Isn't about time MNHQ started deleting posts that attack people's spelling and grammar?

name - oh, fair enough, I take your point and agree you can usually get a fair sense of how someone would normally write. I guess I think of MN as being a few notches 'down', so tend to assume people smarten up a little for work. But that wouldn't change the point you're making, I realize.

Ah but text speak is old hat - all about the emojis and autocorrect fails now I see the grammar / spelling police and I just think teacher / offspring of teacher with massive chip on shoulder.

Surely the charm of mn is the ability to communicate with others from all walks of life. As long as posts are understood and exclusive "in crowd" code is avoided everyone should be permitted linguistic freedom.

confused, yes, obviously, I have - because I think you need to understand what it might feel like.

You're not making typos here. You appear, from your posts, not to know how to use basic punctuation.

My guess is that you do know, but you're relaxed about it on MN, or that you know some of the basics, but you're not quite sure all of the time.

And that's how it is for lots of us, and it does feel like being 'caught out' when someone starts a pedantry thread. And you lot do come across as gleeful when you 'catch' us, just as I do here.

You claimed you'd rather be corrected, but you never acknowledged my initial correction - which suggests to me you either didn't see it, or didn't actually anticipate it being a real possibility that you'd be corrected.

yes it's nasty and let's the site down

Ok, confused. You've a persistent difficulty with commas.

For example:

'It doesn't have to be nasty though Ghost.'

'Yeah we all get tired and if you're looking it up before posting there's no problem is there?'

'Worra - where a poster is pulling her hair out and on some kind of distress pulling up bad grammar is not on and I don't see it these days.'

Here, you really needed a comma before the proper name, and after the 'Yeah'. I'd also have put one before 'and' and after 'problem', but those are more a matter of style. In the final example, you have almost omitted punctuation entirely.

'If I was posting the wrong spelling/grammar time after time I'd rather it be corrected tbh.'

You meant 'if I were'. As I said above when you asked for corrections, you've mistaken the mood here.

If you do those things at work, then you are writing poor English.

Confused, there should certainly be a comma in "It's not something you forget, is it?"

Many careful writers would put a comma in "You either use it correctly, or you don't."

"Not continuously, anyhow." is again lacking a comma.

I remember one parent sending a letter back into school that she'd circled in red ink because of incorrect spelling.

I suspect she had circled words in the letter, rather than the whole letter. Does the transitive verb "to circle" now mean "to draw circles on parts of?" No, I don't think it does.

"She is a bit of a tiger mum, though."

Wasn't it you who wrote 'if I was' a few posts back, then asked for corrections?

I think people who correct peoples grammer and spelling are complete cunts to be honest - its not work, or school FFS

people slate text speak, yet its like a Unicorn in that I have have never seen it on here!

what makes me cringe, a rare "new" poster that comes on and post an emotive text speak filled rant on something oer other, aka "Jademommyof3"- they get killed- like a butterfly in a wheel.

Not LOLZZZZ, not LMFAO

I thought you were saying you thought people don't generally write differently on a forum like MN, or FB, from the way they do at work?

My gut feel is that even if the register and audience is different, the underlying grammatical and lexicographic accuracy isn't (modulo a wide range of caveats about SpLDs, as you accurately pointed up upthread in response to me). Forensic linguists claim to be able to spot individuals' idiolects even when they are deliberately attempting to conceal it, for example. But it's all anecdote, and there's quite clearly a bunch of PhDs in testing the propositions more widely (indeed, just framing the research questions isn't easy). I know both corpus and computational linguists, but actually getting a corpus on which to test this proposition would be very difficult and riddled with ethical and IPR issues.

But your grammar and punctuation are faulty, aren't they?

And I don't see why they would be so different from spelling.

YY, agree strongly with that more.

It is very different if you're teaching someone who relies on you for the correct version.

I thought you were saying you thought people don't generally write differently on a forum like MN, or FB, from the way they do at work?

Even with my bad English I taught for a while, it is possible.
I always made sure I checked words I was unsure of and if I didn't a bright student would usually pick me up on it.
My support and line manager at the college deemed this fine as by the time they were working at this level they had GCSE English, some had A level.
The course I taught had nothing to do with Maths or English, thank goodness.

I do think teachers and TA's need to be careful when teaching children though.
I remember dd starting school and seeing a label on a box stating "Roll Play"
The saddest thing was pointing it out to the TA, who said she hadn't noticed it before and it had been there for years

Maybe good grammar doesn't come easily to the TA so she has to constantly think about it and check her work when she's in school?

I imagine sitting at home with her feet up and a glass of wine whilst Facebooking, would send her into 'relaxed mode' so her grammar/spelling might be different.

Some people really do have to try hard at these things but we're all allowed to relax and just chat, without disrupting the flow.

I think it's a case of asking posters to not behave like a dick.

I dunno. I think personally, I probably wouldn't have parents on my FB (that strikes me as a lot more unprofessional).

It is difficult, because I would like to say that if I were a TA, I wouldn't mind explaining I make silly errors but do know the proper words. But I expect actually I would feel ashamed and want to be extra careful never to slip up. And I would be very worried about writing something incorrect where children might see it, because it matters a lot at school age.

But, confused, how do you apply this to yourself? Why are her errors so worrying, when you seem to be admitting you write just as badly for work as you do on here?

I was unfortunate enough not to receive a very good education, and on top of this am dyslexic.
Having been bullied by the teachers throughout my schooling I felt it was up to me to try to better myself.
I worked hard on spelling and handwriting and in adulthood was fortunate enough to marry dh who had a grammar school education, who tirelessly corrects me and a fantastic college/ uni that gave me an excellent education.

I love people pointing out my mistakes and try to take things on board.
My knowledge of grammar and the rules for English Language are pretty non existent but I do try.

I have received counselling for the miserable childhood I had, solely through attending the schools I did.
Now, I manage but take huge exception to nasty sneery comments that some people make.
There is helpful criticism or educating people or there is sneering and sarcasm
you need to realise that everyone isn't so well blessed with an appropriate education.

Corrections please

confused - I definitely write differently when I'm not at work!