to think it is bloody nasty and childish to pull someone up on grammer

[2shoes]

on here(mn) I mean ffs
can I just say arse holes to anyone who does that?

I think you just have to accept that to some people spelling and grammar are very important and non-negotiable (like pleases and thank yous) and every single instance of lazy spelling/grammar jars with them and occasionally, very occasionally, they let slip with a sarcastic comment because they are just pissed off and not having a very good day.

People who routinely and habitually pick holes in every little slip or typo are a right royal pain in the arse, though, I agree.

Agree wholeheartedly

(offers Mayleen a hard hat and asbestos clothing)

Oooh - 2shoes, I just checked your page and other post to see what the thread was about and We Like The Same Music!

Wayhee! I'd be excited too.

I missed out on no less than SIX concerts last year because I was pregnant and too sick to go.

Bad grammar or typos don't mean that you are thick but they make it look like you are thick (or don't care how people think about you).

I work out spelling or grammar mainly by whether it looks right or not, I was taught in the 1970's when you weren't taught spelling or grammar.

I was also brought up in the north where it's OK to say that I lent something from somebody, and that's like our dialect. But I wouldn't say that in a work/professional situation if I could help it.

It can be petty and unnecessary, but it is often quite effective in taking the air out of somebody's sails if they are wanking on about how intelligent and passionate they are about, say, the English language. Naming no names. But that's really just because occasionally people are asking to be taken down a peg or two. It's human nature, and there is usually no real malice in it.

BaronessBomburst I am beyond excited, even though I am going alone(ok ds is going, but we are in different bits and he is 18)

I have a friend who has struggled with reading and writing and would probably be picked up for her spelling and grammar if she even dared to post.
It would be sad if someone needed advice or a place to share and were upset by someone picking on their spelling etc.
There are lots of posts about children with learning difficulties, maybe some people need to remember that those children grow into adults with learning difficulties.

OTOH I do like the ethos of 'ritin proper' on this site - I'd hate to see it go, maybe the odd snide comment is the price you pay.

Some people will bully and belittle no matter what you say or how you say it.

"Bad grammar or typos don't mean that you are thick but they make it look like you are thick (or don't care how people think about you)"

Such a shame that people think like that rather than reflecting on the fact that 1 in 10 people are dyslexic....

those who seek opportunity to dig someone up via spelling are petty and competitive.it says more about them than the original op

and mn is recreational medium, not peer reviewed journal.off work i type any ole way

Oh yes- it is never acceptable on a thread where someone is looking for support.

But if somebody is crowing or being very arsey and calling other people stupid, then they do kind of invite it.

2shoes - it's

I bought a cat and brought it home.

brought goes with bring

I understand about bad spelling in the workplace, but not on here. I rely on spellcheck on Word when typing something for work or something important. If I get a red line under a word, I click to find the right spelling.

But we dont have spell check here so my spelling mistakes go un-noticed, or sometimes I know Ive spelt it wrong but I cant work out the spelling so I put (sp)

The other day I couldnt remember how to spell marriage. I had to open a new webpage and type in marrige into Google, because I knew it would come back do you mean marriage.

It can be bloody frustrating when you cant remember how to spell something.

YANBU. My view is that although I don't like spelling/grammatical errors, it would be rude to point it out. As long as you can be understood, it is not kind or necessary.

(It would be bought a cat and brought it home - change the tense to present tense and it becomes Buy a cat & bring it home)

We are all different. Maths is my bugbear and I would be mortified if somebody pointed out my errors in a tactless way.

Take no notice OP. Rise above it!

I can't think there are many exchanges on here where the spelling/grammar of the posters would influence my views of the points being made. And there is a certain childishness (often tempted, rarely given in) to pointing out other's typos or grammatical errors.

agree that MN ought to be somewhere that you can post without errors being corrected like you're at school.

but also think that if serious points are being made (it's pretty central to my job that you can express yourself clearly and in a way that is unarguable) then you have to think about how you express yourself. And badly thought out grammare and typos would detract from the point.

Sorry guys, but I just can't help myself - I even do it to my friends on FB - they know me very well though and expect it! However, I agree that it's bad form if someone is reaching out but pompous posters are fair game!

I agree it's horribly rude and smacks of cheap one-upmanship and arrogance.

However, I do think there are two exceptions...

First when a poster is posting in such a way as to be incomprehensible or very hard to read. I've read first time posts on MN that are almost impossible to read because they are completely stream of consciousness and unparagraphed - and you just know the poor person isn't going to get any responses because no-one will be able to disentangle what they're asking. I think under those circs it's ok to POLITELY say "sorry, could you explain that again more clearly" - a bit like if you can't hear someone in conversation, you'd ask them to repeat what they said more clearly.

The second is when someone is themselves being rude and hurtful and arrogant. You get the occasional post where someone pisses on a completely reasonable OP, claiming to be more intelligent/educated/better informed. Under those circs I think it's ok to dish out the same medicine.

However I agree with 2shoes - the poster who corrected you was rude and completely unnecessary. Also v disingenuous pretending not to understand when clearly you'd have to be dim not to be able to infer that brought=bought. We all make typos.

I do correct myself though! I have no problem with that - if people want to correct their own posts I can't see the big deal in that.

"But we dont have spell check here"

Depends on your web browser. There are plug-ins for Firefox which do spell check as you type, and Safari (usually on Macs, but you can get it for Windows as a free download) also does it whenever you're typing text into a box.

I am a stickler for correct grammar and spelling. It really does rub me up the wrong way when people screw it up. However, I have been living in the real world for a long time now and have had to come to the unhappy realisation that most people actually just don't care that much. Me getting annoyed with them doesn't make them care, either. So for the vast majority of the time, I don't bother correcting other people [if I did, I would spend my life doing nothing else].

However, I want to be corrected myself when I screw it up, because it's important to me. And for those of you saying, "Oh yeah, they look really arrogant when they correct themselves with embarrassed emoticons," I have to ask, why is your nonchalance about grammar and spelling more valid than my thinking it really matters? I correct myself because I don't want to present the image to others that I make those sorts of silly mistakes, or that I see them and let them lie. Not because I feel that makes me better than anyone, but because that is who I am.

And for what it's worth, correct grammar and spelling does exist for a reason. I constantly speak in nonsense sentences with words that don't exist when talking to people informally, but I need to know I can do it properly when required [i.e. when I need to get an important point across, or when writing a formal letter or what have you]. What does piss me off is people thinking it never matters, because that's basically condoning ignorance. Like people laughing when they say they're rubbish at basic maths, instead of thinking, "Actually, I'll do something about that, because it is an important skill."

Finally [I don't do succint]: I refer you to the following two sentences:

"Let's eat, grandpa!"
"Let's eat grandpa!"

Well a cat found us and we let it in. How's that for grammar?

Agreed, tokyonambu, but grammar checking is a whole lot more complicated. I have corrected (infrequently) and it was only ever meant in a constructive way, not bullying.

In one case it perhaps explained why searching for was getting no suitable hits on the net.

Appreciate what hmc has written and I now write in the box and then close the whole tab, rather than hit post and possibly offend someone.

"Thankyou" with no space jumps out at me like a red flag to a bull, but "appauling" and other misspellings also hit me like a croquet mallet to the balls, and I'm trying to deal with it.

Don't get me wrong - I don't think I even passed English Literature (hell it was 1975) but took English Language in 1974 at the Grammar School and trying to expand your vocabulary is perhaps worthwhile just to see if it prevents Alzheimer's - the way that word search and mathematical puzzles might do.

posts are hard to read where there is no punctuation or paragraphing

I'm a stickler for correct spelling and grammar too, but I would never pull someone up on MN for it.

I read an article by AA Gill a little while ago about his dyslexia. He is one of my favourite journalists. He wrote about how he writes his articles, in long-hand, which a sub-editor then has to 'translate'. Totally fascinating.

Even some of the most brilliant minds have bad spelling and grammar. That article changed my opinion.