To be so irritated by poor spelling and vocabulary?

[Positivevibesonlyplease]

OK, it could be weeks of lockdown having finally got to me, but when I just read two posts with the phrases, ‘couldn’t get passed,’ (meaning ‘past’) and ‘by her own omission,’ (meaning ‘admission’), I felt compelled to start an AIBU. It’s bad enough reading the FB ‘Your doing great’ and ‘I love you’re new dog’ posts. Oh, ‘their’ much worse at spelling on FB...etc. Yes, in these turbulent times, I know I shouldn’t be wasting my energies on such crap, but sometimes focusing on trivia keeps us sane. So, AIBU? Anyone else as irritated as I am?

😄 at comma splice. We are keeping a tally smuggies so watch what you post!

Jaysus, it’s feckin’ unacceptable. If I was a teacher in the past 30 years I’d be horrified that I’d allowed these people to leave school with no basics in the English language. The nuns had us eating and sleeping good grammar and spelling.

I’m on book 8 of a series of books downloaded from Amazon. The grammatical errors are exploding my brain but the storyline has me hooked.

This is the last book so after this my feedback will be offered.

Also, the few communications we’ve had from schools (two DS, different schools) have regularly contained their/there/they’re errors. Holy moly it’s so frustrating!

English is full of illogical, tricky spellings; lots of people were not drilled consistently in them as children so why would they, as, adults, develop skills they never acquired in childhood and possibly don't need in order to function?
If you can understand what someone means, and it's just communication on social media or in a text, I'm fine with it.
There never has and probably never will be a time when everyone can spell accurately. Irritation with mis-spelled homophones and abbreviations feels a bit petty.

This winds me up too OP. But I've learnt from experience not to comment on it on Mumsnet. The one time I did,about 2 years ago,about a post that had no paragraphs and barely any full stops or commas,I was shot down in flames! But honestly,it was practically impossible to read. The thing that gets me though is that since then,I have frequently seen posters comment on poor spelling and grammar,but nothing is said to them!

I find it pretty easy to read past grammar and spelling errors. What I find much more jarring are posts written by people who for some reason haven’t learned that you press the space key after a comma when typing, as above. Your phone/tablet/computer even creates a bright read dotted line to make you aware of this. Maybe think on that before being so over-critical of others.

When I see poor grammar or punctuation... it's a knee jerk reaction and I'm not sure why.

I'm the same; it's almost visceral. I tend to parse as I read, and if the grammar is wrong it jars horribly.

I think a lot of people don't read so consequently write as they hear which, particularly with English and all its many homonyms, doesn't work a lot of the time.

Using a comma splice is an error.

Not always. It's a stylistic choice dictated by fashion. Current fashion says it's a wee bit shit but Jane Austin happily did it.

It's rather like splitting infinitives, if I want to wilfully split an infinitive I bloody well will. There's nothing WRONG with it.

I'm surprised a lot of you haven't petitioned Justine to change the name to Mums'net.

Regarding the comma splice:

Yes, I am aware it can be a stylistic choice - but it is much more common to see it used in error because the user is not able to write in proper sentences.

TheSandman

Using a comma splice is an error.

Not always. It's a stylistic choice dictated by fashion. Current fashion says it's a wee bit shit but Jane Austin happily did it.

Who is this Jane Austin person?

Who is this Jane Austin person?

Jane Austin Powers, International woman of Mystery and well known typing error.

Not to be confused with Steve Austen the bionic author of such classics as Cliffhanger Abbey and Pride and Extreme Prejudice.

None of these things irritate me, but I judge, oh how I judge!

(And if I start to encounter mistakes in a post on here which make the thing more difficult to understand, I stop reading and skip to the next. Life is too short to be wasting my time on your laziness )

@Pinkblueberry Good one.