Would you correct someone if they used your and you're in the wrong context?

[Namast3]

I see it every day in emails.
I see it on mumsnet.
I get sent messages on dating apps with your instead of you're.
A good colleague of mine repeatedly uses your in the wrong context in professional emails.
I really struggle to understand why it's so difficult to differentiate...

I blame schools for suggesting that their/there and they're and your and you're are homonyms!

@SarahAndQuack

It'd depend.

I wouldn't correct emails (I'm professional about communication).

I wouldn't correct on MN, unless the person were being a total pedant themselves.

I wouldn't correct on dating apps.

I do have a colleague, whom I love dearly, who repeatedly makes basic grammar errors. I don't correct her in emails but do if she's sending me something to be sent on. It's just her blind spot. She's a senior lecturer in English at Cambridge, though, so I know she isn't hurt by corrections and realises that pedantry often says more about the limitations of pedants.

Omg really??? I must admit I would totally assume someone was not well educated if they make simple grammar mistakes like this because surely you would need to have written essays etc in decent English to gain any higher qualification.

My DH doesn't have higher ed qualifications and is well aware that I know grammar better than him so will often check something he's written for work with me before sending it because he's aware of the bad impression it gives.

I wouldn't correct anyone in SM, chat etc but in a work situation I would. It just looks really unprofessional.

@Quirrelsotherface

Oh I hate it and I hate that I can't ignore it! If I see it I automatically think that the person is thick which I know is awful but I just can't help it. Same with there, their and they're.

I despair at attitudes like this. Smug in your imagined intellectual superiority. Of course the person must be thick. What other explanation could there be?

It is easy to understand what a person meant with these substitutions.

I worry for the world my severely dyslexic child is growing up in that he will be imagined to be thick for a spelling or grammar error. The fact that people will ‘seethe’ with rage when he inevitably makes a mistake is quite frankly unbelievable.

Not everybody is the same. We haven’t had all had the same educational opportunities or abilities. But of course they are all just thick.

Oh just remembered another situation where I would or have corrected, when school make a mistake, on something kids are likely to see. They are literally supposed to be teaching our kids this stuff.

I often correct team members on grammar. Our correspondence goes out with my name on and it drives me nuts if there are mistakes.

There are so many, and it’s endemic: your/you’re, their, there and they’re, it’s, it’s, aloud/allowed, and apostrophes in simple plurals.

I was no English superstar, and my schooling was a long time ago, so God knows what’s happened to the world. I would say it seems more normal to not know correct SPAG than to know it and use it.

So many ‘proud to be British’ but can’t use their own language properly.

I’ve turned my Line Manager’s mistakes into a joke, he regularly sends me reports to ‘mark’ 😂😂😂

@Frasa
It’s ok for anyone to ask for spelling help and get a colleague to proof read. I don’t see why professional communication should accept poor spelling though. If someone has passed professional exams they should be able to spell. Employers will put cvs or applications with spelling mistakes in the bin. It’s often the first sift. Yes. Life can be harsh but firms have reputations they wish to uphold.

[quote TizerorFizz]@Frasa
It’s ok for anyone to ask for spelling help and get a colleague to proof read. I don’t see why professional communication should accept poor spelling though. If someone has passed professional exams they should be able to spell. Employers will put cvs or applications with spelling mistakes in the bin. It’s often the first sift. Yes. Life can be harsh but firms have reputations they wish to uphold.[/quote]
A dyslexic person is very capable of passing professional exams. Their spelling and grammar has no bearing on their intelligence. I’m sure with age and experience many learn to overcome or hide their difficulties in numerous ways. Speech to text software etc.

I never suggested that professional communications need to be compromised to allow for this. The original post also mentioned dating apps, posts on mumsnet etc. Other posters admitted they think people thick or seethe with rage when seeing spelling mistakes in any walk of life.

Yes, life can be harsh. That doesn’t mean we should accept stereotypes or anger for poor spelling.

I wonder if a lot of the mistakes are because people don't read much any more (particularly younger adults)? Surely that's the main way that good use of grammar and correct spellings are reinforced?

There's an element of laziness to poor grammar/spelling too. Surely if you're not 100% sure, you look it up? That's what I tend to do?

The 'less and fewer' one is my total bug bear. There are some highly educated people (clearly not on the language side though!) who use less when they should use fewer!

Like my PhD educated science teacher at school who used 'less' incorrectly and had a languages teacher correct her in full view of the school!

that should probably read 'is reinforced'...

@Quirrelsotherface

Oh I hate it and I hate that I can't ignore it! If I see it I automatically think that the person is thick which I know is awful but I just can't help it. Same with there, their and they're.

Yet you don't feel the same about correct punctuation? Why is that?

@NewModelArmyMayhem18

I blame schools for suggesting that their/there and they're and your and you're are homonyms!

They don't.

Depends if you want to be more Ross

@Quirrelsotherface

Oh I hate it and I hate that I can't ignore it! If I see it I automatically think that the person is thick which I know is awful but I just can't help it. Same with there, their and they're.

But surely this is a perfect example of being thick in itself? I mean that it doesn't occur to you they may be a very intelligent person, who just struggles with that sort of thing, or English is not their first or even second language? Then there's dyslexia too.

I would tell someone at work if the mistake was in an official document, and I'd also tell my DD. She's an adult now, but her school seems to have been woefully inadequate in teaching English grammar.

@Frasa
I’m not saying dyslexics are not able to pass professional exams. However if they need to write importing documents for their company, grammar and spelling do become important. Firms don’t give poor spelling the benefit of the doubt on applications. However dyslexics get others to write them. I’ve seen this report with dyslexic teachers and then it’s embarrassing in the classroom as @NewModelArmyMayhem18 says. However lots of people don’t care so we accept lower and lower standards. Spell check is very useful though!

@PAFMO they certainly do (or did) as I had an argument with DD's teacher about it!

[quote NewModelArmyMayhem18]@PAFMO they certainly do (or did) as I had an argument with DD's teacher about it![/quote]
So one teacher, not "schools".

Well it was in a printed document that we were given in a talk done by the relevant school lead to a group of parents of Reception parents. So a school thing I'd reckon (and would assume they'd be using Department of Education guidance)? I remember commenting on it to one of my friends who was also in the meeting. Surely that type of really important 'embedding' learning for young children at the start of their language journey (in a school setting) wouldn't be 'made up' by one teacher?

Mind you, the school left an awful lot to be desired by the time DD was a pupil. I have never internally rolled my eyes as much as I did during the years she was there.

Or an example of a rogue, not very well educated teacher?

Personally I'd be happy if someone pointed out an error I'd made, because it matters to me and I accept I make errors like everyone else.

I think people don't read anything properly any more, especially things they've written themselves. The number of times colleagues have misunderstood an email or written instruction because they've just scanned it, then look at me like I'm an alien when I say 'but surely it means so and so...' It can be a bit frustrating, but I just run with it and point out something if it's important.

That said, I feel really annoyed when someone's basically 'virtue signalling' (or should that be 'grammar signalling'?) making out they're so amazing with all their perfection. I do do a little dance when they make the obligatory error!

I swipe left it I see it on a dating profile. I can't help myself. (And yes, I might be missing out on really lovely dyslexic/foreign men).

I correct my children if they put it on a text but that's it. I haven't seen it in a work context ever I don't think.

Yes, I'd be delighted to have a chance to correct that shit! I don't take it personally. Why would I?

I think that many people were far less literate in the past on average but they never had to do any writing beyond birthday cards and notes to the milkman so you'd never know.

Nowadays everyone is a micro-journalist constantly communicating in type. Literacy levels are far higher but all the previously invisible imperfect literacy is on public view. And the reading that people do, which was previously dominated by "official" proof-read text, is increasingly made up of other ordinary people's informal and non-standard prose. What a time for a student of language to be alive!