Grammar and spelling (both irrelevant derailing and pedantic threads)

[TheEntertainerr]

Just read a couple of threads and need to rant.

1. There is no need to pull other posters up on spelling and grammar. It's irrelevant and derails the thread. If you disagree with a poster, it's okay to disagree with them. Disagree and state your point of view. If you understand what they're getting at, there is no need to pick them up on spelling/grammar. The motives are clear, you've taken a dislike/disagree and trying to score a petty point, in order to validate your belief that you're better/superior. Don't! You don't appear more intelligent/educated/knowledgeable. Just someone who is either incapable of disagreeing or effectively countering an argument.

2. Threads about poor grammar and spelling. Okay, some particular mistakes may really irritate people. I get it. Vent it, but quit while you're ahead. Don't cast aspersions - people being under-educated - based on one particular mistake. By all means, do so if you're that confident with your own ability and that your posts will hold up against the same level of scrutiny. Ironically, they often don't.

Rant over.

“Good grammar is never irrelevant”

Sometimes it’s important, but often it isn’t important at all.
Being able to get your point across matters.

“poster Rarotonga Tue 14-May-19 20:19:52
I find it quite depressing. I work with children/young people with communication and literacy difficulties and despair that the world is full of people who get irrationally enraged by such things.”

I hear you. Thank you for what you do.

@Lifecraft anymore helpful mnemonics?

I needed to look up stationery/stationary every time, until I remembered it as stationAry cAr, pEns and pEncils stationEry.

@Cherrysoup but you don't correct him! You may want to, but don't, just a silent groan instead. If I wouldn't correct someone in real life I wouldn't do so on here.

Unless I thought that poor SPAG could have any bearing on the thread, I wouldn't feel the need to comment. I suppose not receiving responses to job applications/CVs and there was a badly written post. Struggling to think of a situation.

I try not to say anything, though I will admit here and now that truly atrocious spelling and grammar can drive me away from a thread.

The other day I saw an example where someone clearly meant to say "Could have gone" and they write "Could of went" instead. That was beyond cringeworthy. I would go so far as to call it butchery of the English language.

A vast wall of text without paragraphs in an opening post is off-putting to me, especially if it requires scrolling to read all of it. I tend to click away rather than moan about it though. Hopefully the poster isn't too devastated to miss out on my wisdom .

It is a bit of a shame really, because those posts are often from people who are quite distressed and are pouring their hearts out; if they made it a bit easier to read, they'd get far more responses.

I don’t think it’s necessarily always the case that people correcting other poster’s SPAG are doing it to be shitty. I actually think it’s more that people tend to fall into one of two camps:

Those who believe all that matters is being understood and any route to that destination is fair game, and

Those who passionately love the English language and feel some sense of railing against the progressive butchering of it

I totally understand the latter, things irk me. One major bugbear is the way that the use of an apostrophe at the end of 80s (as in the decade) has become so ubiquitous it’s everywhere ‘Now 66: 70’s hits!’ ‘It’s so hot today, high 20’s’. It’s incorrect, you don’t need an apostrophe to pluralise and that doesn’t change just because it’s a number being pluralised. But it’s so commonly used I’m convinced that in a few decades time it’ll somehow become accurate as language evolves and changes as fewer and fewer people understand the correct way to pluralise. You even see it on plastic signs that someone has taken the time to design, take to a printing shop and put up in public view. Also the weird new usage of ‘brought’ when someone means ‘bought’. I even saw ‘I brought a house last year’ which almost saw steam coming from my ears. Brought it from where? How did you carry it!?

I don’t correct other people’s SPAG as it makes people who are unable to write in accurate English feel uneasy about contributing and that’s unfair, but as someone who is fully aware of her own grammatical shortcomings I would appreciate errors being pointed out as it’s all part of the ongoing learning process. I consider myself great at spelling but grammar isn’t something I’ve ever studied, I’ve just absorbed how to write from reading lots of books. I don’t judge anyone who does correct SPAG as personally I feel it’s important in almost all areas of life to be able to use good English as it holds you back in many ways, and I totally empathise with that sense of disbelief at reading ‘could of said this’ for the umpteenth time and frustration bubbling over/wanting to educate someone so they don’t make the same mistake and look silly next time.

Can you tell it’s nearly 4am and I can’t sleep 😂 language is evolving all the time but I’m not quite ready yet to throw all of the rules away and go forth into a linguistic Wild West where nothing matters other than a baseline level of being able to roughly communicate meaning.

And yes, some of those sentences were overly long :P misuse of words and phrases and punctuation winds me up the most but maybe there are some on here enraged by long sentences so hi 😂

I'm a copy editor by trade. It's actually my job to point out other people's SPAG mistakes. I'd never do that on Mumsnet, though, no matter how grating. Posters come on for advice, not an education.

I've mainly noticed people doing it when the OP doesn't come across well, personality wise. I believe it's used as a cheap shot to take the OP down a peg or two.

My job is proof-reading journal papers. I would never correct someone’s grammar or spelling on a forum unless they were asking for advice.

I would only give unsolicited advice if I saw something that was to be published or displayed publicly. For example, if someone on the PTA showed me a letter that was to go out to parents, I would point out mistakes.

My phone corrects a lot of spellings to American English and I can’t be bothered forcing the issue, so I do Americanise some words.

I used to teach English and my posts are full of typos. I'm also too lazy to put in correct punctuation etc. Because i'm on my phone and use text speak a lot.
Yanbu op...i never correct op mistakes..i hardly notice them because i dont want to be s twat 24/7.

Ooops

I don't mind having my mistakes pointed out, but only if it's done in a kind way. The posters who do it in a point scoring way just look like twats imo.

@InspectorClouseauMNdivision

I'm a foreigner and can tell you that if you learn English as a second language you will never make the there/their etc mistake, because you learn that "their" is the translation of whatever is a possessive adjective in your language, and you learn "they are" before the oral contractions.

We are most likely to suffer from weird sentence construction due to literal translations!

Those who passionately love the English language and feel some sense of railing against the progressive butchering of it

Yes. This. I know my own grammar and spelling are not watertight. I'm particularly bad with homophones when I'm in a hurry and not checking things. So I tend not to correct errors because I make a few of my own. I also think that genuinely distressed posters asking for help really don't need anyone barking "should have FFS".

However, I do occasionally point things out. It's not done out of some sense of superiority but more out of irritation and not done to posters who I think lack education. I understand that. It's more often done to posters who I think should know better but for some reason haven't bothered to think about why "could of" is wrong when they very easily could have thought about it.

If I find things are crammed with text speak, grammatical errors and spelling mistakes then I just move on elsewhere. I know I'll get ratty and it doesn't help anyone.

I corrected someone on lose / loose once because they repeated the mistake in pretty much all of their posts. Can't remember the context, but they were going to write a letter (to the council maybe) about how whatever happened has made them lose something. I felt like a twat but also if they're going to be writing official letters making a complaint, surely you'd want to have as few mistakes as possible, rather than something quite jarring to read?

I used to think FFS really?! When people write too instead of to, or mix us their, there, they’re etc.

I now have an iPhone.

I just assume their I phone has been on the same ‘101 ways to make your owner look illiterate’ as mine has!

It is honestly THE most frustrating little bastard out there!

I think could of etc is understandable because people hear the contraction ‘could’ve’ and hear what they think is of.

Another common one is are/our - I’d NEVER write the wrong one with a pen, but I have read posts I’ve written previously and I’ve typed the wrong one. It’s weird, but when I looked it up the explanation was interesting.

I notice lots of things such as brought/bought and even no/know but I just assume it’s a twatty phone, a regional way of saying something or someone who has a learning difficulty and I don’t let it wind me up.

I will, however, either close the thread or commiserate with the poster about them having a keyboard that only types half the letters, if they use text speak.

My spelling is fine, my grammar on here is fairly atrocious at times, but it’s a casual forum so I type how I speak to friends, not how I write in a formal situation 🤷🏻‍♀️

Those who passionately love the English language and feel some sense of railing against the progressive butchering of it

Some people can't help "butchering" it. Some people are shit at maths, they find it difficult to understand and will make mistakes all their life. Some people are shit at art and no matter how much they draw, they won't get any better. Some people are shit at sport and no matter how many times they are forced to play, it won't make them more confident or capable. I'm pretty good at all those things, but I'm shit at SPAG. As a pp said, most of the people doing the correcting make mistakes aswell.

Jesus wept.

I’ve noticed an increase of ‘me’ instead of ‘my’ lately. I assumed it was a rise in the number of posters in areas where that’s the vernacular.

...it would appear it’s another iPhone thing as it’s just changed it twice in one post.

I am going to have to turn auto (in)correct off I think.

Oh and as for unesassary, hers what my phone changes it to.

See, and that was me trying to spell it correctly, still changed it.

Both times.

Speaking of helpful tips, when I was a child I once read a really cool way of remember how to spell necessary (or unnecessary if you add the ‘un’): ‘never eat chocolate, eat salad sandwiches and remain young’ 😂

Unesassary is what has come up on my phone too Drogo, if I type exactly the way you’ve spelled it above. I think on phones they can only guess if the word is a common misspelling or close enough. I think the way you’ve tried to spell it is just far enough from the accurate spelling your phone doesn’t recognise it. On iPhones they remember things you spell incorrectly if you use them enough times, so if you have tried to spell it like that several times it’ll assume that’s a meaningful word to you, maybe a name, and correct to it if you get close. Which is probably why your (and now probably my) phone will default to Unesassary now :P

I had an ex who spelled cocodamol ‘cocodomol’ a few times and from then on the phone treated it like an accurate word.

Your SPAG seems fine btw. I think there is a difference between posts that are legible with the odd typo or spelling mistake and those which are littered with ‘their/there/they’re/too/to/no/know/brought/bought’ errors.

I wouldn't correct someone on a thread as it looks pathetic, but I notice. I don't attempt to decipher walls of text without paragraphs or with text speak. Some of it might be autocorrect but I've noticed a lot of them instead of those lately and me for my. It's also noticeable how many people can't spell definitely or devastated and who wear shoes with heals.

I think it’s different to explain to someone with a war and peace post that it’s difficult to read, compared to blatantly pointing out they have spelt definitely wrong or used loose instead of lose. As long as you’re not a twat about mentioning it, obviously.

If I didn’t use paragraphs and someone came on my thread and said they found it hard to read I wouldn’t be offended, I’d probably think they had a point.

NaturalBornWoman

I’m frequently astonished by the number of people who spell it ‘definately’, ‘independant’, and worst of all ‘rediculous’. It does make me wonder wtf is going on in schools that so many adults are leaving without being able to spell even simple words correctly with the use of spellchecker/autocorrect to aid them to boot. It’s shocking.