Dear Education System of the United States of America,

How have you been? It’s only been almost two years since I’ve left you, so I think it’s time to have a heart to heart. In fact, a talk with you is long overdue. There’s a burning question I’ve been meaning to ask you ever since I realized that there are still people in the world who don’t know proper spelling and grammar:

What went wrong?

No really, I’d like to know. When did “your” and “you’re” become interchangeable? When did people stop caring about using “their,” “there” and “they’re” appropriately? Or that “whose” and who’s” and “its” and it’s” mean different things? And let’s not forget the “spell what you hear” policy those who shall remain unnamed employ: sandwich, breakfust, anywere, kindergarden – I could go on.

It’s just a really big shame. In all of this however, there is a glimmer of hope – a glimmer of hope that started in the most unlikely of places: Facebook. In an act of resistance, a lovely group aptly named “I judge you when you use poor grammar” emerged to fight the evils of English language everywhere.

The group was on a mission – a mission to gather as many examples of poor grammar and spelling to show the world that we are mad as hell and are not going to take ignorance against the written word any longer. It looks like after 360,634 members and 5,409 examples of poor grammar later, the mission has been accomplished: “I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar: A Collection of Egregious Errors, Inadvertent Bloopers and Other Linguistic Slip-Ups,” birthed from the loins of one brave Facebook group will be coming to a bookstore near you on March 31, 2009.

Teachers of the world, I urge you to tell your students about this book. Students of the world, I urge you to listen to your teachers so you never end up in a collection like this. Education System of the USA take note – you’re obviously doing something wrong.