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

[ExitPursuedByAKoalaBear]

That's it.

Well obviously, but if his family are a bit dim/speak in a manner which you find intolerable then his background could justifiably be described as beneath you'

Why don't you establish a marriage bureau and a charm school Suzanne? The cross-referal potential would be amazing.

I don't know, why don't I establish a marriage bureau and a charm school?

Ugh, this thread.

Just a good humoured suggestion. Seemed a shame to see such expertise go to waste.

I did wonder for a moment whether you were being ironic in what you said to Micah.

Arsenic One must never associate with those who are so decidely beneath them.

That's the problem emotion. How does one tell? People all look about the same to me. I think I am suffering from ignorance

We are a matching pair in our suffering Arsenic.

LRD - You sneer at me (several times) because you think I am using the word "quote" incorrectly. You say it is a verb, not a noun.

Then I show you that you are wrong, with examples from Merriam-Webster and Oxford English Dictionaries.

That means you are wrong. And most people in your position would say "Sorry, I was wrong about this one" and move on.

Obviously, you are not 'most people', so you tell me I "fucked up" instead. Unbelievable

Sign - Thank you for your thoughts on how I should present myself, but I believe that mistakes need to be corrected, especially when they are used to sneer at me.

Why do you think I should turn the other cheek to these?
.... the irony of someone who has misused 'quote' when they meant to write 'quotation'
... posting quotations (NB: quote is a verb)

My use of the word "quote" was correct and LRD was wrong, as can be seen in reputable online dictionaries. I'm not holding my breath for an apology, but it is rather unfair to be called names because I corrected her in this.

WHO CARES. Childish perhaps... but you come across terribly on this thread, CoteDAzur.

Wondered what the fuck it meant to be a pendant then. Aaah pedant. Yes. Mhm.

Chin up Bee. Only 612 more posts to go.

My day job is partly to do with reasonable adjustments. I work for a very large corporation employing 140,000 people, and we offer the Two Ticks scheme, whereby any candidate disclosing a disability (including dyslexia) is automatically offered an interview.

This means that nobody loses out on a job because of their dyslexia, but this is only the case if they disclose it at the time of application.

Of course, not all companies do this, but I thought it important to point out because I hope that eventually threads like this won't exist - at least not where CVs are concerned anyway.

I suppose what I'm getting at is the fact that telling an employer you are dyslexic should mean your CV doesn't get cast out because of errors. It also means that those who are just being lazy automatically get weeded out.

Sorry to get serious again when people had moved on to pants...

Albadross doesn't the Two Ticks scheme guarantee an interview for a disabled person where they meet the minimum requirents for the job? What would happen in your organisation if the essential criteria for a vacancy stipulated e.g. "excellent written communication skills", "a high degree of accuracy" and "attention to detail"? Would an applicant who had disclosed dyslexia and whose application included errors get an interview in that scenario or would it be considered that they hadn't met the minimum criteria?

I'm interested as I see those criteria, or variations thereof, on many job descriptions / person specifications. Will it increasingly become the norm that unless an employer was advertising for, say, a proofreader or corporate communications officer, it would be deemed discriminatory to ask for such things mentioned above as "essential" criteria (perhaps including them under "desirable" instead or leaving them off altogether)?

requirements

Yes, I get what you mean, buffy, and I agree.

In my limited knowledge, in societies where reading and writing already denote socio-economic status and an unusual level of education, people are less inclined to be bothered about idiosyncratic spelling. Not sure about grammar.

alba - that's really interesting and comforting to know. It's possible there's a scheme like that where I got my job interview, as it's the only time I've been asked to disclose disability and give details of helpful adjustments, and also the only interview I've got. I wonder if they'd tell me, if I asked.

I think a big issue here is that some of us are keen on descriptive attitudes to SPAG, and therefore expect dictionaries to be updated to follow what's usually said, rather than to restrict the language to some notion of 'correctness'. Those people may not be offended by the idea of a verb becoming a noun, or phrases like 'different to' becoming as acceptable as 'different from,' or even 'of' instead of 'have'.

Other people think that some things are simply incorrect, and will never be acceptable English. So far as I can see, cote is one of these, but she moderates her stance according to what's in published dictionaries, so she accepts inconsistency when there more reputable authority has already done so.

I'm not criticising that stance. I think it's what I'd do if someone learning the language asked me what they should be saying. But I do think it is ridiculous not to be aware that, if you are a strict pedant who speaks English, you will have to keep abandoning your cherished pedantries as dictionaries respond to the reality of the spoken language. Otherwise, you end up in a laughable situation of defending one instance where one category of words is used in place of another (a verb for a noun, cf. 'a bake' or 'a quote' or, as I've seen trying to rent houses, 'a let'), but insisting another category of words could never conceivably change orthography or meaning.

I like meta-socially constructed.

Well I suppose it is like manners or etiquette or something. They evolve but until there's a recognised shift in acceptable behaviour it is best to follow the accepted rule. The OED is a slightly arbitrary way of judging when a shift in grammar has reached tipping point. But I totally agree that to give such excessive weight to SPAG as to dismiss anyone who makes mistakes as thick or unworthy is absurd. My sister is pretty rubbish at grammar. She doesn't have a disability, she is just not that brilliant at it. But she isn't thick. I helped her proof read her doctoral thesis and I have to say it felt a bit lame that my only contribution to her weighty addition to the body of scientific understanding was the addition of a few commas.

It also seems to be far more socially acceptable among the middle classes to be bad at maths and ignorant of mathematical rules than grammatical ones. Why is that? I can't help but think it has to do with class bias.

Sign - yes it does, but those requirements hardly ever stipulate perfect written comms. Staff can get software that checks spelling/grammar as you go (better than good old spellcheck!) and they don't even need to get line manager approval to get it.

Actually most role profiles I've seen just say things like 'excellent communication skills' as an essential, which of course can include spoken and written..

YANBU. It's bloody annoying.