- Joined
- Jan 15, 2019
This used to bother me, but as my career has progressed these past 30 years (JFC I'm old) I've come to sincerely cherish this functional illiteracy, because it makes finding employment, winning contracts, getting promotions, etc. a piece of fucking cake. Most people can barely write (as you've observed), but for some reason a person can still (usually) tell there's "something" different about competent writing that makes it stand out favorably, even if they can't exactly pin down why (it's because it's easier to read and understand, but they don't realize it).You're concerned? Only now? In 2001 I took a couple university classes, and the first thing that we had to do was write an essay and give it to a fellow student to critique. The essay I was given was pretty decent... if read phonetically. From a basic grammar standpoint, it was a horror show. Every second word was a homophone, and every first one was in a bizarre random mix of American, Britsh or Australian English. I don't think I found a single punctuation mark in the right place in the entire fucking document. As I said, it was in of itself quite a decent bit of writing and I could see the clear intelligence of the author... who'd obviously graduated despite her teachers, not because of them.
Spelling, grammar, punctuation... it's just not important anymore and hasn't been for a long time. Like I said, it was a freakshow of dialects and I don't think the girl even knew that there is such a thing as separate English dialects. I wonder if anyone under the age of thirty does.
Want to distinguish yourself from a group of candidates? Write in proper English. Your resume and cover letter (these help too btw) will naturally rise to the top just because reading it didn't aggravate whoever's sifting through the pile. Want a better shot at a big contract? Customers prefer doing business with people whose writing doesn't suggest crayon or paste consumption.
Yes, possessing (and daring to use) functional literacy does somewhat out me as a white person, which I know is to my possible detriment because of diversity hobbling. That doesn't tend to matter as much in a shit job market though, and when the economy as a whole starts tanking, the people with money who still need to hire plebs to keep the lights on cling to the old-fashioned stuff like "being able to write a fucking letter other people can read."
