If one were to use “illiterate” to mean anyone who is not literate, then the morons I keep reading in print–morons who get paid for what they write!–are illiterate. “Literate” really should be reserved for folks who are well-read, and anyone who writes, “tye dyed” (or “tiedied” or “tie died”–all abortions I’ve seen in print) for “tie dyed” is illiterate. Anyone who writes “there’s” when the subject is plural is an illiterate. If someone says such a thing, then they’re at the very least innumerate. Such stupidities as “backyard” for “back yard” (or the equally stupid “backseat” for “back seat”) are gaining acceptance simply because so very many people have no clue about the useful distinctions between an adjective-noun combination and an adverb, or just DGARA, and a deluge of misuses finally swamps good usage.
In a reasonable society, complete, total and absolute morons who misuse “decimate” to mean “annihilate” or “extirpate” would be given 5,000 lashes with a dangling participle and then be staked out on a split infinitive somewhere in Death Valley. Let them be joined by empty-headed vegetables who’ve somehow been able to pay illiterate, lobotomized monkeys to type “it’s” for “its” and perhaps society would have a chance for survival. . .
BTW, I’m not averse to useful changes in usage, but misuse that destroys useful distinctions is utterly abhorrent to me.
There must be a circle of hell reserved for illiterate “editors” who hire even more illiterate “proofreaders” and who then foist such garbage off on a paying public. One can only hope that they all find their way to their ultimate destination soon.
