To think it is literally not possible to be "offended" by poor grammar and punctuation as some posters claim.

[ElleBellyBeeblebrox]

Honestly, who gives a shit? The amount of smug wankery on here sometimes is unbelievable. Is there really any justification for snarking at someone about their use of full stops,( other than to try and make yourself look like a smartarse.)

Is bellend one word or two, officer? There are shorter ones you could go for to describe these people

I don't comment on grammar or spelling if I can help it at all because I know that the second I do that I will find eleventy mistakes per sentence the second I press post.

The standard of English in posts on here is very high so that when you do have someone who is a bit less meticulous/able/well taught then it stands out and which can make them a target.

On the other hand I am always telling my seven year old that if he wants people to read what he has written then he has to make it easy to read(his handwriting is really bad). Most of the time a misplaced comma will not make a difference. Most of the time you can get a good idea about it. I make a practice of only ever commenting when I have something useful to contribute (low post count) but I do lurk a lot and there are incredibly few illegible posts. For those very, very few I am not going to kick a poster when they are down and complain about their text. Usually they have enough bad things happening in their lives. It does mean that I am not likely to offer any insight I can give and it also means that those who really know what they are talking about are less likely to help.

I don't agree with piling in with complaints about the way is posted but if it is well written and clearly laid out then it does mean it is more likely to get a reply.

Lack of para spacing makes me go cross-eyed but I don't comment in a horrible way. Errant apostrophes make me twitch, but I can live with them.

I hate, hate, hate it when I make a silly mistake (we all do, from time to time) and I can't edit my post. I wish we could edit posts.

Another point - I was shat on from a great height by the education system. By the age of seven I had not had a single lesson in handwriting despite going to school every day. I had one lesson in reading and no numeracy at all. When we got to middle school most of my classmates couldn't write their names.

My first secondary school was appalling. There was no grammar or punctuation taught as it was basically a holding pen for kids until they could sign on. When I made it to the second secondary I had no lessons in grammar or punctuation because that had been taught earlier on in that school and everyone was assumed to know what they were doing.

I am sure I am not the only poster who was effectively thrown to the wolves during the education experiments in the 1970's. The whole grammar/punctuation thing may just be because the poster has never had the opportunity to learn.

Meditrina posted late last night on another thread that she's taking a break from MN.

Is this thread is why?

Was she a poster with form for being gratuitously horrible?

Good Lord no. She's been here for ages, perfectly normal poster. I daresay she's sick of the general onslaught of argumentative thickos- God knows it's reaching critical mass.

I know there is a 'thing', on here about being able to edit posts, Officer. But honestly, I've been on several forums (and am active on a couple now) and the things you mention aren't an issue. People are very quick to point out people who play funny buggers. 99% of editing is to correct errors, or for clarification purposes.

If someone's pissing me off in a post I may pull them up on spelling etc. That is very rare though.

Otherwise no I can't be bothered.

LisaMed you can learn more now if you choose to, there are plenty online free courses. If I said I can't cook because school didn't teach me, what would you think?

Re SPaG in general, poor presentation does irritate me, so I ignore it and don't reply. silently strangling anyone who uses of instead of with

Runesigil school didn't teach me to cook either. I'm considering smoked fish souffle tonight instead of kedgeree as I have eggs that need using up.

The point I was trying to make is that not everyone has had access to the basics. Even so, most posts are legible and, like you, if I don't understand the post or find it riddled with spelling errors then I don't put the knife in but move on to another post.

I think there ought to be a grammar equivalent of Godwins law, so that anyone who started complaining about grammar in a perfectly legible post could be referred to Truss's Law, that anyone using poor grammar against the OP has lost the argument.

To think it is literally not possible to be "offended" by poor grammar and punctuation as some posters claim.
Why not?
It offends me, probably because I have spent my working life teaching grammar, punctuation and spelling; when adults state that 'it doesn't matter', what they mean is they can't be bothered.
Even more offensive is the use of foul language in the post; that is deliberate.

My grammar and spelling is hit and miss, compounded by the fact I'm often typing on a screen the size of a matchbox and tend to hit the wrong key.

It is generally the behaviour of people who aren't as clever as they think they are and lack the the ability to engage meaningfully with the nuances of the debate, but feel they can stoke their own ego by pointing out typos. It is aldo a high risk strategy as it will make everyone scour your posts for errors and point out your errors with great glee.

On one occasion a poster started a thread to moan about the standards of general knowledge and poor SPAG amongst her younger colleagues. I took great delight in pointing out a number of grammatical errors in her original post and of the five pieces of general knowledge she'd been amazed her colleagues didn't know, two were contentious and one was plain wrong.

I have sensory issues - honestly the sound a feel of very poorly written sentences offends me. It's the way I can imagine it feeling on my tongue.

Yuck yuck yuck.

Do you have the same sensory issues with misplaced letter "a"s?

I feel like putting the posters who complain about spelling and grammar on the mumsnet naughty step.

I hadn't realised that being a precious and prissy twit qualified as a sensory issue.

I said above I'd rather gnaw my own arm off than criticise another poster's grammar, spelling or punctuation. However, I make an exception for those who criticise in a way designed to make others feel inadequate, but make some obvious mistakes of their own.

WhyBeHappy, you missed out the comma that should have followed 'honestly' and you wrote 'a' when you presumably meant 'and'. I believe 'yuck, yuck, yuck' would be better English than 'yuck yuck yuck'.

I hope this is helpful. Seeing your mistakes fortunately caused me no sensory issues but it did give me intense satisfaction, given the smug tone and ludicrous exaggeration in your post.

Bad spelling etc is only ever pointed out if the poster doing the pointing out disagrees with the bad speller's point.
If two posters are getting along fine, bad spelling and punctuation is never mentioned.

This is the case on every single forum I've ever been on.

How very true, stripedtortoise!

On here: couldn't care less.

In RL: I care. I care very, very much. Poor punctuation does offend me, and I do point it out. I work in HE; we are supposed to be turning out educated people. An incorrect apostrophe in a prominent place matters. In any place, it matters. By God, it matters. Did I mention that it matters?

I lie: the time I cared on here was when some poster actually stated that language changes, and the apostrophe was on the way out.

I had to not go on AIBU for at least three hours.

My spelling and grammar are not perfect.

Not everyone has had the benefit of a particularly good education.

If people do not know something is wrong they would not know to correct it.

However being corrected on an informal internet forum is not appropriate.

I don't know where to put commas beyond the basics. I don't a have a clue what ; is for.

I have been spelling certain words wrong for years without knowing. Tomorrow always had two ms before spellchecking reached the WWW.

I Dont Understand Why People Write Like This or when....they.....do.....this....it .....doesn't....make ...sense.
Txt spk is also annyng..

BUT if someone is pouring their heart out and/or distressed it is absolutely appalling that someone should do the 'would you mind terribly not using txt spk dear? Now tell me again, how many times did your OH hit you? Only this time do try to use paragraphs'

The CV get-out riles me.

I'm not saying spelling, punctuation and grammar doesn't matter. People should be taught it, because education is one of the surest methods of social movement and just as importantly, gives you the confidence to call people out when they're being colossal twats.

But let's not pretend it's the be-all and end-all, because if it was, hardly any of us would have jobs.

I'm a journalist and a bit of a spelling and grammar pedant, though I'm far from perfect, as I'm sure you can see.

However, I have employed people whose approach to the English language was eccentric. That's because their news-gathering skills would slaughter me and we have people in the office whose job it is to polish turds.

Long ago, I did a pompous column on appalling educational standards and was royally roasted by my editor in the next edition for Muphry's Law.

That was bad, but no one keeps a copy of a newspaper. Far worse was the office wall. Every time I sneaked down his blue-pen pocked copy of my column, a fresh one appeared until I accepted my humiliation and left it. I bet it's still there.

He taught me a valuable lesson in humility.

I still hope he dies a slow and painful death though, because he was a cunt.

I'm not 'offended' as such, but I do notice spelling and grammar errors and it irritates me because it seems so easily avoidable. People come on this forum for advice and I judge, sometimes without meaning to, on how they've written their posts. Something well-written, spaced nicely, and not peppered with mistakes just seems more respectful than something hastily cobbled together.

I don't think my way of thinking is necessarily the right way of thinking; I have a good friend who is dyslexic, and her FB posts are filled with spelling mistakes and I notice them, but understand the reason why they're like that. I do realise that there may be people here who are dyslexic, or just not as fussed about spelling as I am, but I notice these things without trying to.

I don't think I've ever, in any incarnation, pointed someone out on it though; I wouldn't be able to think of a way of doing it without coming across as spiteful or cruel. It's just an internal snap judgement.