This column begins with a great headline. “Edward Rondthaler, Foenetic Speler, Dies at 104,” read the New York Times’ obituary section last week.

Rondthaler lived a uniquely American life. He was, at various points, a choir student, a psychology major, a trendsetting typographer and a passionate advocate for spelling reform. He claimed the difficulty of English spelling was the root cause of many social ills, from “jooveniel delinquency” to “criem-in-th-streets,” as he delightfully wrote in the Times in 1977.

Though Rondthaler’s quixotic passion has yet to change our spelling, he nevertheless managed to strike at an important truth, one that is gaining relevance in this technological world: The English language is difficult to master, and we’re not learning it like we once did.

The literacy statistics are arresting. A 2005 study by the National Center for Education Statistics claimed that only 31 percent of recent college graduates could be termed “proficient” in reading and understanding prose, down 10 percent from 1992. More anecdotally, a general sense of decline has clearly crept into our beliefs about our literacy.

But some say that this view is wrong.

Clive Thompson, a columnist for Wired, writes that perhaps our literacy is simply changing. He cites a study of Stanford University students conducted by Andrea Lunsford. The study makes the case that student writing, far from being ruined by the prevalence of Internet-speak, is actually becoming more common. To Lunsford, we are experiencing “a literacy revolution.”

Lunsford points out the Internet — this great bane of literacy — depends heavily on reading and interacting with text. Our generation, then, actually spends a great deal of time thinking about words and their uses. In fact, Lunsford’s study suggests that this millennial generation is far better than previous generations at writing for an audience, at persuading and advocating — at changing minds.

So which is it? Are we creating a new literacy out of accessibility and persuasion, text-speak notwithstanding? Or are we fooling ourselves, and permitting a generation to make fuzzy claims about clarity while it remains ignorant of Shakespeare and the distinction between “your” and “you’re?”

True, the timeless beauty of the English language has shaped our culture and is manifestly worthy of preservation. Yet, it is also true that culture has done some shaping itself. Language is never static, and a language that stagnates reveals much about the vitality of its culture.

Maybe we’ve forced ourselves into a false choice —either to venerate the historical form, the “therefores” and “henceforths” that litter our textbooks, or to throw the accumulated wisdom of Western civilization out with the anachronisms.

Walt Whitman called English “the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and … the free and compacted composition of all.”

Whitman didn’t want to destroy the language, but to change and renew it. In some strange way, he was a predecessor of our Rondthaler, at least in his intent.

Our literacy is changing, and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

But is it too much to ask that our generation understand Shakespeare as well as write witty comments on each other’s “25 Things” notes?

Will is a first year law student. Direct your grammatically challenged screeds to wmunsil@asu.edu.