How come Americans are so bad at spelling and grammar?

And use poor grammar.

Beg to differ. People very well do judge you by the way you talk, write, act, and dress. Okay, there are a few dot com billionaires in hoodies and blue jeans, but you are still being judged. Maybe not so much as a hundred years ago, but still. . . .

Within the past week, a lady said something I thought was total baloney, and I told her I had too many smarts to fall for something like that. Some people take usage like that at face value, and I fear I made a lasting impression.

It truly is sad that we, as speakers of the language, have butchered it so badly. I'm 21 and ashamed of most of my own graduating class because 90% of the people I went to school with were unable to read or write correctly. My mother taught me at a young age how to read and write, and I take what she taught me to heart. More than anything, I believe the blame lies with parents for not teaching their children, teachers for not caring enough about the child to teach them, and the children themselves for adopting their parents and peers laziness and lack of ambition. Add to that the increasing use of slang terms, and our language and language skills are declining rapidly.

Also a very good point.
It is rare anymore though to find parents who will sit down and teach their children much of anything except bad behaviour. And this is coming from a girl who grew up in America, helping her fellow students puzzle out simple sentences, like much younger children and trying vehemently to convince others to speak semi-correctly so that they can be understood. I truly wish there were more people who appreciated grammar, whether it be in writing or speaking. This excepting UNDERSTANDABLE conversation. As long as they aren't speaking as if they have no sense. On a similar note; SLANG TERMS LIKE "dis" "dat" "dey" IRRITATE ME BEYOND MEASURE!! If you're going to start out a sentence "I be like", "We/I/They is", "Cuz" or the like, just please don't.

Well, in the case of my children, of course I told them numerous times how important spelling and grammar are, but they are still quite bad at it and I think there are two reasons for that:

1.) They pick up bad habits from the other kids (and some adults too)
2.) They simply don't care, just like some members of this forum said they don't care either.

I think you misread some of us. I care quite a bit about grammar. I enjoy it. I differ with a few on a2k about usage once in a while, and sometimes I'm the correct one and sometimes I'm off my rocker, but I am interested in all that.
We have a situation in some language threads regarding prescriptionism and that gets fairly boring. I'm sort of in between on those discussions since I like to play with words myself and language change interests me - but I still like the rules I was raised with: they are a kind of ballast. Often my word play falls flat and people don't get me. So it goes.

My feelings, though, about people who speak and write differently than those who write in my favorite magazine, the New Yorker, are usually feelings of interest, not disgust. I was reading that at age ten, not that I was precocious, just that it sat there on a table in the living room and I was curious. I also grew up on the Saturday Evening Post, Colliers, and Life magazines.

That doesn't make me superior, that interest is my first response, but it makes me wonder about the tone of your complaints.

That might be true.

And certainly it was true as well, when I was a child.
But what we knew - and were taught - in those days was to differ between when we could use "colloquial" German and when "correct" German. (I was even good in local dialect, could understand [and speak a bit] Low German and mingle all forms.)

It was the same when I was a child in the Netherlands; we were taught how to use correct Dutch and we were expected to know it. We also learned quite a bit of grammar, which my children were never really taught here in the USA.

Hey, osso, I was reading the New Yorker at ten too. Of course, my reading was pretty much limited to the cartoons. Still is, come down to that.

Hey, osso, I was reading the New Yorker at ten too. Of course, my reading was pretty much limited to the cartoons. Still is, come down to that.

You only say that because I'm a "foreigner". If I was an American saying these same things, you wouldn't wonder about my tone or motives

They solidifed their all-time reputation with this one, I think:

Hi, MJ. I'm not sure if I looked at much else than cartoons at ten, probably a dabble (that was when I was trying to read the bible and gave up), and I also liked ads, but I strongly remember not getting what was funny about some cartoons.

Further effort was rewarded.

Not so. I tend to like or at least be interested in foreigners. I'm the type who is against american jingoism re the olympics. That drives me nuts. And much jingoism beyond that. It's your tone in particular that I have a beef with.

Well maybe it's some kind of a weird European tone LOL. No, seriously, there is nothing personal about it and I don't intend to look down on anyone. I simply don't like bad spelling & grammar, that's all.

Hah! You should listen to Vlamingen. (I've just returned from Vlaanderen.)

You're entitled to that. It's the disgust aspect in your posts that is sort of shriveling.

I guess I need to add that many people have spelling problems because of something different in brain chemistry. A cousin of mine kept flunking latin 1, and she was a pretty good student generally. I think the school gave up on it for her. This was in the fifties. This was before any of us knew about dyslexia, but I'm not sure when studies on that became known. Anyway, she aced the math in the SAT test with a perfect score, later became a cpa for the government. She got through university schooling by using a tape recorder, in the sixties.

People are interesting, whether or not they can spell properly.

Dyslexia is a whole different issue; that can be excused.

I've heard it

Americans occasionally come along with grammar pet peeves and get the same treatment. We also have these debates regularly in the ESL threads. You are welcome to join in.