A word to the wise for confused youngsters

They seem to be fairly consistent, I’ll give them that. Trouble is, simply being consistent isn’t enough. I have lost count of the number of times I have winced when reading the catchall “there” rather than “their” or “they’re”. The fact that they are homophones seems good enough for many young typists. Is this a consequence of the levelling-down effect of “social media” sites and text messaging, or is it poor education in the first place? I remember having to write, as a child, “they’re there, their guide told them, pointing to a small cave where the wildcat’s fluffy kittens were hiding”. Do few people bother, these days, to cast an eye over whatever they or their underlings have written; particularly when it is intended for a wider audience? Are schoolchildren no longer given the exhaustive (and often exhausting) spelling tests to which we were subjected? Of course, we had never heard of the concept of dyslexia, which nowadays is widely used falsely to justify bad spelling. I recently ordered a gilet via the internet. I received an email confirming the order for a “giblet”. Was this an intentional joke, I wondered? What would I receive when the order arrived at my door? Even shops such as Waterstones have succumbed. And, speaking of orders, why has the prefix “pre” crept into our lives? When we prejudge the outcome of an event, we do so without knowing the full facts; does this mean that when we “pre-order” something we are committing ourselves to buying a pig in a poke? Once upon a time, the BBC was held to be the complete arbiter of both grammar and pronunciation. What a joke this has become. Recently, I have heard a BBC commentator refer to “these ‘ones’ which are ‘comprised of’…” The taste for everything American has much to do with things. I went to buy a cup of hot chocolate at a local outlet the other week. I asked for medium size. I was told by a precocious teenager wearing a “barista” T-shirt that I meant “regular”. Since this was my first (and now my only) visit to the establishment, the concept of “regular” seemed strange. After a pantomime sequence which entailed my being shown cups of various shapes and sizes, out of which I had to pick the one that seemed about right, I was served my cup of chocolate.

‘The taste for everything American has much to do with things’