JayB wrote:
Partly that publishers can't afford the detailed editing processes they used to have, and also partly, I suspect, that very few people under fifty actually know how to use an apostrophe correctly.
Round about the early-mid '70s, the idea took hold that you mustn't stifle children's creativity by teaching them punctuation, so no-one was taught how to use apostrophes. Or what a verb is, or how to punctuate dialogue, and so on.
I know there was a shift then, Jay. But I've never agreed. Early correction of grammar, spelling, etc, certainly never cramped my style, and I still have a very vivid imagination, though I don't write so much fiction these days.
Having said that, even at 'grammar' school in the late 60s/early 70s, I was taught very little formal grammar.
I've also come to the conclusion over the years, that some of us are instinctively good spellers. I just 'know', even sometimes with words I don't recognise immediately, how to spell.
On the other hand, I know quite a few otherwise very intelligent and articulate people, who struggle with the vagaries of English spelling. Many of them are over 50.
Incidentally, I found my instinct useful when learning Spanish, as I remember my first teacher telling us that some people would find the language easier than others. This is because there are vowel changes in some verb forms (too complicated to explain here, look it up if you're interested, sorry!). I have always known instinctively when the vowel should change, whereas some of my classmates struggled with that. In that early class, we were all doing O level Spanish alongside A level French, so we must all have had some capacity for learning languages.
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