@NewZen: If you’re going to look at word 8, better also look at word 4. Also, the semicolon should be a comma.
@Siren, it’s not so much that it isn’t fashionable as that most people are not well enough educated to tell the difference, and when people can’t tell the difference, they assume that it doesn’t matter or that there isn’t one. People don’t value what they are incapable of perceiving.
Many people who admire strength, prowess, and superior performance on, say, the field of athletics or the musical stage are quick to belittle people who apply the same high standards to other areas of accomplishment. And so people whose strengths are more intellectual than otherwise tend to be intimidated by the prevailing view and to apologize for knowing the difference and having the temerity to mention it. Correcting people’s grammar is never going to make you beloved—unless the person you correct is a capable writer who knows he is going to look better after a good edit, just as your living room is going to look better after a thorough dusting and vacuuming. A poor writer blames you if you find the dirt, as if you had been the one to put it there.
But, as I say, editorial services are no longer valued as they once were. An editor does not produce anything and instead slows down the process of content delivery. In the current climate, a conscientious editor is a liability. I hope this is less true in the publishing world itself than in other sectors where written material is created, but I don’t know.
[An editorial career of thirty years is speaking here.]