Grammar, spelling and the decline of the English language

[SoupDragon]

Moving from the Weird Habits thread, I thought I'd share my favourite typo, spotted only last week in Tescos where they were advertising Winnie the Poo play mats. This was both on the big print sign and the smaller shelf label.

My, how I sniggered in a puerile fashion!

[Bobbins]

definately ...GRRR!

[Bobbins]

I really shouldn't let it get to me, but it does.

[oxocube]

Oh, can I join this club?! I know how sad it sounds but I sometimes incorrect spelling and poor grammar are inexcusable. Okay, we all make typos but in business, surely there are people who are PAID to ensure such glaring errors do not reach the public! On a really petty note, my son's teacher (who is actually very good at teaching) sent home his mid-term report which contained a spelling mistake and just sounded really badly written. Her one criticism was that d.s. should check through his work more carefully before submitting it!!

P.S Guess I should proof-read this before pressing 'post message'

[lucy123]

oh great, my favourite subject.

KS - the rising intonation is Australian, but originally comes from East Anglia. In fact pretty much the whole of the intonation part of the Australian accent comes from East Anglia (say "chuck another prwan on the barbie" with an Australian intonation, but a West-Country style accent and you'll pretty much have the Norfol accent). Probably there were a lot of convicts from that part of Britain or something.

I have a friend who's a speech therapist in Norfolk and she says it can be a nightmare with some kids because they are so used to hearing the rising tone on everything, they can't distinguish between questions and statements/being told what to do.

My big hate is rogue apostrophes and speech marks used to show how good an offer is ( look! tomatoe's "15p a lb". But I hate nothing more than people who insist that English be like it was in Victorian times - people who write really convoluted sentences in order to avoid split infinitives or dangling participles. To those people I say you need to really sort your life out and work out what you give your priorities to. (OK not the best sentence, but making a point).

I could bore people to tears with this stuff all day.

[lucy123]

whoops, several typos there. I should start proof-reading properly.

[Lambchops]

Scottish people often transpose 'seen' and 'saw' and the same people make mistakes with 'did' and 'done' often resulting in completely garbled speech. Thus when 'Reporting Scotland'(our local news programme) interviews a crime witness you hear " I seen him run away after he done it" or some other rubbish.
I am forever correcting my kids on these two mistakes alone. Grrr!

[Lambchops]

Lucy, what is a dangling participle? I was never formally taught grammar as the trendy 60/70s educationalists did not think it was necessary and have worked very hard over the years to improve my grammar.

[lucy123]

I used to do EFL, but before we left I branched out into IT and then became a programmer. Pay and conditions here for EFL are complete rubbish! I do teach the odd one to one lesson but I do miss class teaching (especially kids). I used to write full-class role plays involving court cases and all sorts!

But in general I'm fascinated by language. I did my degree in Linguistics and one day I'm going to do that MA / PhD, maybe teach EFL teachers.

Have you tried asking mixed natioanlity students what a cockerel says in their language? The answers are always hilarious, although European languages are fairly similar. (but then maybe I'm odd)

[lucy123]

lambchops - a dangling participle (or actually the term could be dangling particle, I can't remember) is when you have a sentence that ends with a participle (like "to", "with" etc) - so "I can't remember who I gave the book to" contains a dangling participle. To an old-fashioned type, the sentence should be "I can't remember to whom I gave the book" but frankly that just sounds silly nowadays!

[lucy123]

Also sister has started using simple past forms ("saw", "did" where it should be a past participle ("seen", "done", so she says "I should have did it earlier". I think that's a Lincolnshire thing.

[bossykate]

lucy, i'm so sorry, and i know everyone really hates a smart, but don't you mean preposition?

[hmb]

lucy123, do you live in Lincolnshire, me duck?

[lucy123]

yes, Bossy Kate, I do mean preposition (got carried away a bit there) and the thing is called a dangling particle (meaning any small word). That'll be why I got mixed up. Glad to know I'm not the only pedant around here!

hmb - my family live in Lincolnshire, but I live in Spain. Part of me wants to move there but dp refuses to think about anywhere that isn't south of the wash.

[WideWebWitch]

I like the "This is pedantry up with which I will not put" Winston Churchill quote. Quite. Badly written signs and inappropriate quotation marks irritate me too, although I wouldn't say my grammar's always sparkling. IKWYM about the use of innit - ex dh (Indian) used to say it all the time. I'd often reply 'yes, it is'. Drove him mad

[Nutjob]

What really drives me up the wall is when people say 'Haitch' instead of 'Aitch'. Don't know why but it really winds me up!!

[Podmog]

Message withdrawn

[lucy123]

"haitch" annoys me too.

But Podmog - I think "goodbye from Sophie and me" is correct because you would normally say "from me", not "from I". However I don't see why they can't just say "goodbye" - it's bleeding obvious who is saying it!

[JanZ]

The errant apostrophe is my BIG bugbear - especially in "it's", but also in "potato's" or other plurals. Inexcuable! My mum used to (still does!) say "if in doubt, leave it out" - better NOT to have it in, when there should be one, than to have too many!

Dh and I sometimes feel sorry for ds: he is going to be brought up with such an awareness of the correct use of English, while his contemporaries won't have a clue!

However, I too believe that in some cases you should be pragmatic. For example, the avoidance of split infinitives is a misunderstanding of the derivation of English (according Fowler's), but I will still try to avoid splitting an infinitive in case you come across a pedant who doesn't understand that!

I've given up on the correct use of "hopefully". English is after all a living language, so I hope that I can now accept that "hopefully" also means "I hope"!

Shall we use this thread to name and shame the worst of the high street howlers?

[bundle]

Nutjob, I once heard that the aitch/haitch thing is a way of telling which "side" you were on in Northern Ireland (can't remember which the catholics/protestants say) so it can be an indicator of your cultural background, not just being 'wrong'

[Demented]

ks, in Glasgow they say 'an at know' (and that know) instead of 'innit', we had some friends up from London recently and 'innit' was driving me nuts. I hate s' or 's used wrongly too.

I will just slink off now before I make any mistakes, although I may have done that already as I like Lambchops have never been formally taught grammer either!

[WideWebWitch]

Just remembered the one I really hate - receptionists who say 'can I ask who's calling?' I feel like saying 'yes' and then waiting for them to ask

[Twink]

Yes, WWW it drives me nuts too !

In the same vein, the bar staff at our local sports club say 'You alright there ?' as a substitute for asking what you would like to drink. Grr.