To be horrified by the poor spelling and grammar on social media?

[PuzzledObserver]

In the past 24 hours, I have tutted at the following gems across a range of social media, including MN:-

• per say (per se)
• should of (should have)
• to all intense purposes (to all intents and purposes)
• that player is literally on fire (I do hope she isn’t)

Granted that autocorrect sometimes gets it wrong, not all posters are native speakers of English and there are regional variations.... but AIBU to hope that anyone who has completed their education in the UK can actually write in correct English?

Yes. Education doesn’t always work, for lots of reasons.

Yes you are been unreasonable, they maybe dyslexic.

Its social media, not an English lesson.

YANBU but you will probably get flamed on here for any such suggestion, because it’s elitist/disablist/unfair etc. to expect people to write proper English.

Or they may not be arsed.

I’m currently on opiate pain relief and have a lot of time on my hands so am online far more than i normally would be.

My spelling and grammar have been atrocious!

I wish people were so tolerant of my approximate arithmetic skills as they are of shit English - or I wish I’d been worse at English but better at Maths.

I'm afraid that the lexicographers reflect usage, so the definitions of 'literally' are now:

1 in a literal manner or sense; exactly."the driver took it literally when asked to go straight over the roundabout"

2 used for emphasis while not being literally true.
"I was literally blown away by the response I got"

YABU to start the 8,678, 876th thread on this subject 😏

I don’t really know what the OP wants anyway. If someone doesn’t know something, they don’t know it. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Maybe it’s their fault that they never learnt it, and maybe it isn’t. What does anyone gain by slagging them off?

I actually think a lot of people will eventually become better written communicators due to social media. People actually communicate in the written word now more than we ever have, which brings up so many more errors, and so much more visibly than in the past.

I know I have learned quite a lot of grammatical rules and spelling I'd previously got wrong, since the advent of the internet.

I wish people were so tolerant of my approximate arithmetic skills as they are of shit English - or I wish I’d been worse at English but better at Maths.

Poor mathematics can have serious consequences.

Language can too, but if it lacks comprehensibility rather than accuracy. Writing can be ungrammatical but accurately convey meaning; conversely it can have impeccable spelling and grammar yet the meaning may be obscure.

On my local facebook group the people who write like that are the same ones who slag off the schools treatment of their little cherub and also complain they cannot get a decent job.

I think you're being unreasonable for using a 4 dot ellipsis. That's not grammatically correct...

I believe literacy levels have hardly changed since the mid 20th century. It's just a hell of a lot more visible now when someone makes errors.

Its social media. Who gives a fuck?

I never check for typos or errors and its not usually anything i concentrate on too much whilst typing. Ive written the wrong there /theyre/their before on stuff because i was also watching tv or something but i know their correct usage.

If good spag is your best quality and you use it to look down on people then you have bigger problems than them

Writing can be ungrammatical but accurately convey meaning; conversely it can have impeccable spelling and grammar yet the meaning may be obscure.

We have a senior member of staff who cannot comprehend a sentence by any way other than its grammar. He will interpret meaning entirely literally from the grammar, when it's plain to anyone with an ounce of common sense that the meaning is different.

Equally, he will rely upon grammar to convey meaning in his speech and writing. Rule number one of communication - if you rely upon grammar to convey your meaning, you haven't conveyed your meaning adequately.

He's one of the poorest communicators I know.

YANBU.

I was at school when MSN Messenger was a thing. We all used to communicate through short-hand, abbreviations and words written in dialect but we knew that wasn't the correct way to write.

Nowadays the boundaries of the digital and the real are blurred and this is affecting how language is used in the 'real world' and more formal areas. I teach at a top British university where students need straight A*s to get in. The standard of written English is absolutely shocking and is decreasing every year. This year a student wrote "This essay is gonna describe the effects of...." in her assessment.

"Should of" is a simple misunderstanding of "should've". Given the pronunciation of "should've" I really don't see why MNers people get so bloody superior about it.

Language evolves, get over it.

SM has different rules to formal communications though.
Typos and mistakes like their/there/they’re are more tolerated because of the speed of communication.
It’s ok as long as the gist of what you are saying is understandable.
Fwiw my MN posts often have grammar and spelling mistakes because of autocorrect and just a lack of proof reading. That doesn’t mean that my formal communications at work suffer from the same issues.

First year university students also seem to be staging some kind of mass protest against commas and capital letters.

Perhaps, only literate, articulate people, with spellcheckers, should use social media?
Or, perhaps it is reasonable for them to assume that their social media is an ephemeral platform, and that their posts are going to be read by only a few, close friends so that, therefore, it is unnecessary for them to do a SPAG check before they post?
Or maybe they have fat fingers and can't be arsed checking before hitting send
As long as you can understand what they mean, their post has had the desired effect and you can put your judgey pants back in the drawer.
Unless you are trying to prove how much cleverer you are.
If they were writing an essay or report for school/college/work you would have a valid point. If they are posting on their own social media pages, butt out

@DirtyDennis

First year university students are revolting. . .

@mbosnz You're absolutely correct in both senses of the word

This year a student wrote "This essay is gonna describe the effects of...." in her assessment

Surely that's poor English teaching at secondary school, then. And surely that wouldn't have been picked up in A-Level essay marking at some point? I was at school in the 80s and 90s, when they barely could be bothered to teach us what a noun was, but we were at least taught the difference between informal speech and formal writing.

And at primary school now grammar is absolutely hammered home, all the time.

Some of the apparent mistakes could be unnoticed overzealous autocorrect of course. This particularly affects non-English phrases, IME. I just tried 'per se' and it 'corrected' to 'per we'.

Let's see...

Raisin d'être ...yup. I typed 'raison', I thought it might do that!

Fair accomplishment ... I typed 'fait accompli', that's what autocorrect did to it.

I think people using different language settings can likewise get their English 'corrected'; a French bloke at work sometimes used to produce very funny mangled emails - I think he's turned off autocorrect now, alas.

@DirtyDennis

LOL, it was my third form teacher's favourite little joke about the turd formers. . . [grins]

And he wasn't wrong!