Ah, I am reading this well-known book “Eats, shoots, and leaves,” and I am thoroughly enjoying it. For those of you who might not be aware of the joke on which the title of the book is based, here it goes — A panda walks into a nightclub and eats shoots and leaves. Now look at what a few extra commas do to this sentence — A panda walks into a nightclub and eats, shoots, and leaves.
This is exactly what happens when extra commas are put in or missed in the places required or when apostrophes are just added without any reason. The meaning of what is to be conveyed is radically transformed. There are so many such examples given in the book, which can be hilarious or even tragic sometimes.
Even if you pick up any newspaper or magazine today, you would be struck by the low levels of proofreading being done. Even a child conversant with the basic rules of grammar, spelling and punctuation should be able to do a better job than them. Some common bloopers that I notice all the time are the wrong usage of its and it’s, the terrible usage of apostrophes where not required (door’s), apostrophes used to make plurals (i’s instead of ies), the use of the word anyways (it is anyway), and so on.
What could be causing this general decline in English language, notably grammar and punctuation? Is it because the grammar being taught in schools is low grade. I remember, I had to study a huge volume of Wren and Martin in school, whereas my son has some cursory grammar. Most of the times, the teacher herself is not very good at English.
Another reason could be the explosion in writing due to the spread of the internet. It is hip to abbreviate and use wrong spellings due to the ease of texting or emailing.
And, don’t even get me started about how poor Hindi has become — the lingo is astonishingly grammatically incorrect most of the time, and there hardly seems to be any punctuation. I see textbooks replacing the Hindi purnaviraam with the English period. Even the numbers used are in English. Even basic pronunciations are wrong. Most Hindi-speaking people mispronounce phool as fool. Fa has actually come from Urdu, and the Hindi alphabet is pha. Since there is not much scope of reading good Hindi writing, I don’t see how one can improve the written Hindi standards. I subscribed Champak in Hindi for my son, and it really is a load of garbage.
Many of you might not feel as aggrieved as I do, because like my husband says — I am a language Nazi :). But seriously, it makes me cringe when I see such bad usage so often. This way all languages are headed towards a coma!
Rachna says 
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