I never realized how bad it was, until the Internet was born.
Grammar, that is. In chat sessions, forums, and emails the level of English displayed is amazingly low. People show no sign of knowing the difference between they're, their, and there. Or between to and too. I'm talking about basic 4th grade English here. Not esoterica like why it is incorrect to use beg the question in the way most people use it...
What's interesting is that English is evolving MUCH faster than it did before. Why? Because in the old days, our primary reading materials were newspapers, books, and magazines. Things scrutinized by editors for correctness. This limited the degredation/evolution of the language from generation to generation.
But with the Internet as our primary reading material, there is no restoring force. Nothing to pull us constantly toward a fixed standard of English. Descriptive linguists should have a field day with this; prescriptive linguists will probably be crying if they aren't already.
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