“out? at? What’s the difference, huh?”
What is it with all this stuff? Is it just carelessness, or is something else going on?
In my opinion, some of it is just carelessness and some of it is inattentiveness, but, even more ominous, often it is indicative of a lack of basic writing skills. They have been taught by teachers who are themselves lacking in composition skills.
About 10 years ago, one of my sons asked for my opinion regarding a writing assignment for which his 10-year-old stepson had received a B+. The kid is fairly bright, and was getting good grades in school. Imagine my shock when I read a B+ composition that was full of misspellings and displayed no understanding of sentence structure. Son said that the teacher explained that her grade was based on the student’s creativeness in telling a story. I suspect teacher just did not have skills of her own.