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Original poster

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

385 replies

TakeMeDrunkImHome · 31/05/2011 01:29

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 posts:
beesimo · 31/05/2011 11:57

FN

I am sorry pet I have just wound yous all up Yorkshire Stylee of course it is correct to say bare hands you monkey. You was so afeared of being wrong you took Bs judgement on thee as gospel.

Don't let others stand judge and jury think for thyself!

HattiFattner · 31/05/2011 11:57

the OP made 7 posts in the space of 16 minutes and dissappeared under her bridge to watch us all fight.

8 pages later.....we are still here arguing semantics and apostrophes

AbsDuCroissant · 31/05/2011 11:58

I agree with nijinsky - some stuff is not Masters Degree level English; some of it is pretty basic like you're vs your, and there, their and they're distinctions. It's stuff you learn when you're at school, and it is painful to read it when it's misused. But I generally pick on people for it when they're being ANNOYING, in case they have a genuine reason for not knowing the difference.

ThisIsANiceCage · 31/05/2011 11:58

Bare cross? Reigning in joy?

FN, Pag, I love you both and award you jointly the Chaos crown for truly inspired mistakes.

I haven't enjoyed a pedantry discussion so much since my colleague's misadventure with "shopping moles"! I could just see them, little tiggywinkle caps and wicker baskets clutched in their soft pink hands.

nijinsky · 31/05/2011 11:59

LyingWitch indeed. Mea culpa. But there is a difference between a typo and a spelling mistake.

As for those who claim they were failed by the education system. Why not just read a bloody book or something?

beesimo · 31/05/2011 12:01

OOH why do I have to set a example to the bairns and work for a living its not bloody fair!!

Byexx

nijinsky · 31/05/2011 12:03

I am sorry pet I have just wound yous all up Yorkshire Stylee of course it is correct to say bare hands you monkey. You was so afeared of being wrong you took Bs judgement on thee as gospel.

Some Yorkshire accents preserve an older dialect which was common around the time of the Danelaw. It is grammatically correct for that accent. Obviously, if you need to write formally, its good to be able to change between it and proper English, but I would differentiate this from very basic spelling mistakes. "lose" and "loose" for example.

Again, I would hardly condemn those who have difficulty in spelling difficult words. Its those words in common daily use. Why on earth you wouldn't want to learn how to spell those correctly, I cannot fathom.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 31/05/2011 12:06

I don't think it's for anybody to impose their educational views on anybody else. Some people like to read, some don't. The thing is, there may be people who suffer from literacy limitations who don't brandish their 'dyslexia' or 'dyspraxia' diagnosis. We would never know. I think best not to judge, just skip over their post. I do, anyway.

I skip any post without paragraphs because it's simply too difficult to read. I don't pick the poster up on it though.

I suppose it's all about how somebody is treated in view of their posts. Misspelling, bad grammar, out of place or missing apostrophes, commas, etc. In the grand scheme of things, if the post is interesting, I'll mentally insert the corrections to get the gist.

I just don't see that this is something to get ones panties in a bunch over.

Pagwatch · 31/05/2011 12:06

Thank you thisisanicecage Grin

I will wear my crown with pride.

Nijinsky. I did have a crappy education. It isn't a claim.
I also read quite a lot.
Thanks

FellatioNelson · 31/05/2011 12:08

beesimo I made the mistake on 'bare a cross' but I think I did it because I had just typed 'bare hands'.

Fuck me, this is like Double Jeopardy. Grin

JoanofArgos · 31/05/2011 12:09

A pedant will always be hoisted on his or her own petard..... Wink

Pagwatch · 31/05/2011 12:11

I'm not even a fucking pedant.

Reign. Ffs

FellatioNelson · 31/05/2011 12:15

I am now smarting, SMARTING I tell you, that Bee thought she had fooled me over the 'bare hands' thing, and got me correcting myself out of a sense of insecurity. I can't rest until you've all read it back, and acknowedged publicly that you know the mistake I made isn't the mistake she thought I made which wasn't a mistake at all. Got it? Grin

FellatioNelson · 31/05/2011 12:15

Top marks for 'hoisted' and not 'hoist' Joan. Top marks.

JoanofArgos · 31/05/2011 12:21

quite Grin

TheBride · 31/05/2011 12:25

Half the problem is that grammar issues are not picked up by schools anymore, and although people may read a lot, problems such as using "it's" and "its" incorrectly aren't usually corrected by reading because you only notice them when they're incorrect, when they jar and make you lose the flow of the passage.

Fortunately, I had an A-level english teacher who handed me back my first essay with every instance of "it's" circled in red pen, explained the correct usage and told me to write it out again to make sure I remembered it. I hated him at the time but maybe there should be more teachers like that.

(I still do get it wrong sometimes when posting on here though)

Psammead · 31/05/2011 12:26

Bare... Bear... Beare....bare...bore....bear.

Oh fuck it.

LadyBeagleEyes · 31/05/2011 12:37

I think the older you are, the better your grammar is.
It was drummed into me at both primary and seconday schools. (I'm 54 btw), but there doesn't seem to be so much emphasis on it nowadays.
Grin at bare/bear and write/wright.

altinkum · 31/05/2011 12:44

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

FellatioNelson · 31/05/2011 12:52

That's spot on thebride. I wasn't taught the basics of decent grammar at school. I think the teachers at my school were just grateful if we turned up and didn't stab anyone or get pregnant. I have always found spelling (and memorising most spellings and common patterns of spelling) pretty easy, and constructing grammatically correct sentences comes naturally to me because I was brought up to speak properly at home. But the its/it's mistake is something I got wrong up until my twenties, because it didn't sound wrong, so I carried on in ignorance.

Once someone pointed out the difference to me I was mortified that I had been making such a fundamental error all my life, and I never got it wrong again. I like to learn.

beesimo · 31/05/2011 13:00

FellatioNelson

Has thee tied thy self in a knot now or in other words has thee got knotted yet!!

Yorkshire Farm Wife 1 Southern Schoolmarm 0

Checks on pies runs back into yard

Psammead · 31/05/2011 13:03

Blush I also didn't learn much English at school. I remember my first lecture on grammar and syntax at university. I wrote the date, title of the lecture etc and underlined it all nicely... and then the guy stood up and kicked off by saying how standards have fallen and that he would not accept any course work talking about 'grammEr'.

99% of the lecture theater sniggered. I blushed furiously and had to re-write my title.

I never made that mistake again, mind!

nijinsky · 31/05/2011 13:04

I like to get things right too. Apparantly I was also spelling a word wrongly without realising, and had it pointed out to me. I now spell it correctly.

It does seem to be a British thing. Why is it that my Dutch friends, including the non-university educated ones, just people in average jobs, can spell pretty much perfectly in English and don't make these mistakes?

Its almost as if there is an attitude that spelling and grammar are unimportant. But get them wrong and they do hold you back in life, unless you have other exceptional talents to make up for the bad impression it creates. Try to work abroad and get basic words and grammar wrong in your own language, when others get them correct in what is their second language, and you will be a laughing stock!

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 31/05/2011 13:23

Of course spelling, grammar and punctuation are important. Whatever gives you the impression that they aren't? People use them as a matter of course in their everyday life.

Even though I know the correct use of ?"its" and "it's", I will still mix them up now and again and press 'post' without checking first, to my chagrin. I've used 'grope-work' in place of 'group-work' and 'pubic' instead of 'public'. I've even misspelled 'County' as 'Cunty' on a template document whilst working in the council and it was some months before anybody noticed. Blush

What I don't think is acceptable, is forum-policing by back-slapping, smug pedants who seem to think they're performing some kind of public service. They're pathetic and really quite sad. Correcting others' use of language, grammar and punctuation seems to be their only contribution to any thread. Why bother in the first place? Are they failed teachers or will nobody listen to them in real life? Hmm

nijinsky · 31/05/2011 13:26

The best one I've seen today is "sware" for "swear". And knowing the writer, it is not a typo but how she genuinely thinks "swear" is spelt.

I don't see any problem with people spelling basic words in common use correctly? Thinking you are above correction is quite arrogant surely?

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