Oh dear, I saw this quote and thought – shouldn’t it be “the decline of speaking as though you are intelligent and sincerely care” ;)

I appreciate proper grammar, punctuation, and diction and agree with the sentiments in this post. I sincerely believe that anyone who wishes to do so can learn to speak properly. Nothing prevents a person from modifying their speech, except for cultural bias. From my personal observation, there is often a reverse bias favoring the slang speech over proper speech, and most young people choose to speak in a colloquial way in order to fit in with their peers.

Good post.

“I bet that Meredith DOES pop herself with rubber bands, just as I might stomp my right foot following the occasional failure to pronounce the first R in February.”

…except not pronouncing the first R in February is not incorrect. Any and all dictionaries I’ve encountered say that both pronunciations are acceptable, and there’s no scholarly basis out there for preferring one over the other.

Do you also pronounce the first D in Wednesday?

No, in addition to “dude” and “omgeez”, I’m guilty of “y’all” and “ain’t” on a regular basis. I was once at a party (now that I think about it, oddly enough, it was a Big Lebowski-themed party) where the average age of the party-goers was in the mid-30′s, and we were celebrating the engagements of 2 amazing international lawyers, who were marrying a pair of brothers.

The more I drank, the more self-conscious I became of my awful, teenage-y speech…to the point where I began to feel the need to apologize to everyone I met.

I’ll be yoinking this video and using it for my own purposes. Thanks for posting it.

Yep, that’s basically all I was trying to say, too. Ah well! :) Guess I tried too hard. But, in my book (as in my speech), better to be accused of “trying too hard” than not hard enough.