One of the messages we recently received discussed our language as being a "global language." The article included a short discussion of a sense of frustration when trying to understand English as it has been transmongrelized--as opposed to transmogrified--into other dialects or languages. However, it is not necessary to attempt to deal with companies or government agencies in other countries to develop a sense of frustration with a lack of understanding of the English language. One need only attempt to teach English in a business college where recent high school graduates are unable to write sentences without creating fragments or runons. And spell check could not begin to correct the problems with spelling!

Somehow we need to return to the basics of learning to read and write. Instead, we now find our educators concerned with zero tolerance. If an educator/parent can instill appreciation for reading and writing in a child, we might have to build more libraries instead of more prisons. Then we would be able to initiate an exchange program--dictionaries for guns, maybe. A good Stephen King novel for a stiletto sounds fair, don't you think. It's just a thought.