

Paul, I understand your internal drive for excellence. Most people honestly do not have that degree of concern over such things. You are a man of the printed word, as you pore over articles, books, etc. That's my world as well, so we tend to be critical of such errors. Most people aren't even close to that level of involvement with the printed word. The average man reads less than one book each year. Making sure his grammar is correct is not going to a serious concern for him. When people have an average to marginal commitment to communication excellence (or lack the means to attain it) it won't happen from outside influences critiquing them.

Society is moving toward increasing illiteracy (Yup, higher interaction with decreasing literacy - not a good combination. It yields more "combatants".), which will have catastrophic consequences. I consider us to have moved into a new Dark Age socially, and in many respects intellectually. People are primed full of information (information overload) with a wretched World View and little means of productively communicating frustrations, needs, etc. Communication breakdowns, which used to be seen in very unstable homes, are now commonplace.

Rage is replacing verbal expression (Has anyone stopped to think that when speech is considered a Hate Crime and people feel pent up anger, they'll explode? Can anyone laugh off a negative comment anymore?). Years ago, when the first highly pubicized serial killings took place (I believe it was Columbine which spurred my comment) I said we'd see this weekly or daily in the years ahead. It's happening. I predict we will see a positive correlation between prosecution of verbal hate crimes and mass murders, i.e. as people feel more constrained to express themselves, they will simply explode with hatred, at times lethally. We are literally ratcheting up the tension, anger and violence in our society.

I could go on (I know, some of you are screaming at your computer, "Shut up, already!" Please avoid verbal hate crimes. Thank you!), but I won't.

Scrape the surface of poor communication in human interaction and you get... social catastrophe.

It's amazing what apostrophes, or rather misplaced ones, may indicate.

The fact is that in some impoverished third-world nations the quality of grade-school education is far superior to that offered in the USA. America has become the collective voice of indifference with regard to education. Instead we import educated people on time-limited visas to fill our job vacancies. Educated citizens are the exports of nations such as India, Cuba and Haiti and their use and interpretation of the English language will affect our adoption of common-use. As far as the correct grammar and punctuation go, correct as to whose interpretation?? China has more English speaking citizens than the US and Canada combined. Add the peculiar syntax and expression common in India's English to China's contribution to our language and what we write today may be construed in the near future as a vestige of Olde English.

Commcat, you are correct; our standards have dropped absymally low, and we don't seem to care.