Appalling grammar influx

[Schnicklefritz]

NC because I am almost certain that I'm going to receive a bashing.

Has anyone else noticed the influx of threads started by posters with absolutely awful grammar? I don't mean mixing up "your/you're" or "there/their/they're". I mean entire paragraphs without full stops, capitalization, "we wasn't/I weren't", "cuz" instead of "because".

Add in standard abbreviations like "wwyd" and "DH/DC", and it makes the posts incredibly difficult to follow and in some instances, effectively unreadable.

It's only the past two weeks or so that I've noticed the increase in these posts. Is it just me?

Seriously?

This very sensible verb system omits the –s which Standard English has in these forms—it is redundant, after all, communicating no meaning of any kind. One explanation for this streamlined system is that it came about as a result of the ‘invasion’ of Norwich and Colchester in the sixteenth century by the ‘The Strangers’, thousands of Protestant refugees fleeing from religious persecution by the Spanish in the Low Countries. By 1600 these Dutch and French-speaking refugees formed an astonishingly high proportion—about 35%—of the population of Norwich. And of course third-person –s is well known to cause difficulties for foreign learners of English.

Norfolk is also the only place where I've heard "drivved" used as simple past of "to drive".

Then you've educated yourself not to do it.
Good.

@NowZeusHasLainWithLeda Easy now. I didn't say anything bad about the posters using poor grammar. I simply stated that I was struggling to follow their threads.

I understand standard abbreviations, but having them combined with text speak, misspellings, poor grammar, and a lack of punctuation makes posts very difficult to comprehend.

You can do that tactfully - rather than 'I don't know what you're asking' say: "What do you mean when you say 'blah blah de blah blah blah'?

You need to breathe deeply and relax, and I say this as someone who corrects spelling and grammar for a living.

Most of us are typing on our phones, with kids at our elbows, the laundry beeping and 101 pressing things to do. Some people are in such stressful situations (abusive relationships, for instance) that they can hardly type.

It's true the incoherent posts are frustrating... but they must be doubly so for the OP, as she looks at what she's written and realises no one understands what she meant.

'This is East Anglian dialect. Away with your judgey twaddle'

Not just in East Anglia. People talk that way where I live too. But only some people. I always corrected my children.

@musixa Nobody owes the OP an answer. If the post isn't easy to understand, people are far less likely to spend time deciphering meaning behind seemingly pointless ramblings.

I feel that tone looks snarky like when people say ' what did she say when you confronted her' knowing full well the OP didn't. It's just having a pop in a passive aggressive way.

When my friend was an English teacher in a school in Somerset she had a TA working with her class who always used to say "I weren't/we wasn't" etc as well as things like "where's 'e to?" (meaning "where is he?")

Friend (also born and brought up in Somerset) asked her (in private) not to, because the students needed to hear the correct usage, in English lessons I even if nowhere else. The TA became very indignent saying that she used Somerset dialect and shouldn't be expected to change the way she spoke.

Personally I don't care how people write on Mumsnet, though sometimes I have to read things a couple of times to work out what they mean.

What worries me is that I think people see poor written grammar/punctuation etc on social media, assume it is correct, and copy it. When I was young there was a lot of poorly spoken English, but anything written was pretty much guaranteed to be correct (with the exception of apostrophes in shops)!

I read a fairly short thread yesterday and it included the "words":

Incase
Infront
Aswell
Loosing
Busses

Plus probably several others I've forgotten.

I am with you but I actually think that it's one or two posters. These posts are quite often controversial as well... So...

Of course nobody is obliged to respond to any post but some people might want to, particularly if the OP seems to be desperate.

With some posters, I assume, it’s pure habit. I’m a teacher of over 20 years and I often read on local forums posts containing zero punctuation etc. from ex-students who I KNOW can write perfectly in a classroom situation.

I doubt people will suddenly start spelling words incorrectly (indignant, for example) or inserting random letters into sentences (I, for example) just because some random on the internet did.

I don't know if it's possible to type posts in Word then cut and paste. Maybe that would help people with dyslexia or poor education?

Op. If you were born and bred in East Anglia, why would you type capitalisation with a Z?

If it were that simple, I'd imagine education and neurological experts might already have suggested it.

And (although, yes, my students with dyslexia are encouraged to use their computers to do written work, for this very reason) it doesn't change the fact that Mumsnet is NOT an English lesson. The last thing on people's minds is going to be whether their SpaG is correct. Unless, of course, they fear judgement from other superior beings.

She's probably got American autocorrect on her phone. Mine defaults to American English and it annoys the fuck out of me.

I've never heard 'drivved' either.

Some people may speak with an accent in East Anglia (I live here, I’m originally a Londoner but my two children are born and bred EAs) but it’s still incorrect not to use standard English when you write things. I mean I’m not perfect by any means but there’s no way I would ever write “I drivved” 😳 or any of the other examples given upthread. I wouldn’t be so rude as to pull someone up on it in an unrelated thread (whereas obviously here it’s the subject) but it’s still wrong. I think standards have really slipped. I know I sound ancient 🙈😆

@Stepupandupagain I said I'm not from the UK. Another poster was from East Anglia, I think.

😂😂😂

I agree. I have just come away from another thread as I couldn't make head nor tail of it.

I agree, but I still give up on the huge, badly punctuated walls of text.

I realise that English is not the first language of many mumsnetters, and make allowances for that. Also, too much wine consumed, typos (I'm guilty of that far too often), local dialect etc can make for some "interesting" posts.

However, the two errors that really grate on me are "should of/could of" and getting lend and borrow mixed up.

@Schnicklefritz @Gtsr443 it's not East Anglian dialect.