To wonder how people make it to adulthood without knowing

[Staffy1]

That a Christmas tree decoration is called a "bauble", not "ball ball"? Or how they make it through junior school without knowing the difference between "his" and "he's"? What happens in schools these days and don't people ever read anything?

And they ‘brought’ something at the shop, instead of ‘bought’

That one really annoys me!

*SirGawain
This thread puts me in mind of those who think punctuation is unneccessary. Try this example:
"Lets eat Grandma"; instead of "Let's eat, Grandma".

The use of correct spacing and capitalisation is also important. For example:

There's a maypole dancer.

Theresa May, pole dancer.*

 @ViciousJackdaw

@chuffedasbuttons

Facepalm. iPhones are AMERICAN inventions and their autocorrect grammar is appalling. Focused is similar to using a z instead of s in words such as visualisation

Americans spell it differently. Our technology is entrenched with Americanisms making it all the more difficult for the less educated to know what 'proper' English ought to be.

Please do continue with your somewhat unkind and unnecessary policing. I'm sure it brings you joy.

You don't have to use predictive text/ autocorrect. It's an option that can be switched off.

On a thread here the other day - 'a mind field'.

Funniest one I saw was a neighbour in the WhatsApp group bring very concerned about the theft of Catholitic Converters.

@chuffedasbuttons

Facepalm. iPhones are AMERICAN inventions and their autocorrect grammar is appalling. Focused is similar to using a z instead of s in words such as visualisation

Americans spell it differently. Our technology is entrenched with Americanisms making it all the more difficult for the less educated to know what 'proper' English ought to be.

Please do continue with your somewhat unkind and unnecessary policing. I'm sure it brings you joy.

But iPhone autocorrect does not autocorrect “commas” to “comma’s” so facepalm right back atcha. I had to override it to write “comma’s” just now.

Are you saying you corrected “focused” to “focussed”? Only it’s really unclear what you meant by I've had to respell focus from focussed.
Visualize is listed in the Cambridge online (British) English dictionary as an American variant. However, “focussed” and “focused” are listed in the same dictionary as being acceptable alternative spellings in British English. So not a direct comparison.

Please do continue with your somewhat unkind and unnecessary policing. I'm sure it brings you joy.

You can’t crow about correcting people in a school using your journalistic training and expect to get away with making mistakes!

Americans spell it differently. Our technology is entrenched with Americanisms making it all the more difficult for the less educated to know what 'proper' English ought to be

I just set my technology (Apple, Android and Windows) to use British English. It isn't hard.

I had an American colleague get quite upset that I had a load of spelling errors in some meeting minutes I sent out and I should have checked it more carefully. Fortunately, another US colleague pointed out I am British and it was absolutely fine in British English, which saved me from deciding how to respond, because I knew "oh do fuck off," wasn't acceptable, however I spelled it. (There's no rule we have to use American English, else she'd have had a point.)

@EBearhug

I had an American colleague get quite upset that I had a load of spelling errors in some meeting minutes I sent out and I should have checked it more carefully. Fortunately, another US colleague pointed out I am British and it was absolutely fine in British English, which saved me from deciding how to respond, because I knew "oh do fuck off," wasn't acceptable, however I spelled it. (There's no rule we have to use American English, else she'd have had a point.)

Have you and your American colleagues experienced the differing use of the expression to “table” an agenda item @EBearhug? That is ripe for all sorts of confusion.

In case you don’t know, we say “table” an item to mean discuss it in the meeting. They say “table” where we would say “shelve”, in other words leave it to the side for now.
I always wonder what piece of furniture they are meeting around if their table is off at the side somewhere...

So “let’s table that”. “Great, I’ll start, my thoughts are x y and z”
Cue bewildered expressions from Americans who thought they were moving on to the next item.

My DD refers to furloughed as furlonged or sometimes firloined like Sirloin. I always say pallbied instead of piedball.

@microscopicbastard

What bugs me is "fine toothcomb" Do people really clean their teeth with a comb?

I think it is true that people just rhyme off the sayings and do not really think about the true meaning.

Fine tooth comb is correct though?

As in "he went through it with a fine tooth comb".

The prongs on a comb are called teeth, it's not a comb for your teeth.

What did you think it was?

dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fine-tooth-comb

No we haven't had tabled in any form. It's usually a question - " Is there anything else to go on the agenda?" And then comments like, "We need to deal with that off-line/separately/in another meeting." We don't have too much weird jargon - well, we do, but most of it is technical, rather than general business.

I foresee I will now be proved wrong in the rest of this week's meetings...

@MiniMum97 yes, but it’s fine-tooth comb (a comb with fine teeth) not fine toothcomb (a lovely example of a comb used on teeth).

@CorianderQueen

Lack of parental correction - either the parent thinks the same or doesn't care enough to correct (there are a lot of parents who don't give that much of a shit about their kids development).

Lack of reading - never seeing it written down they'll assume ball ball is correct as nobody points it out when they speak as it sounds so similar.

Why would they Google it if they don't know they're wrong?

I once knew someone who didn't read with their pre school age child or give him any books as he will "get enough of that when he's at school".

I tried to get across that my son loved it when I read to him and that it wasn't like a enforced or restricted classroom session but I don't think she was convinced.

I thought it was incredibly sad.

@NancyPickford

In a Christmas market once I saw a handwritten sign on a stall advertising 'Christma's cards'. I did a good imitation of a stunned goldfish and then forced myself to walk on.

What was the thought process there do you wonder?

I find it harder not to be aghast at the signs. It's not a quick post on Mumsnet. They've taken the time to prepare something to go up on display. Probably took them a while or they've even paid £££ for someone to produce it.

Would you not just get a second pair if reliance eyes on it first?!

Kingsley Amis would disagree — I have a copy of his The King's English knocking about somewhere, where he argues very strongly that you could buy tooth-combs in a variety of finenesses. It doesn't seem right to me though, so I only use it when speaking!

Oh I’m sure that Christma’s was just American autocorrect @MiniMum97

however I spelled it

An American once picked me up for spelling spelled the British way i.e. spelt. He'd never heard of the word.

@Summerstorms
You can't google something if you don't know you know it though. I hate this kind of judgemental dickish snobbery

This - you have to know you don't know it before you can google, I mean how can you know to google something if you've never heard of it before?!

I would say (as somebody who was taught grammar in English and several other languages, classical and modern, and has a fairly RP accent, so should have a head start!) that if you have a blind spot it can be really difficult to correct.

I do know that the past tense of squeeze is not 'squoze', but it sounds right to me. I'll even use 'squozen' as the past participle if I'm not thinking. After nearly thirty years of using it, it's difficult to change, especially when it's a word you don't use that often.

Then there are some things that you can get wrong because you've never really thought about it — for example, "I go, I went, I have/had gone" is fine in theory, but ask people to put it in a sentence and depending on what they use as their example, you'll often get "I have/had been", because we say "I have been to Spain" far more often than "I have gone to Spain".

~cringes slightly~ OK, I can be a bit of "the grammer police" myself. Comes from having a grandmother who actually "spoke English" rather than "talking American," and who drilled "grammar, punctuation, enunciation" into me from a very young age, along with, "If you want people to respect what you are saying, SAY IT PROPERLY!" I also have a big bug about capital letters! It isn't that hard to capitalize properly, and it is important! I mean, capital letters are the difference between "helping your Uncle Jack off a horse" and "helping your uncle jack off a horse."

If I ruled the world I would get rid of possessive apostrophes and only retain apostrophes of mission. The meaning is almost always clear from the context anyway. At a stroke this would remove a load of stress from people who struggle with when an apostrophe is needed, and remove the risk of them appearing uneducated and being judged.

@microscopicbastard

What bugs me is "fine toothcomb" Do people really clean their teeth with a comb?

I think it is true that people just rhyme off the sayings and do not really think about the true meaning.

It is toothcomb! That's a word?!