..to be irked at how common bad spelling and bad grammar are?

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I shall be showing my age when I say that when I was growing up, if you wanted to find out how to spell a word or construct a sentence properly you referred to a dictionary/grammar book.

Now there are virtual books at our fingertips and information at the click of a button encompassing anything you ever need to know and much more and still people can't distinguish between "of" and "off" or "breathe" and "breath".
Why??????

spell checkers only work if the word is spelt wrong.

YANBU at all! It does my head in!! When I was at school (old fart alert!) we were taught that if the word wasn't spelled correctly then it was WRONG!!!

The one that really gets on my tits is when people mix up "bought" and "brought". The word brought is the past tense of the verb "to bring" and bought is that of the verb "to buy"

and breeeeathe

I leave spelling and grammar to my iPad now. It moves in mysterious ways.

I really hate bad grammar and spelling too. I know sometimes you make a mistake and spell something wrong but some people have no idea how to spell at all

Poor spelling and grammar used to irritate me a lot, but now I really don't care if the mistakes occur on a forum. (I feel differently if job applications contain errors, though). I find that I have far more important things to get my knickers in a knot about these days.

I'm getting fed up of seeing words like 'realize' and 'generalize' because people are using American spell check/predictive text.

It won't be long before kids (and bloody teachers) are writing that in school.

some of us are the product of a 70's/80's education where we were taught "sod all" about grammer and punctuation. trying to self educate now, but it would have been a hell of a lot easier if we had been taught it at school. how can you know if something is wrong if you have never been taught that there is a correct way to do things.

I do like the threads that people start about one spelling/rule/use of language as the drip drip and the oh god I have been spelling that incorrectly feeling help you to remember.

It also helps if you have a reliable shift key!

I would use the term "poor grammar" rather than bad grammar.

I do find it shocking that I seem to be the go-to person at work for spelling and grammar questions, even though English is NOT my mother tongue.

My company only employs graduates but a worryingly high number of them can barely spell their own names. And they don't seem to think it is a problem as long as people understand what they mean!

It makes me feel about 200 years old. And I am only 32.

stranded, i would be quite happy for you to provide a new keyboard every few weeks so that the shift key works reliably and I can put in capitals!

until the boy has stopped using it as a car track and walking on the damn thing we are keeping the old one.

Personally, I think it sounds clunky to end a sentence in a preposition (such as 'are'), and one is irked by something, not at it.

I sounds much better to question "Am I being unreasonable to be irked by poor spelling and grammar?".

But don't listen to me; I am horribly dyslexic and my spelling is atrocious. I usually fail to notice when I have spelt the same word three different ways in the Sam document.

same document, even.

I told you my opinion is of no account.

I am more irked by people who feel the need to use multiple question marks when criticising other people's poor spelling and grammer (or at any other time for that matter).

I would never start such a thread with fear that my writing was not up to standard. :)

However, I do agree and English is not even my first language, or because of it.

I hate those common, basic mistakes, such as your/you're, their/they're/there.
One is a mistake. A post full of them is just carelessness.

I'm with the 'being irked' brigade. Not so bothered on chatty forums/quick texts to people you know, but when communicating your views, using the wrong word IR punctuation can change the meaning of your point & cause confusion or hassle.
I sympathise with anyone who has difficulties in the area, but there are ways of coping in formal situations like job applications (like getting a friend to check your application before you send it). I've seen some shockers!

I love Lynne Truss. 'Nuff said.

You did you that on purpose, didn't you Onelast?

It's one thing if people say that their spelling is weak because of dyslexia or some other difficulty, but I do hoist my judgy-pants up a bit at those who say they just don't care . I have, however, never picked anybody up on poor spelling on this forum, despite great temptation.

HidingInTheUndergrowth

grammar

McHappyPants2012
SooticaTheWitchesCat

wrongly - an adverb describes a verb

OneLastSoul

YANBU.

My IL's get borrow and lend mixed up, and it drives me nuts!

When they ask if they can lend one of my DVD's I always reply with 'and who would you like to lend it to?'.

OneLastSoul

You used those two mistakes on purpose. I dislike them too