re: #165 Cato the Elder

Grammar and spelling fell by the wayside long before texting and Twitter.

……

Later I asked her immediate superior about it, who told me that even in grad school these days, no professor or TA worries about spelling, grammar, syntax or general solecisms. Your grade depends merely on whether you sorta-kinda get the general idea across. In other words, as long as you spew back whatever PC garbage you were indoctrinated with, it’s all good.

Sorry, very OT, but I just have to tell you that this is not true. Not only is excellent writing a major criterion for our admissions to the PhD Program (one of the top 3 in the country) but those students go on to be TAs who coach the students quite a lot in writing. There is also a “Writing Center” on campus where we send the students who need more help than we can provide, mostly ESL students. And when I taught at a private university where I did my own grading, I spent a ton of time on Undergraduate writing.