To offer some grammar tips to anyone who might want them?

[UnaCorda]

I sincerely hope this doesn't come across as either rude or patronising - it genuinely isn't meant to. It's also not intended as a pedants' thread.

I just thought it might be useful to list a few common mistakes, with an explanation, so that anyone who isn't very confident with their written English might be able to correct errors which, for example, could perhaps count against them in a job application or when used in a professional context.

I'll start with three:

1. "Your" shows that what you're referring to (probably a person or object) belongs to whoever "you" is in the sentence; for example, "Your brother showed me your book". If you mean "you are" you need to write "you're".

2. "Non" is not a word on its own - it is negating something, such as in "non-stick" or "non-committal". ("None-stick" would be incorrect, as would "non of them".) "None" means there aren't any. "How many cakes are left?" "Sorry - none." Or, "How many of the children finished the test?" "None of them."

3. "Alot" is not a word and the same goes for "abit", "infront", "incase" and "inbetween". Instead use "a lot", etc., just like "a little".

Hope I haven't made any mistakes myself...

I say 'Wheetabix' not 'Weetabix'

Yup. Same reason why Scottish people never get puns involving Wales and whales- the words sound completely different to us!

Or why a lot of children's rhyming books don't make sense - scarf does not rhyme with giraffe, Julia Donaldson!

@SockYarn

Yup. Same reason why Scottish people never get puns involving Wales and whales- the words sound completely different to us!

Or why a lot of children's rhyming books don't make sense - scarf does not rhyme with giraffe, Julia Donaldson!

Ha ha good point! I sometimes read books to my son in my Dick Van Dyke English voice so that the rhymes will work but it horrifies him .

Hairy Maclary books are good though- New Zealand but the rhymes tend to work in Scottish too.

@SockYarn

Yup. Same reason why Scottish people never get puns involving Wales and whales- the words sound completely different to us!

Or why a lot of children's rhyming books don't make sense - scarf does not rhyme with giraffe, Julia Donaldson!

Interestingly though, Julia Donaldson has lived most of her life in Scotland and I think her husband, for whom she wrote a lot of lyrics in the early days, is Scottish.

I clicked on this thread half asleep, thinking it was about tips to get into Grammar Schools. Think I'll tiptoe back out again, before I make any spelling mistakes

Unless I'm correcting my own children's homework, I stay well away from correcting other people's grammar and spelling g these days. Last time I make a lighthearted, jovial comment about what I assumed had been a funny typo, I had the person get very upset as they were dyslexic and horribly aware of their struggles to spell. I felt like such a twat, my cheeks still flush with shame when I remember it ten years later

derxa interesting that you pronounce it differently but I was merely making a comment, no need to be nippy about it, you came across as so irritated.

I agree with rhyming in many books not aligning with many Scots' pronunciation. I tend to do a variety of accents for character voices in books to make it even better!

Scan better, not even better- bloody predictive!

@Ces6

I think "needs cooking" is fine!

To me that is colloquial or dialect and has no place on a food packet. (The PP said it was on a packet of M&S kebabs).

In that context I’d suggest that “Must be cooked” would be the right expression.

@theveryhungrybutterfly

Ps I get annoyed by St Thomas's Hospital for this very reason. They use "St Thomas' Hospital" because it looks neater. It's wrong, but I do think it has become acceptable.

My DS has a name that end in “us” (think Atticus). When we write we would say “Is Atticus’ school report ready yet?” but when we say it we’d say “the teacher said that Attucusses report isn’t ready yet”. In other words, I pronounce “Atticus’ “ as “Atticusses”, so the omission of the extra ‘s is just a stylistic thing. NB I wouldn’t consider Atticus’s to be wrong, I just naturally prefer to write Atticus’.

Hadn’t really thought about it before!

omission of the extra “s”, not ‘s.

@CheetasOnFajitas

OP I’m really intrigued that you chose “non” when used to mean “none” as an example of a common mistake. I don’t think I have ever seen that.

You're the second person to say this! I've seen it quite a lot, but only on Mumsnet.

@CheetasOnFajitas

Depending on how young they were, I would guess this was just the process of language development/acquisition. They picked out the most important words. If you think about how you would say, "I'm going to the shop," the words that would get the least emphasis would be "to" and "the" - they almost get lost in the rest of the sentence of you're speaking quickly.

@UnaCorda you gave the above answer to a poster who asked how to explain that “going to the shops” not “going shops” was correct. I don’t know where you live but where I live in London, and throughout the SE, this mistake/colloquial manner of speaking is very very common amongst adults. I suspect that the poster’s children were imitating that. So my son’s nursery keyworker will say “do you need to go toilet?” or “we’re going park today”. Teenagers will say “we went cinema last night”. The “going” is often pronounced kind of “gaahn”.
I agree that some children not exposed to adults speaking this way will make the same mistake for exactly the reason that you describe, as part of the process of language acquisition, but it’s definitely not limited to children.

I agree it's not limited to children, but the OP, if I remember correctly was asking why her children (who, I think, were 4 and 6) did this.

I hear a lot of teenagers saying, "I go [name of school]" so I'm aware it's quite common.

'Needs cooking' is pretty standard English in all the areas of England I've lived in. In any case, it's absolutely normal for modern food packaging to have a pretty chatty, colloquial style, especially on more fun, snacky type foods or trendy brands. Perhaps this isn't what some people expect from M&S though.

Well you didn’t mention in your reply that you were aware that adults used it.

@lazylinguist

'Needs cooking' is pretty standard English in all the areas of England I've lived in. In any case, it's absolutely normal for modern food packaging to have a pretty chatty, colloquial style, especially on more fun, snacky type foods or trendy brands. Perhaps this isn't what some people expect from M&S though.

Yeah, but M&S is also in Scotland, Wales and N Ireland too don’t forget!

And you’re right- I expect better of them compared to Asda or Morrison’s. (Or is it Morrisons?)

The thing that sets my teeth on edge of late is the misuse of verbs. Lots of people are Karchering the patio/decking on facebook, I think the "verb" to Hinch is responsible for this.

Also why is St Thomas' wrong? It is fine to omit the final s?

@bluebadgehelp101

The thing that sets my teeth on edge of late is the misuse of verbs. Lots of people are Karchering the patio/decking on facebook, I think the "verb" to Hinch is responsible for this.

My husband uses a horrible expression at work - “I chatted Steve to ask him about the project”. “Just let me chat Sarah to see if she’s around”. Like many people during lockdown, I only became aware of this when we started working in the same house all day.

He is normally beautifully spoken but there is a reason for this- his company has an instant messaging function called “Chat” so he’s using it to distinguish between emailing Steve and contacting him via the chat function. (It probably should be written as “I Chatted Steve”. ) I can see that there isn’t really another possible shorthand equivalent to express this and lo and behold my employer has just introduced a similar function so no doubt I will be merrily talking about “Chatting” my colleagues soon too.

@bluebadgehelp101 do you object to “Hoovering” too?

Or googling, regardless of which type of search engine you use. Nowadays I'm actually DuckDuckGoing.

The 'chat' thing I suppose you mind because it's a normal word being used for communication by a specific medium, whereas 'Skyping' now seems quite normal and unobjectionable. And latterly Zooming, of course.

I think that’s probably right @ErrolTheDragon, and to be honest I am fine with “chatting”(“Chatting”) as a transitive verb now I understand the context.

Like everyone else I have enthusiastically adopted “Zooming” in that way too and I am interested to see how it will work now that we have been given Teams to use instead because people don’t say “I’ll Teams you”, do they? Maybe we’ll keep saying “Zoom” as a generic expression and we’ll be like all those people who do the hoovering with their Dysons. (Guilty!)

The thing that sets my teeth on edge of late is the misuse of verbs. Lots of people are Karchering the patio/decking on facebook, I think the "verb" to Hinch is responsible for this.

I doubt it - using nouns as verbs in this way has probably been going on for centuries. In some cases I wonder which came first, the noun or the verb, but with something like 'powder your nose' or 'mop the floor' I'm betting it was the noun. It's a fairly logical progression to do it with other things, including brands of appliance or tool.

I think that poster is objecting to the increasing adoption of proper nouns as verbs.

Learned and learnt are just alternatives; both are correct so it doesn’t matter which you use.

If you are writing for a broader audience, I would recommend the "ed" form. For example, the "t" form is very rarely used in the US.

Ex English teacher and grammar specialist here... in my professional opinion I’d say keep your grammar tips to yourself.

Mumsnet is not a classroom and you are not here to teach anyone.