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?

I remember someone on a selling page advertising a 'King size madrass'

I thought it was hilarious to be honest

@NewtoHolland

Surely we all know people who have learning differences?

Exactly. My 38 old year old son has a SLD and cannot reliably spell his own name. I would be thrilled beyond belief if he wrote 'ball ball' instead of 'bauble'.

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 remember in primary school p5/6ish my teacher would read to the whole class from goodnight mister Tom every afternoon. Probably a chapter a day. I hated primary school but that was one of my favourite things. I asked my mum one evening if she would read to me at bedtime and she did it once but it never happened again. She didn’t enjoy doing it and I suppose was tired herself. I could read to myself so I guess she didn’t see why I needed her to read to me. Luckily I had loads of books at home. There will be countless homes where children don’t have any books and no one to read to them or hear them read and teachers don’t have time to do it in class.

So much of literacy fluency is being read to at home as a child. If that doesn't happen you start school with a much smaller vocabulary, and the gap continues to widen if you don't get into the reading habit.

That's why we need libraries, and really a national programme to encourage reading to babies and small children. When I had DS new parents were all given a couple of books by a reading charity, and encouraged to join a library. Apparently the numbers of parents reading to babies and children has dropped, which is so sad.

It does make me realise that for some people words are just sounds, with no inherent meaning.

I think you’re right. This also explains modern baby names!

My favourite recently seen was rest bite instead of respite. It's how it is said and I suppose if you never see the word written down its perfectly understandable really. I'm sure I'm guilty of doing this from time to time! My speciality is mishearing the lyrics of songs and singing very strange things instead. I have a notebook of song lyrics I wrote down whilst listening to casettes as a child which makes for an amusing read!

I genuinely don’t know. Although I did meet someone who constantly typed ‘he’s’ on Facebook and when I spoke to him his did genuinely sound like ‘he’s’ so I guess it’s a dialect thing.

I think what it really comes down to is an inability to put yourself in other people's shoes or understand that other people's brains and life experiences aren't the same as yours. How many people with great spelling and grammar can claim that they achieved that entirely through deliberate, sustained effort on their part?

In spite of what many MNers choose to believe, I can assure you, having taught grammar and spelling skills to people aged 4 to 76 from a very wide variety of backgrounds indeed, that laziness is not the main cause of poor grammar and spelling.

Also some people don't give a shit. They just don't care about it being 'correct'.

*Mixing up 'why' and 'while' is one that I just don't understand. I can't see why you wouldn't have spotted that at some point in your life, even on someone else's social media if you don't read, and thought to yourself 'hang on...'

I know a family with three grown up girls and their mother who all make that same mistake consistently. 'Babysitting Georgia why her mummy is at work'. No

Sorry but...isn't it actually 'whilst'?

Alwaysbehind, my DC's school have the children bring in a novel they want to read during reading time. If the PP's school is the same, presumably their family can't afford more books or don't support reading if they can afford.

I can understand 'keeping a tight reign'/'reign it in' because to reign means to have power/control, so it does sort of make sense.

I also can't join in the 'Chester draws' hilarity. If there's a piece of furniture called an 'ottoman' (for instance), why ever shouldn't there be one called 'Chester draw(er)s'? People don't have (non-drawer) 'chests' as furniture these days, really, so wouldn't necessarily pick it up that way.

A lot of the sneering does smack terribly of putting the plebs in their place, tbh.

I was in primary school in the 60s and grammar was taught.
We had to parse sent sentences which the teacher wrote on the board, and identify definite article, indefinite article, verb, noun, adverb, adjective and so on and on and on until it became second nature.

Misspelled words in homework was also jumped on and corrected.

Looking back it does seem quite strict, but also provided a great framework, especially when I went to high school and started learning French, German and Latin. The grammar wasn't a complete mystery.

Perhaps none of it matters any more, as people seem more and more relaxed about it, unless to have a basis for an interesting discussion on here.

The only time I would ever dream of correcting anyone is when I'm proofreading something they've written.

@lazylinguist

I think what it really comes down to is an inability to put yourself in other people's shoes or understand that other people's brains and life experiences aren't the same as yours. How many people with great spelling and grammar can claim that they achieved that entirely through deliberate, sustained effort on their part?

In spite of what many MNers choose to believe, I can assure you, having taught grammar and spelling skills to people aged 4 to 76 from a very wide variety of backgrounds indeed, that laziness is not the main cause of poor grammar and spelling.

It's a lost cause, lazylinguist! I'm a proofreader by trade, and this kind of thread just makes me roll my eyes. But people love them!

My DH is dyslexic and I enjoy his "original" spellings. He even spells my name wrong (that is more of a joke on himself though).

@lazylinguist

I think what it really comes down to is an inability to put yourself in other people's shoes or understand that other people's brains and life experiences aren't the same as yours. How many people with great spelling and grammar can claim that they achieved that entirely through deliberate, sustained effort on their part?

In spite of what many MNers choose to believe, I can assure you, having taught grammar and spelling skills to people aged 4 to 76 from a very wide variety of backgrounds indeed, that laziness is not the main cause of poor grammar and spelling.

I agree. I always found SPAG a piece of piss, but struggle with mental arithmetic; sadly for me maths doesn't tolerate approximation in the same way.

It does make me realise that for some people words are just sounds, with no inherent meaning.

That's one of the sillier remarks I've read tbh. It would be more accurate to say that for people with poor Spag, words only represent meaning (rather than patterns, etymology etc). If words didn't have meaning for them, they literally wouldn't be able to understand them or have a conversation.

Also, arguably, words do not have inherent meaning. Their meaning depends on what you have learned that they mean. If you'd been brought up believing a hedgehog was called a potato, then that's what potato would mean to you.

@SimplySusanna

*Mixing up 'why' and 'while' is one that I just don't understand. I can't see why you wouldn't have spotted that at some point in your life, even on someone else's social media if you don't read, and thought to yourself 'hang on...'

I know a family with three grown up girls and their mother who all make that same mistake consistently. 'Babysitting Georgia why her mummy is at work'. No

Sorry but...isn't it actually 'whilst'?

No.

www.grammar.com/while_vs_whilst#:~:text=While%20is%20more%20commonly%20used,as%20a%20conjunction%20or%20adverb.

We had to parse sent sentences which the teacher wrote on the board, and identify definite article, indefinite article, verb, noun, adverb, adjective and so on and on and on until it became second nature.

I went to school in the 90’s/00’s and from that list I only know for sure what what verb, and noun mean. adverb and adjective- I would guess at and have to look up to remind myself what they mean. I’ve never heard of “parse sent”. I’ve heard of definite article and indefinite article but I’ve no idea what they are.

I write for a living and I cannot ever spell definitely or relevant right (just checked them before writing them now, as I always do). I just have a block on those words!

It's a lost cause, lazylinguist! I'm a proofreader by trade, and this kind of thread just makes me roll my eyes. But people love them!

Phew - at least somebody gets it. Of course most people who clutch their pearls at things like 'could of' couldn't actually give a proper grammatical explanation of why it's wrong. They just know it's wrong because they were brought up to speak naicely, unlike those frightful ignorant people who just sit around and watch telly all day.

@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?

Those would be the same people who just can't "bare" to write "bear". MN is full of them.

@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.

Combs have 'teeth'. A fine tooth comb has fine teeth. Think nit comb.

Nobody would choose to have poor language skills.

I think there is a point when the person actually chooses it. By not choosing to improve it. Yes, people may have had low quality education, but as an adult you can make the decision to work on it a bit. We have all information of the world at our fingertips. We have million of educational apps and websites. Access to free books online. It doesn't need to lead to absolutely perfect spag, obviously as I don't think anyone has perfect SPAG, but it can lead to something better than what the person has.

I still don't get "should of". It's everywhere. But majority of people write the correct form. How isn't it making someone go and think "Hold on, why is everyone writing 'have' and not 'of'?".