Appalling grammar influx

Local dialect can cause some misunderstandings as well.

I have just read another thread where posters didn't know what the OP was talking about because she used a different term for a school trip.

I'm not sure it's even a Cockney thing.

It's quite common in Croydon, where I come from and some of my in-laws still live. They don't speak like that, but my SIL's husband does, as do some family friends and neighbours.

Add in standard abbreviations like "wwyd" and "DH/DC", and it makes the posts incredibly difficult to follow and in some instances, effectively unreadable.

Most posts are readable

The ones that aren't I ignore

I hate the ones with no paragraphs/ gaps

I must admit that if a post is badly written, I don’t bother commenting. I could force myself to read and understand it but time on MN is leisure time - I don’t need to make the effort.

It tends to be that well written posts get the most responses.

There are times when someone is pouring their heart out (and have a genuinely terrible problem) and someone writes PARAGRAPHS??? - it comes across as very unkind.

It’s amusing that people suggest the reason they make errors is because they’re rushing or because they’re “writing” informally. That is nonsense. If you KNOW how to express yourself correctly or spell accurately, you don’t just have the odd day off! Being correct is as automatic as breathing.

I didn't know that about the Protestant refugees, although I knew that the guy who drained the fens was Dutch.

In Sussex dialect, the past tense of "drive" is "druv", and "We won't be druv" is still quite a common saying. There's an old rhyme about Sussex folk being

"Strong i' th' arm and thick i' th'ead
We wunt be druv and we wunt be led".

It annoys me more when people correct spelling mistakes on social media when it's obvious what the person was saying anyway.

Why should the general public be concerned about spelling and grammar when journalists clearly don't care? They're paid to write for a living but have so many errors a six year old could have written a better article!

I agree. It’s embarrassing that people don’t know any better.

I had to hide the thread where the OP kept writing "infront" because I became unreasonably narked by it.

Quite early on, somebody corrected the error, and somebody else told them they were being a cunt, and the OP continued to write "infront".

I can understand a lot of written errors - I can't understand how anyone thinks that "infront" is a word, though.

Um, what else would you type with? Or do you deploy the "bashing tits on the keyboard" technique à la whoever it was on that infamous thread ages ago?

It's the increase in tech too. I work in tech design, and the good graphic design relies on semiotics - colours, conventions, movement, location - WAY more than text. It takes so much less effort to read a page these days. People don't get the practice.

I do find the "informal setting" argument to be bollocks. I've received plenty of similarly poor emails at work. This is my normal writing style, and that of my friends (except, ironically, the journalist).

I wonder if the incorrect use of “we was” , “was you there”, etc in East Anglia and Hertfordshire is not indigenous local dialect, but due to the large influx of Cockneys migrating out of London to those areas?
Growing up in London (I now live in Perthshire, so can’t speak for current usage) the majority of native Londoners seemed to use these incorrect forms.

👏👏👏

I'd agree with this. My partner is from Yorkshire, and the "I weren't" thing is very common in speech, not so common written down but it's definitely still there.

"I weren't happy about the weather"
"He weren't doing what he were told"

I close posts that don’t use full stops. Too hard to read. Just looks like rambling to me, which is a shame I know because it could be a very valid post.

Don’t read it then? If I can’t follow what’s being said due to bad grammar or language, I just stop reading, rather than trying to decipher it, or wasting time offering advice to someone whose probably too thick to appreciate it.

Really? I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt 😅 I would hate to be outed on MN!

Totally agree OP. But successive governments will be quick to tell you how grades (ergo standards, they want you to believe) have improved... Dumbed down Britain is definitely a thing.

"We wasn't/I weren't/You was" and so forth are also quirks of the Derbyshire/South Yorkshire dialect. My DH has tasked me with correcting him each and every time he makes these errors (he wants to sound more "professional"), but they are so ingrained that he just can't seem to stop. Even teachers use these phrases here, so they won't be going away

The reason is that most teachers barely know grammar because education (in many countries) has been dumbed down for generations. But your original post requires some attention to punctuation and you need to stick to one style (either US or UK). You are welcome!

YABU
It's a internet forum not a job application.
People are writing informally like they would talk to a friend (well some are).
People are writing on phones and fighting the autocorrect/predictive text or just CBA to go back and edit.
A shocker: people across the UK /abroad have different dialects and put things differently.
Not everyone has English as their first language or a 5 star education and some are dyslexic.

None of those things mean someone can't join in a discussion on MN.

If you haven't figured out that texting, whatsapp and online chat is much more like talking and less like writing, well, welcome to the 21st century.

I wonder if that’s why Alesha Dixon says ‘you wasn’t’ (used to make my teeth grind when she was a judge on Strictly), seems she comes from Herts.

Yes! Certainly a lot of my badly spoken neighbours in Herts DO use these phrases.

I can always work out what it is people are trying to say so it doesn't really bother me.