I should of known...

[UnaCorda]

Yes, the title is deliberate - sorry to have been clickbaity.

Expecting to be flamed although am trying not to be offensive, but this has been bugging me. Can anyone suggest why certain otherwise apparently well-educated people make up their own grammar rules?

I'm thinking of things (all of which I've seen "committed" by numerous people) such as deciding "thank you" should be hyphenated, or separating sentences or clauses with ellipses rather than a comma/semicolon/full stop, or leaving a space before exclamation and question marks, etc. (there are probably others).

I'm not having a pop at anyone who is dyslexic, or didn't have access to a decent education or who is writing in a very relaxed way because the context is informal. More trying to understand why some people seem to follow their own special set of grammar and punctuation rules which are consistent, but wrong.

I see punctuation as a way of getting across the inflections that you can hear in speech, so I don't know why you would want to fuck about with that and make your meaning unclear in the process.

(And apologies that this isn't in Pedants' Corner, but there's hardly any traffic there.)

I think standards have slipped generally and these things just creep into the vernacular. Many people just don't care to be correct. I hear spoken errors on BBC breakfast most days. There are also so many errors in the e-mails that my eldest son's teacher sends me, that I've given up pointing them out incredulously to my husband!

The one error I see the most on school things is the "myself". Along the lines of "If you have any questions, speak to myself or Mr Smith". It is not rude or impolite to write ME. Speak to ME. Speak to Mr Smith. Not "myself".

I didn't click on this for ages because the title annoyed me!

I'm guilty of using ellipses incorrectly; for me it just means 'this and or that' rather than a list of consecutive options.

I was also told recently I probably am dyslexic, despite getting an A in English lit GCSE many years ago... My spelling has always been bad. I also think the general change in language on the internet affects what is normal. e.g 'for free' never used to be a thing, you just got something free. MN also has an epidemic of 'gotten' and 'mom' on supposedly UK threads.

But 'mom' is widely used in the Midlands - it is a UK thing.

... oh, and 'gotten' dates back to Middle English. We don't use it (much!) in the UK but it's remained in use in North America. So technically it isn't incorrect to use it in the UK, just archaic (although probably more related to watching a lot (or alot?) of American TV/movies.

I think it’s because of the shortened version being used so
Could’ve
Should’ve
Would’ve
Then people mistakenly hear and think it’s of

I didn't have a particularly good education, but read a lot of books as a small child and throughout my life. (No telly, computers, phones etc - I'm old).

I think this is the reason older people generally notice these things.
(Any age person who reads a lot, of course, just that it's more likely that you've read more when that was often the only quiet entertainment available)

Even if you mishear things as a child, you're going to see it written down correctly in every book you read, and the more you read the more it's drummed in.

I think some children are less interested in reading now that there is so much more exciting stuff to take their attention, which results in them being less familiar with the written word.

It's all about conveying the meaning, isn't it?
When I read something like 'I laid on the bed' I want to know WHAT did you lay on the bed?
Somebody mentioned 'are' instead of 'our' upthread.
I remember watching The Weakest Link, and Anne Robinson asked (what sounded like) "How many 'rs' are there in three days?'
The contestant looked blank and then said 'one'.
Anne Robinson actually said 'hours', but in a very RP accent, and was thus misheard.
Not quite the same as our/are, but I've always remembered it and felt bad for the contestant.

'Are' and 'our' sound pretty much the same in my accent (NW). I've always written them correctly though!

Yes yes yes to overuse of 'myself' - drives me mad. Same with using 'I' instead of 'me' ("She came with my wife and I"). I think it's people trying to be correct and sound more formal but it annoys me even more than more honest mistakes like the apostrophes.

Another one I see a lot is 'lead' instead of 'led'.

It seems unfashionable to teach grammar in the same way it seems unfashionable to teach history dates or an overview of history rather than zooming in on specific periods and analysing sources. At university I had to parse sentences into tree diagrams and we all found it incredibly difficult! I'm sure my parents' generation would have found it easier. I can understand the swing towards more freedom in early education and focusing on the ideas rather than seemingly petty or pedantic rules, but surely there's some sort of middle ground.

I'm appalled by no corrections!!! That could easily give kids the idea that getting things wrong is something to be afraid of, which is untrue and an incredibly harmful idea.

@ChipSandwich I think you're right about the reading, but also a PP pointed out that a lot of what younger people read these days is via social media, where SPAG tends to be much more casual (and often incorrect). And we've all seen on these threads over the year how poor SPAG is always excused on social media because somehow it doesn't matter!

Another thing I've noticed recently is the use of "their" instead of "his/hers".

I see it so often (mainly at work) that I'm not sure if it's correct or not. Anyone enlighten me?

Examples:

• your appointment is with Bugger. Their telephone number is 000.
• Debra has arrived for their 1pm appointment.

Thoughts?

Agree @DonkeyHohtay
Also people think it's more polite to always say 'I' instead of me. EG 'He made dinner for John and I'. That's incorrect. 'He made dinner for John and me' because you can't say 'he made dinner for I'
'John and I went for dinner' is fine because you can say 'I went for dinner.' Etc etc.

It seems unfashionable to teach grammar

It's actually much more fashionable to teach grammar now than it was in the 90s, for example. The problem is that teaching something doesn't automatically mean that pupils will retain it!

The problem is that teaching something doesn't automatically mean that pupils will retain it!

This a thousand times over. We really do try to teach it!

Part of the problem is that - as can be seen by some of the responses on this thread - some students just don't believe that there is any value in learning correct grammar and punctuation. They will quite happily learn all sorts of facts and formulas for other subjects but there seems to be a lazy acceptance that once they have got to secondary school, their SPaG is as good as it is going to get and as long as they can more or less communicate what they want to most of the time, it doesn't matter if it's poorly written.

As a subject teacher (not English) we were always told not to correct SPAG and only assess students on their subject knowledge as constantly correcting poor SPAG would demoralise and demotivate them. It is now the opposite in teaching. SPAG expectations are high now. Poor kids spent their whole education being told SPAG didn't matter and now that they are doing their GCSEs it suddenly matters.

I do think it's important for teachers to have high expectations for Spag though.

YANBU at all OP. It drives me mad. People can be lazy when it comes to grammar and as someone said up thread, some people just don't care.

Thank-you is also used as an adjective e.g. I sent thank-you letters.

Another thing I've noticed recently is the use of "their" instead of "his/hers".

I would assume this was because the person speaking didn't want to assume the other person's pronoun of choice.

I find the misuse of 'I' and 'Me' irritating. At school we were taught to omit the other person from the sentence and then the correct word would become obvious, e.g. 'My friend and me went for a walk' would not make sense if you said 'Me went for a walk', therefore 'I' is correct.

I cannot bear to hear people saying 'I was stood', 'I was sat' or 'I was laying' - it sounds so ugly and is just incorrect. I think a lot of it is laziness or a desire not to sound 'posh' - heaven forbid!! I like sounding posh quite honestly!

I wasn't taught English grammar at school. I think we were in some sort of experimental phase where the decided against teaching formal rules. Hence I have no idea about sentence structure or what a clause is etc.

I read a lot and am good with words so most of the time I get it right because I just 'feel' it is right. But it's sheer luck really.

I do however get very frustrated by incorrect use of lose/loose, they're/their/there etc

@madroid
No's?!

I don’t recall having one single lesson on spelling and punctuation, certainly not to the extent my younger children are having today. I had to learn what an adverbial clause was in my own time 30 years ago, without the use of the internet !

Incorrect use of ‘Affect’ and ‘Effect’ irks me, as does the use of ordinal indicators in letters (although I’m aware that’s just my pet hate and not technically incorrect) but I don’t feel the need to randomly correct peoples grammar, so I grumble in my head and move on.

@BIWI I'm from the Midlands and I always spell mum but the pronunciation is mom.
My daughter does not understand there is a difference.

@Bluerussian

That's one I hate too - bored of when it should be bored WITH!!!!!!!
It appears in newspapers too! Yarghhhh....

OP, you have made my day. I do t understand it either. I love a semi-colon too; they make me smile.