I’ve become increasingly concerned about the ignorance of Americans - not those who have learned English as a second language, but native English speakers - regardless of race, income level, schooling or other determining factors.

The number of people who read seems to be decreasing in direct proportion to the number of kids growing up with portable DVDs, and ipods. Television has become the preferred babysitter for children and the most effective way for adults to anesthetize themselves after a day’s work. Teachers, overworked and underpaid, seem to be fighting a losing battle – or are some perpetuating it?

These days I see egregious (horrible, outrageous, astoundingly bad) grammatical errors on resumes and cover letters, web sites, signs, emails to me…..regardless of management or income level. Job hunters write asking me for “advise” (it should be “advice.” “Advice” is the noun; “to advise” is a verb). Some of these are written by people who are in the job market hoping to be invited in for an interview, and their paperwork is full of punctuation and grammatical mistakes. Were they careless? Or do they not know? Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe the hiring authority doesn’t know the difference either.