[steven]

Maybe the language is just keeping up with spoken language? Did you ever think that written language is a synthetic form of actual language in that it is a representation of spoken language? I'm starting to care less and less about written language the older I get... it's a great tool for learning... but then again, how many famous writers have I read who "misuse" the socalled gramamr that I've studied in school up to now. Frankly, I don't care any more about all of this nonsense. You're complaining about the written language deteriorating and citing different things that you've seen on the internet... a lot of people on the internet are youngsters or ESL folks... so it's hard to really quantify just how "bad" it is. American people mess up grammar all the time (as do people from other English speaking countries). Take what you want from it-- if you want to base peoples' intelligence off it go ahead, but I'm starting to see less and less signifigaance in doing so. Written grammar will always fall behind spoken grammar anyways-- because that's where language starts, and that's where language ends.

This is why I think it's a joke to try to teach English the way they do in Japanese text books, written grammar-- particularly the junk they use, is way behind spoken grammar (which varies from place to place anyways).

I think no matter what major language you look at you would find similar patterns.

I apologize for being blunt, but what's your point in all this? I can see where you say people are being "lazy" or whatever, but maybe some people put more priority on things a little less arbitrary than English grammar-- like studying and understanding actual concepts, which is far more rewarding than complaining about grammar (which I used to do, although mostly internally, much too often). I think it's something you'd do better getting over because it's not something one or a few people can change. Language is whatever the majority wants it to be. If stupid people are the majority, then the self proclaimed smart folks better catch up or they're gonna fall behind.