“R U Kidding Me?” Part 2

If I was a frequently abbreviated word I think many of my letters would be feeling jilted. Have you read the writing of those who are a part of the “cyber generation?” Even some of those who were born towards the end of my own generation, the “millennial generation,” from the 1990s to early 2000s have the same problems with proper grammar usage. In a previous job I used to get handwritten day-off requests and shift change forms that bordered on being not understandable (or legible, but that’s a whole different rant).

Immediately I agreed with this blog post entitled “Your Poor English is Ruining It.” The writer is facing the same situations I did when I previously wrote “R U Kidding Me?” I think we could definitely enjoy a cup of coffee together to compare experiences if we lived in the same town. Every time I log onto just about anything I’m slapped in the face by insulting misuses of grammar. It’s almost too much to stand any more.

In reading my emails at work I can easily tell the generation of the writer about ninety percent of the time just based on grammar. Emails by those in the younger generations almost scream for help immediately. It’s becoming harder and harder to focus on the intent of the message when I just want to grammar check the whole email and send it back before answering the questions that were within it.

However, just in the last month I’ve decided it’s time I stop trying to convince others that proper grammar will get them farther in life. It’s time that I capitalize on their blatant misuse by letting it push my proper usage ahead. It’s one thing to be able to demonstrate your class in person, but another to be able to demonstrate just how classy you are via a well written correspondence.

A friend of mine, who has been known to exhibit very lovely grammatically correct correspondences, recently lost his favorite hat in a rental car. All it took was one well written email to the rental car company for them to launch an all out search for his hat. Lo behold, his hopes and dreams were answered and his hat has been returned. When he texted me to let me know the hat had been found and was being returned, I realized that if the hat was lost by someone in the generation after us then it would probably still be missing in action. I can’t imagine any rental company being compelled to launch a full on search because of an email that read “Pls help…lost hat n cant live w/o it!”