It doesn’t take a really sharp eye to notice that things are deteriorating in terms of the ability of the people to use their language.  If you’ve ever been unfortunate enough to have to read the Philadelphia Daily News, you’d know what I am talking about.  I’m certain you have your own examples.

One thing that baffles me is the chronic inability to fill out forms.  I am occasionally guilty of this because I tend to read too little and write too quickly but I suspect that this is not the reason for some of the things I see.

When people are asked to fill out a form on which there are a few fields spread over a standard size piece of paper, it’s like advanced brain surgery.  Back when I worked as a medical biller, I would receive patient information forms that the patients filled out before seeing the doctor.  The results were largely horrifying.

What is so difficult about Phone Number? If you want the doctor’s office to call you for any reason, it would be incredibly helpful if they had your phone number.  In fact it would be so helpful that they asked you for it on the form you were supposed to fill out.  It takes up one entire line so you wouldn’t miss it.

Upon occasion we’d try to figure out if there was a common field people missed so we could `fix’ the form to make it more visible.  The errors were so random we gave up.

There were patients who couldn’t write, were too old or shook too much, at which point one of the doctor’s staff would fill in the form for them.  The ladies managed to get the phone numbers on the form every time.

Another one was date of birth.   Does that look confusing to you?  Is it spelled strangely?  Does it appear to be in a foreign language?  Insurance companies are rather fond of having this small bit of information on the claim.  It’s incredibly helpful, especially with the three Luis Rodriguezes seen by the practice.

While we’re at it, when did `Yo‘ become a legitimate word?

Why does my niece refer to her friend as Ant-knee (Anthony), who lives at the moun-ins (mountains).

We have a supermarket chain called Acme.  For some reason known only to aliens, it is generally (mis)pronounced ak-uh-me.  I strongly suspect this is related to why Acme’s cashier is called Kath-uh-leen.  If I have this down correctly, you can hear the following sentence all over Philly:

Yo, I know Kath-uh-leen.  She’s an ath-uh-leet.  She works at the ak-uh-me.  She wears them pointy shoes so she can step on them cock-uh-roaches.

I have to go… I’m making myself ill…