[Swordmaker]

If “you’re” not going to use proper English, I’m not going to read “your” article.

PS: those irk me too.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

If “you’re” not going to use proper English, I’m not going to read “your” article.

those irk me too.

My mother was a teacher, her father and sister were teachers, my father was, initially at least, a teacher - and his father, mother, and sister were teachers. So if anyone could be expected to have grammar Nazi tendencies, you would expect it of me. But, two things:

1. I used to be irked when commentators, particularly sports announcers, would say, “He did that good.” ”Good is an adjective, not an adverb; only ‘He did that well’ is correct.”

   And then one day I heard Dad use “good” as an adverb. And I thought, ‘If he doesn’t retain the distinction, what chance is there that the rest of American culture will retain it???’ And I just believe that the answer is, ‘None.’

2. What with iPhones, etc., spell check is going to corrupt our spelling, especially of homophones such as “your” and "you’re.” I think we are just going to suck it up and deal with it.

BTW, there is a very interesting book on the subject of English spelling,

Spell It Out: The Curious, Enthralling, and Extraordinary Story of English Spelling Dec 2, 2014

which discusses the constraints within which the medieval scribes sought to make English spelling logical.

Interesting to learn that the Roman alphabet had 24 letters, and that the “double U” and the “j” were added in English; the “j” actually started life as a version of “i” and somehow turned into a consonant.

Off topic: I just read “How the Irish Saved Civilization” by Thomas Cahill. It discusses the transition from the Roman Empire to the Medieval order. Here’s some of the timeline:

409 - Roman garrison abandons Britain
410 - Goths sack Rome
430 - Death of Augustine (and the fall of his city, which he didn’t live to see)
432 - Bishop Patrick arrives in Ireland

Patrick is amazingly successful at evangelizing. His acolytes form monasteries, copy books, and seed other monasteries. They then seed monasteries in Northern England, and ultimately France and Italy.

461 - Death of Patrick
476 - Rein of the last Roman Emperor ends

At this point not only is the Empire kaput, Christianity in Europe is pretty much the same. The heathens are in charge everywhere, basically. But as a backwater to a backwater (england), Ireland is untouched by the transformation.

500 - Brigid founds monastery with a wing for monks and a wing for nuns. Scandalous to Romans.
557 Columcille leaves Ireland, founds monastery on Iona, near Scotland.
590 - Columbanus leaves for Gaul.
782 - Alcuin takes over direction of Charlemagne’s Palatine School.

At Charlemagne’s court an Irishman wrote a compilation of ancient knowledge De mensura Orbis terrae which documents that “the flat earth theory” was not actually current in Medieval times. (The reason Columbus had a hard time getting his expedition funded was not that people thought that the radius of curvature of the earth was infinite, but that the smart money was on the distance to Asia being pretty much what it actually is. Columbus’ men were pretty desperate to find land by the time they actually did; imagine the prospect of sailing the whole Pacific without resupply!!)

793 - First Viking attack on Irish monastery.

Things go downhill for Ireland from then on; the Vikings gradually evicerate Ireland, and centuries later the English pretty much finish the job. But without the Irish influence, Europe would not have been Christian when Islam arrived at the gates - and would have been easy pickings for jihad.