Why do people enjoy picking others up on their spelling or grammar

[TakeMeDrunkImHome]

i have noticed this a LOT here, and i am fairly new. Is there some kind of badge that is awarded if you spell every word correctly and use every term in the correct way. Some people seem to respond to a particular thread just to correct the OP with their spelling or punctuation or grammar. WHY? Not everyone has a masters in english. Not everyone is awesome with spelling or grammar. Is it some way of making yourself look better than the next person?

OP you seem to have very low expectations if you think that only people with a degree in English or knowledge of Latin should be able to correctly use apostrophes or distinguish between their/there/they're.

In the time Ive been here, I get the impression that most posters on MN couldn't give a damn about SPaG - they do, rightly - have an issue with punctuation and paragraphs, but Ive never seen anyone attacked for poor grammar on MN.

its been my experience on a variety of other fora (NOT MN) that pedants attack the grammar of suspected trolls with their heads up their arses, who feel the right to tell others about their superior intellect and how us mere mortals are therefore not allowed to have an opinion of anything because we simply do not have the brainpower to do so.

I recall the lovely ladies of the BMC took great delight in picking apart one particularly superior public school boy/girl patronising troll, whose grammar left much to be desired, only to be met with the wail of "but I'm dyslexic...." followed by a barrage of abuse for being cruel.

Id have had more respect if troll had said "Look, Ive just necked 4 bottles of diamond white/lambrusco/special brew and i can't even see my frigging keyboard."

Open season on troll hunting declared, Troll "friends" leap to his/her defence, "how can you be so cruel/you've really upset him/her/he/she is crying yada yada yada "- and troll exits stage left with band of merry mates, never to be seen again (until the next alter ego gang).

It seems SPaG threads are the equivalent of "do you smack your child" or "Ive given my child 20 B&H, AIBU?" or "Fruit shoots are part of a healthy breakfast"

Thats been my experience of SPaG haters - maybe "SPaGgers?" from here in?

It should have been taught at school, you shouldn't need a degree in English. Either the teaching was poor or it didn't sink in. Either way there's no opportunity for them to learn now unless it's through being corrected by people. I don't see what's wrong with that as long as the tone is not patronising. Surely it's better to be corrected on an anonymous forum rather than have a job application binned because of poor grammar?

I agree with fellatio too, it depends on the post, whether I will mention grammar or spelling.

I will however always correct people who say "would of" or "brought" when they mean bought as those really grate on me and make the poster look illiterate.

Absolutely ThisIs . And then it can be really funny.

Often though it says more about the accuser than the accused.

This is lifted from another forum I was once on, and demonstrates my point perfectly. 'Twas my finest pedantry point scoring hour I think.

(I've edited out some irrelevant bits so if it doesn't flow, forgive me.)

Hannah

Back to the question: No, don't get rid of grammer schools. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I wish we had the old system again, where if your kid gets into the local grammer then they go there, and if your kid doesn't then they go to the comp and either study academic subjects or a trade. That way the clever ones do well, and the not so clever ones at least have something they can be proud of.

I've had a mixture in terms of education: Private, grammer, CofE, bog standard london comp (moved around a lot as a chlid). Private was definitely the best, they let me do a GCSE at 10! When I got to London they didn't let me stay in my school year (I had been moved up in private school) because I wouldn't 'handle it psychologically', that sucks because they held me down with idiots and then I missed the boat on being able to get grants for uni.

Me

Hannah, please note it was a GRAMMAR that you allegedly went to, and a fat lot of good it did you, obviously.

Me
It wasn't just that Becks, though it did add insult to injury. And I agree about the correcting thing - it's a bit rude and unnecessary, we all have different skills and sometimes it's just down to genuine typos, and God forbid anyone should want to test me on my maths! But sometimes people ask for it!

Hannah
Sorry, yes, GRAMMAR, I am quite embarrassed. I shall say it was a mere slip of the finger. Gosh people love to pick on you if you make the slightest mistake, I've seen some awful spelling on here sometimes but nobody's bothered about that!

Grable
If we're getting into correcting mistakes: I think you'll find you're 'playing devil's advocate' rather than 'paying' it. Glass houses, stones ....

Me
Grable, my mistake of 'paying' rather than playing devil's advocate was a typo, as opposed to a spelling mistake or confusion over the wording of the phrase. In contrast, Hannah made the same spelling mistake three times in one post. I don't usually make a habit of correcting grammar, punctuation or spelling, as like Becks said, it could turn into a full time job. However, I felt Hannah was rather arrogant in her posting. She claims to have been moved up a year at school, to have taken a GCSE at ten, and attended a Grammar school herself at one point. I don't object to that, good luck to her if she was bright enough. But to refer to being educated within the appropriate academic year group for her age as 'being kept down by the idiots.' was very offensive. I would never normally seek to humiliate someone, but given that she was keen to point out her intellectual superiority I think the old saying 'people in glass houses...' applies more to her than me.

'

Pagwatch

I second that x

I studied English at university, and prescriptive orthography was never part of the syllabus. We studied syntax, but not with the goal of "being good at syntax and correcting other people's bad syntax." People doing degrees just use spellcheck on their computers like anyone else. The grammatical errors I've seen on here are usually the kind of ones I was taught about in first year at high school, university wasn't about that.

Just thought I'd say that.... anyway I never correct anyone. I might see errors made but it doesn't grate on me. I loathe intellectual snobbery with a passion.

Pag I am not aware that I have ever seen you make any errors, other than maybe the typo of the kind we all make.

at greencolourpack loathing intellectual snobbery and yet using terms like "prescriptive authography".

DontCallMePeanut

Seeing as it's you, I'll accept your correction!

If you loathe intellectual snobbery why do you call it prescriptive orthographgy and not, erm, spelling? (and as pps have said, it wouldn't have been on the syllabus, would it? Presumably your lecturers thinking that you'd already mastered the spelling of your own language before getting to university)

Oh yes, Fellatio. Grammer is a classic. I've seen it in MN and it always makes I larf

Their, there, they're are my weakness. I know full well how to use them, and have done for at least 30 years. But I can guarantee that just as I want to come across as fairly intelligent, I'll fuck up.

I remember my Mum shouting "sep-ARRRRRRR-ate" at me as well.

Does Pag win a prize for conjugating the verb ?to be pedantic MN-stylee?

I can't stand text speak because I can't read it.
You are a pedant for expecting correct SPaG
They are weasels for correcting my mistakes

Sorry to pick on you Pag but I think that it illustrates the point: you seem to think that it is OK for you to say that txtspk painful but if someone complains about poor SpaG then they are just being picky. We are not - we feel pain, too, you know! But I have learned the MN motto (if you can't say something nice, then don't say anything) so I mostly bite my tongue.

I often do the their/there thing but it's just because sometimes my brain goes onto automatic pilot with commonly used words and I type the wrong thing in haste. I think you can usually tell from the rest of the content of the post whether the writer knows the difference or not.

I once had a card from a lovely (but ahem 'salt of the earth' sarf Lahndoner friend, who wrote:

'I hope your be happy in your new home.'

This is why I am always badgering my children that if you don't make an effort to speak properly you will grow up finding it hard to write properly.

Oh, and my error was deliberate

Pag what the fricking hell is going on this week? Two people disagreeing with you and challenging you? I need a lay down. The world has gone all wrong.

I agree with Fellatio that posters are rarely picked up on this. I bite my tongue far more often than I actually correct people. If someone is genuinely in need of advice and isbeing reasonable they are not going to appreciate being told that they have used 'their' incorrectly or that they have an apostrophe in the wrong place.

Occasionally I come across an OP that is so badly written I can't understand it. In these cases I just don't respond at all.

Ooo, split an infinitive there. Shouldn't breastfeed and post simultaneously.

Something else I've seen on MN far more often than out and out correction, is where there is a long, rambling, totally unpunctuated, unparagraphed OP, and someone else takes the time to re-format it, so the OP gets the help they've come on for in the first place.

I expect some would say that was picking on the OP as well.

often if thing are getting a bit heated the different factions will start to pick out the spelling or grammar of certain posts thats when you know they really have nothing interesting left to say.

The most off-putting thing of all, irrespective of spelling and grammar, is an enormous block of text with no paragraphing and no punctuation. My heart sinks and I just move away from it. It hurts my lickle head.

I had a very poor education. I am not indifferent to the fact that I often spell incorrectly but the "well it is easier if mistakes are pointed out so posters can learn" is nonsense.
I don't feel grateful. I feel self conscious

Thankyou for your brilliant post Pagwatch

And for anyone who does says "well don't you want to learn?" Well yes I do in fact frequently try to learn spellings, but for some reason I cannot, if I had certain words tattooed on my person, I would still get them wrong.

I am not lazy or stupid, I just have a problem with spelling.

I am very much better with numbers. I know many people who find it difficult to add up 3 items in a shop. I wouldn't ever tell them they are stupid because they can't do primary school maths. But there are posters on here who say something along the lines of "Well it is shameful if you cannot do basic spelling or grammar. I can't do maths for toffee, but that doesn't matter"

Pagwatch

I love thee, come and sit in my terrace garden for while, we're not opening until 10.00 this morn so I've time for a cup of tea and a toasted teacake with you.

Senua
I think the difference is that I wouldn't correct text speak.

I may not like it but I wouldn't read it or would read it and not comment.

I don't mind if you pick on me as long as you pick fellatio up

But the difference between not liking and saying nothing, and not liking and publicly correcting is pretty fucking huge.
I do understand that people genuinely find poor sp&g awful. But I think they are more polite to suffer in silence