As a side note, I might add that it's not unusual to get a call from my mother that begins with some strange or interesting question on a point of trivia she can't remember or the name of a song she can only remember one line of, etc.

So my mother calls tonight, and the conversation starts with:

Granny:  in a business letter, what punctuation comes after the 'Dear Ms. Smith'?
me:  Uh, colon?  (the hesitation here is not because I'm unsure of the answer, but because I know this must be a trick question)
G:  yes!  (yells to my dad) Sherron knew!
me:  you know people who don't?
G:  only my secretary and our media/PR person, and every one else in the office I asked. 

    [Okay, we can discount most of the guys because they're the non-verbal, engineering types.  But none of the people who've been sending out letters and proposals and writing ads and articles for publication and copy for the website !?!]

me:  *speechless* (still convinced there's got to be a punchline)

Unfortunately it wasn't.  She told me the story of how she found this out about the PR woman, how she actually had to ARGUE the point with her, force her to change it in a cover letter going out on a very big proposal.  She worries that she hasn't been proofreading them before now, because who would suspect that a 45 year old woman with a degree in media communication would not know basic grammar?    She's aware it's a problem with a lot of the young people just coming out of college tho.  Just last week she threw out a resume she'd received because the job applicant misspelled something.  She says in this world, where there are plenty of applicants for every job, there's no point in even considering people sloppy or lazy or ignorant enough to not make sure their resume is perfect.

She wonders if she's a dinosaur. 

I'm sure we are, she and I.

And I hate that.

I've been thinking about the_theorist 's comment about why would it matter if they get the point across.  And I acknowledge that one of the wonderful things about English is its flexibility, its easy acceptance of new words, etc.   But I think I have an answer to that, and I'm going to post it when I can clearly verbalize it

English doesn't just borrow words from other languages.  It follows them down dark alleys, hits them over the head with old beer bottles and rummages through their pockets for loose grammar.