..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??????

YANBU.

YANBU. I do think that many people with poor grammar and spelling skills are a product of their education rather than just ignorant or careless.

Poor DH struggles so much with spelling and I am sure that had the problem been picked up early enough at school, he would not be in the situation he is in now. He is 38. (But on the upside, he knows that spelling is not his strong point so will check what he has written).

Threads like this irk the life out of me. Does it not bother you that you are potentially hurting people who may have had less access to education, have learning difficulties, don't have English as a first language, etc. Gah, I'm off to hide the thread.

yabu iphone and ipad incur many mistakes for me.

i dont speak woth plums in my mouth either but...

if im working to produce an avademic pie e of work then i care, or if im on phone then i use my bestest telephone voice, especially if im complainin.

or ds homework, im teaching him how to usr a dictionary.

to be quitehonest the grammar n spelling police on here are a right pita

YANBU at all. I'd like to add issues with punctuation to this topic as well. Random or missing apostrophes aggravate the hell out of me!

Again, as some posters have said here, on internet forums, texts, etc. it's not such an issue but standards have definitely slipped in the commercial world. I'm having to edit some of my employees' work before I can send it on to clients because it's just not up to standard. Sigh...

Also, what on earth is going on with the increasingly American pronounciation of words? 'Patriot' should be 'pat-ri-ot', not 'pate-ri-ot'. 'Privacy' should be 'priv-a-cee' not 'prive-a-cee'. Grrr.

I'm typing this awkwardly with crossed fingers hoping to high hell there are no errors in this post! :)

The rot starts in primary school.

Sadly at my DC's school the attitude was, "We don't want to discourage children by handing their work back covered in red pen."

Also known as "We can't be arsed to do our job properly and correct childrens' work."

I've also heard the argument, "We don't want to interrupt their creative flow," - as if creativity and correct spelling and grammar were mutually exclusive!

I agree, I find poor grammar really irritating.
My personal bugbear is the use of double negatives a la "I didn't do nothing" and also the incorrect use of was/were "you was there, wasn't you" - aghhh!

pops yes i think its apt to make distinction between casual comms online or commercial work etc.

It really irks me when people are unable to start their threads in the correct topic.

Pedants' Corner is >>>>>>

It seems I was also taught sod all about spelling too. grammar thats what happens when one is rushing off to do the school run.

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.

'Are' is not a preposition.

It is very difficult to understand how your mother tongue works if you have not learnt the gammar of another language.

Just as you can never properly appreciate your own country if you have never been abroad. You have no point of comparison if you only know one country.

You do not need to understand grammar in order to use your mother tongue. As I realised, to my great horror, when I spent 6 months teaching English in France. However to learn another language properly you do need to understand the grammar. Most students at school now and for the last 30 years, have had to memorise phrases in their MFL in order to pass GCSE. This fails them twice as they never become independent users of the MFL and never get a good grasp of English grammar.

One of the most common faults seen in written English is the their/ there/ they're issue. In English they are homophones and that leads to them being used often at random. However the meanings are completely different. If you just translate them into another language the differences are obvious, e.g. into Spanish their = su or sus, there = allí and they' re = (ellos) son.

I do care about spelling and grammar. If posters do not care I cannot help forming an opinion.

Knid - you are right, it is I think a verb. I said, as a poor speller, that my opinion is obviously of no account. However, that is even more reason why it should not be at the end of the sentence:'subject, verb, object'.

I never studied grammar at school, and have only learnt a few bits and pieces along the way through looking things up. Mostly, I have learnt grammar by reading well-written books.

Can anyone is able to explain grammar rules tell me why one is 'irked by' not 'irked at'? I know which sounds right, but can't explain why, and it is, well, irking me.

I know I said I was leaving but I can't help myself. Maybe one of you who areknow it alls good at grammar could set up a thread where you can teach one grammar lesson a day/week. Then we could all imrove our skills and remove the need for these threads.

For those who think sticking to the rules is important, here are some more:

1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.

2 Never use a preposition to end a sentence with. Winston Churchill, corrected on this error once, responded to the young man who corrected him by saying "Young man, that is the kind of impudence up with which I will not put!

1. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
2. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
4. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
5. Be more or less specific.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
7. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies endlessly over and over again.

10. No sentence fragments. 11. Contractions aren't always necessary and shouldn't be used to excess so don't. 12. Foreign words and phrases are not always apropos. 13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous and can be excessive. 14. All generalisations are bad. 15. Comparisons are as bad as cliches. 16. Don't use no double negatives. 17. Avoid excessive use of ampersands & abbrevs., etc. 18. One-word sentences? Eliminate. 19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake (Unless they are as good as gold). 20. The passive voice is to be ignored. 21. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words, however, should be enclosed in commas. 22. Never use a big word when substituting a diminutive one would suffice. 23. Don't overuse exclamation points!!! 24. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them. 25. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth-shaking ideas. 26. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed and use it correctly with words' that show possession. 27. Don't use too many quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations.. Tell me what you know." 28. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a billion times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly. Besides, hyperbole is always overdone, anyway. 29. Puns are for children, not groan readers. 30. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms. 31. Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed. 32. Who needs rhetorical questions? However, what if there were no rhetorical questions? 33. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement. 34. Avoid "buzz-words"; such integrated transitional scenarios complicate simplistic matters. 35. People don't spell "a lot" correctly alot of the time. 36. Each person should use their possessive pronouns correctly. 37. All grammar and spelling rules have exceptions (with a few exceptions)....Morgan's Law. 38. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out. 39. The dash - a sometimes useful punctuation mark - can often be overused - even though it's a helpful tool some of the time. 40. Proofread carefully to make sure you don't repeat repeat any words. 41. In writing, it's important to remember that dangling sentences.

Ah bugger. That will learn me not to try to be cheeky.

I like it when posters are wanking on about a passion for the English language and then write, "infact" or include an erroneous apostrophe in "its" when used as a pronoun

Other than that it doesn't bother me. I do use "texted" as the past tense of the verb, "text" though. And it isn't fucking text SPEAK. It just ISN'T! It is a written form of language!

Other than that it doesn't bother me

At all.

Thistledew - there is no evidence of poor spelling in your post! :) I agree with you that reading good books helps a lot. I also agree with Renniehorta that learning another language can make a big difference.

Regarding 'irked at', 'irked by' etc - I think it's just a question of learning which proposition goes with which verb.

Should of, would of....I rest my case!

I know that i am a failure of academics, my spelling and grammer is awful.

I am proud of the fact that i pretty much self taught myself to spell, but at the moment i have a lot of other things to worry about that people's typing on a public fourm.

I hate 'where you at?' and when people say 'that learned me'. What the hell? Im no where near perfect, i'm 20 and wasn't taught very well in school. I've picked most of it up from asking parents and friends.

When it comes down to it as long as you can read something why does it matter.

thats my view and probably other peoples views too

We don't have BROUGHT OR BOUGHT in the little primary school I work in, children will tell me I BRANGED IT TO SCHOOL.

I BRUNG it to school round here :)

Cafe Rouge has W.C's...wonder what it is and if they should give it back to W?