To refuse to engage with anyone who uses of instead of have?

[ExitPursuedByAKoalaBear]

That's it.

Quintessentially - I was trying to end it with a smile, not being PA. Anyway.

Arf @ "forgive".

*The spelling is different on draw and drawer but the pronunciation is the same.

It most definitely is not.*

Yes - this ^^ I've pointed this out twice now, but it didn't seem to get through!

There isn't any 'definite' about it though, surely?

It varies, depending on your accent.

For me, they're homophones, but as scone says, they're not for her (she's in the US South IIRC).

"You sneered at someone with a disability... we shouldn't sneer at and judge people because they make mistakes."

I did not laugh at any mistake LRD made.

I laughed at her sudden and irrelevant accusation of OP with disablism although the thread wasn't about disabilities and OP had not said anything about a disability.

" would you not have been keen to clarify what you meant"

I have done that quite a few times. A quick read of this thread will show you just how many times I have pointed out exactly what I have meant.

Not that you care at this point. Attack, to your heart's content

No, Buffy, I don't want to make you cry.

This is getting silly now. See you on another thread, maybe.

LRD

What I think Phaedra is saying, and what I am saying, is that it most definitely is not the same pronunciation for the word 'draw' and the word 'drawer'. It might be for some people, but if is definitely not the same pronunciation for all people.

Is there actually some sort of generally accepted and non-judgemental way to correct a mistake in somebody else's writing or speech?

I too wonder if some mistakes genuinely occur due to the writer/speaker really not knowing that it isn't correct. It's fairly easy to see that 'of' instead of 'have' has come from the way it sounds when spoken but I see many other odd ones that I can't work out.

I would want to be corrected (I do appreciate that I'm probably the only one) and I suppose I've always thought others do too. Having read this thread, perhaps that isn't the case at all!

prof - YY, absolutely. I am agreeing too, I think - that for some it is and some it isn't.

And I think it's also the case that someone like me might actually not be able to hear both sounds you can (like Chinese speakers not quite distinguishing between some consonants we use?). But anyway ...

I agree with that Buffy, I don't personally think there is ever much of a need for it on a chat forum.

Should I make a point of saying I DO want to be corrected then? I only ask because in the past when I've corrected someone - and I mean someone very close who probably won't take offence - the reaction has been of the 'I can't believe nobody pointed this out to me before now!' sort...

I've seen threads where someone has out should of in the OP and about ten people have come on and just said HAVE or something snitty with no reference to the poor buggers problem or query.

I have seen it done as politely as it can be.

I just see MN as chatting in say a pub, would you meet a group of casual acquaintances in a pub and correct them, I think it's comparable to that.

I wouldn't unless asked, or unless it was relevant to a conversation and it was helpful.

But then my grammar isn't too hot, and to be honest, I really don't get the angst at all!

alba - I tend to err on the side of not correcting people (unless their posts are full of errors and they're lecturing others in a snide way, or unless it's really relevant, such as when someone asks for help writing a cover letter).

But I think often people won't be upset by it. MN is unusual in my experience, in that we don't correct each other's SPAG very much. I blog (for my sins), and on there, I do occasionally get very kind emails from people who want to correct me but don't want to do it 'in public' on the comments.

I guess PM could be used the same way?

But it is a bit of a judgment call.

For me personally, TBH, I wouldn't mind someone correcting me if it wasn't maliciously meant, but I'd also not particularly find it 'useful', because most (virtually all?) of my errors are ones where I know what's right but haven't managed to get it down on paper.

Not very helpful really, sorry!

It varies, depending on your accent
Draw and drawer are different words. The "er" is not silent. If one were teaching English as a foreign language one would not teach these words as being pronounced the same just because of some regional equivalent of the glottal stop drops the "er"

Nope I still disagree on the drawer thing. The draw...errrr people are the ones getting it wrong.

I think we need a Bannockburn re-enactment thread to settle the drawer issue

Personally I would rather not engage with a person who thought that using 'of' instead of 'have' is an accurate assessment of a person's character or intelligence.

I wish that more people would express their ignorance - it would make unpleasant people so much easier to avoid.