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

[Red2011]

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??????

What got me started really was the fact that several of my 'colleagues' have had work corrected and handed back to them where they have some glaring errors in their spelling or grammar. When the next assignment goes in, they repeat these same errors.

I am not a whizz at proper sentence construction by a long chalk, and I do make mistakes, but I do at least try to make use of the resources that are available. It isn't difficult to try to check things...

I realise I'm probably a bit snobby about this sort of thing but dyslexia and other associated issues aside, I think it can reflect badly on someone. If I was reading a job application through and it had mistakes on, it'd be in the 'dud' pile.

Thistledew - top marks for copying and pasting!

However, I couldn't understand your last numbered point:

41. In writing, it's important to remember that dangling sentences.

Dangling sentences what? Do you mean it sentences you to a lifetime of not knowing Rule 41?

I'm an editor so spend much of my time correcting people's spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, but I can't say I'm really irked by them. I can immediately see when someone else's words are wrong, but for some reason I'm horrendous at self-editing and often don't notice mistakes in my own writing. It's easily done.

Imperial - I don't claim to have invented it but it did amuse me

I think the point of %2341 is that dangling sentences do.

I'm sceptical about this golden age when everyone could spell, punctuate and use grammar correctly.

I wonder whether working class people who couldn't do it took jobs where they didn't need it and middle class men took secretaries.

Now that manufacturing and heavy industry is virtually destroyed, many people are either unemployed or doing jobs where we notice their mistakes and tut over them.

I'm not saying that's okay but that we need to raise our standards of teaching now more than ever so that we can compete economically as a nation.

We could also have a go at making people feel worthwhile rather than sneering at them, possibly while making howlers ourselves. Self-worth is good. I know. I have a lot of it.

I had regular spelling tests but I don't remember formal grammar and punctuation lessons at my primary in the '70s. Maybe we had some instruction but luckily I was one of those people who was able to absorb the sense of it from books. I can't say what happened for anyone who couldn't do that but I can't imagine it's turned out well.

Dictionaries and grammar guides only work if you have an idea you're doing it wrongly. If you have no idea, you'll never notice.

People, including me, would benefit from better instruction than I had. But we need teachers, not just with knowledge but with flair.

It's true there are people who are good teachers but whose English language skills are shaky. I have few answers for that.

But we've all met people capable only of dinning instructions into heads without explanation and who ridicule or ignore children who don't get it the first time. They couldn't teach either but I never saw them get pulled on it.

But that's my idea about the skill of teaching all over. I admire it.

That was very long, but in my defence, you did ask about my pet subject.

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

Lueji beat me to it .

My spelling, grammar and punctuation is good but I was cured of boasting about it when I wrote something snotty about other peoples' mistakes and my boss corrected it and pinned it on the wall. I don't want to revisit that humiliation except to say there was a lot of red ink on that page.

May I repeat what rulebritannia said: words are spelled wrongly, not wrong.

Or should that be 'spelt'?

People in glass houses...

YANBU, it drives me mad too. I just spent ages this afternoon correcting a HR manager's spelling and grammar in a lengthy, formal report.
I can cope with it on MN, we all make typos, but in a formal work situation it is annoying.

red2001 I don't know what job you do.

I'm a journalist. When I was starting out it was drummed into us that if there was a mistake in an application letter it was curtains.

Experience has told me that if someone's a good and accurate news gatherer their spelling and style doesn't matter that much. It would be nice if people could spell and use grammer as good as what I do, but the subs will tidy that up. But if a reporter hasn't got news sense, they're no good.

sauvignon I sympathise but people with better literacy skills have always had to clear up after their bosses.

I was in a college class (god I felt OLD) last week and the other pupils were moaning about having to do a paper exam (English functional skills) - oh no! Using a pen! How old fashioned.

They were complaining about lack of spellcheck too.

I really am going to have to leave this thread and watch the telly because people are really pissing me off.

Twenty-five years ago my handwriting used to be good. These days it's illegible unless I really make a labourious effort.

A colleague the same age as me says it's the effect of shorthand. Or maybe it's our fabulous keyboard skills. I have no idea whether that's true but it made me feel better.

Anyway, how's your shorthand and typing speed?

Where can I find out about good grammar? I am never really sure what is correct

Can anyone recommend a book?

"3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction."

Do you think perhaps they mean "do not start with a coordinating conjunction"? It's going to get a bit limiting if we can't use subordinating conjunctions, don't you think?

My spelling and grammar are awful. I'd like a recommendation for a book as well.

I am very ashamed .

YANBU. I'm a copywriter. Spelling mistakes make me look like an utter twit so I am, perhaps, more vigilant than many. Having said that I've seen some howlers in beauty salons, menus, numerous websites, etc.

I dismissed a potential school for DS on the basis that the deputy headmistress in her welcome speeach made a reference to, "the most quietest child."

On the internet? Doesn't bother me unless the person has just gone off on one about spelling and grammar, in which case they're fair game

In marketing literature? Just jeffing proof read it you ignoramuses... ignorami... ignorama... fuck it, bed time.

You don't go on a date in a restaurant wearing a tracksuit. Why? You want to make a good impression. Similarly, if you want me to buy your product, show me you've made an effort!

Ah I don't work at the moment, I am a student. I used to work in compliance and was allowed to help with recruitment for our team.

I do have friends who don't have English as their first language, and who have various learning difficulties/dyslexia. (I don't know whether it falls into the same category or not as learning difficulties).

Just that when there are resources to be utilised at our fingertips things are overlooked. You can even just start typing a word into google and it'll autofill and link to dictionaries online so you can check if it is the word you need.

BTW, just got an assignment back with some grammatical errors in!

It's grammar!

I think DD1 gets SLD(dyslexia) - specific learning difficulty, on her notes if school are awake and moaned at for her spelling when they aren't

So no I don't mind a bit of bad spelling or imperfect grammar. I'm mildly dyslexic too and just don't register how words are spelt. I can miss spell words I've seen 1000s of times.
I do get annoyed by apostrophes, there, their and they're and your/ you're.
Because those rules I have learnt, I get them wrong typing on my iPod, but I do try.

The z use in say, realise was normal up to around 1990.

It was changed.

SO, actually its not an American way at all

YANBU - but you are setting yourself up for a fall

If you start getting pedantic about spelling and grammar, you leave yourself open to critical comment from others.

The merest whiff of a grammatical faux pas or typo and you'll get picked up on it by an eagle-eyed mumsnetter.

Thistledew

Its and it's being used incorrectly. I've seen this so much recently, that it's my pet hate at the moment.

MrsBovary the trouble with its and it's currently is the iPhone. I'm a right old pedant and even I've missed the autocorrect a couple of times.

Damn you, Autocorrect!

A couple of years ago I was taking Year 7 English and was politely corrected, by a child, for using "I" for the first person singular, and told it was "i". I said this wasn't correct and several other pupils chimed in to say their Year 6 teacher had told them "I" only had a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence.

They were all from the same primary school.

I put them right, nicely, but didn't scruple to say that this was a very basic part of English that all teachers should know. Still,

OP, you need to keep this in prospectus. Alot of people have a few pacific words that they have problems with. You just have to except this and understand most are doing there bestest.

It drives me mad, too. I'm in my 50s and I do feel that most people of my generation were taught to write and spell reasonably well. A case in point is that my older colleagues' spelling and grammar is generally good - even if that person is poorly educated and working at a lower level, their written reports are acceptable.
In contrast, the younger, brighter, graduates' written work is frequently full of spelling mistakes and bad grammar.