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?

I'd agree with this. My partner is from Yorkshire, and the "I weren't" thing is very common in speech, not so common written down but it's definitely still there.

"I weren't happy about the weather"
"He weren't doing what he were told"

👏👏👏

I wonder if the incorrect use of “we was” , “was you there”, etc in East Anglia and Hertfordshire is not indigenous local dialect, but due to the large influx of Cockneys migrating out of London to those areas?
Growing up in London (I now live in Perthshire, so can’t speak for current usage) the majority of native Londoners seemed to use these incorrect forms.

It's the increase in tech too. I work in tech design, and the good graphic design relies on semiotics - colours, conventions, movement, location - WAY more than text. It takes so much less effort to read a page these days. People don't get the practice.

I do find the "informal setting" argument to be bollocks. I've received plenty of similarly poor emails at work. This is my normal writing style, and that of my friends (except, ironically, the journalist).

Um, what else would you type with? Or do you deploy the "bashing tits on the keyboard" technique à la whoever it was on that infamous thread ages ago?

I had to hide the thread where the OP kept writing "infront" because I became unreasonably narked by it.

Quite early on, somebody corrected the error, and somebody else told them they were being a cunt, and the OP continued to write "infront".

I can understand a lot of written errors - I can't understand how anyone thinks that "infront" is a word, though.

I agree. It’s embarrassing that people don’t know any better.

It annoys me more when people correct spelling mistakes on social media when it's obvious what the person was saying anyway.

Why should the general public be concerned about spelling and grammar when journalists clearly don't care? They're paid to write for a living but have so many errors a six year old could have written a better article!

I didn't know that about the Protestant refugees, although I knew that the guy who drained the fens was Dutch.

In Sussex dialect, the past tense of "drive" is "druv", and "We won't be druv" is still quite a common saying. There's an old rhyme about Sussex folk being

"Strong i' th' arm and thick i' th'ead
We wunt be druv and we wunt be led".

It’s amusing that people suggest the reason they make errors is because they’re rushing or because they’re “writing” informally. That is nonsense. If you KNOW how to express yourself correctly or spell accurately, you don’t just have the odd day off! Being correct is as automatic as breathing.

I must admit that if a post is badly written, I don’t bother commenting. I could force myself to read and understand it but time on MN is leisure time - I don’t need to make the effort.

It tends to be that well written posts get the most responses.

There are times when someone is pouring their heart out (and have a genuinely terrible problem) and someone writes PARAGRAPHS??? - it comes across as very unkind.

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

Most posts are readable

The ones that aren't I ignore

I hate the ones with no paragraphs/ gaps

I'm not sure it's even a Cockney thing.

It's quite common in Croydon, where I come from and some of my in-laws still live. They don't speak like that, but my SIL's husband does, as do some family friends and neighbours.

Local dialect can cause some misunderstandings as well.

I have just read another thread where posters didn't know what the OP was talking about because she used a different term for a school trip.

Regardless of dialect, people should know that we don't write the way we speak. Everywhere has particular turns of phrase or words that are largely incomprehensible to those outside that area. I love language and always find things like that interesting. But it's not ignorant to expect people to adhere to a reasonable standard of spelling and grammar when writing in an international forum for a general audience.

Why is it embarrassing? It's not the poster's fault if their education failed them, if they have some speech and language difficulties, undiagnosed dyslexia, or English isn't their first language. It's still probably a damn sight better than my French or German.

If the standard of education in schools these days is anything to go by, it'll be the norm soon. I've seen shocking howlers in written work from younger colleagues in recent years, and some of it from people with decent degrees from RG universities.

I think the standard of written English has declined with the demise of teaching Latin, tbh. I used to have a job that involved vetting reports that went to council committees, and the best written stuff always seemed come from people who'd done Latin at school.

Although I still wince inwardly at a split infinitive, or using "less" where it should be "fewer", I regard it as my failing and down to a certain snobbery on my part.

@LakieLady in Cumbria we use "drovv" instead of "drove".

I get irritated with the incorrect use of 'your' 'you're', 'to' and 'too' etc as well as could OF. It's could HAVE ffs.
But I'm an intolerant old fart 😂

I’ve noticed this recently too. Not just spelling/grammar variations or mistakes (which would be cunty to pick on) but a few long OPs that are completely incomprehensible. So incomprehensible that it almost seemed deliberate, but I would have no idea why someone would do that.

I get my spelling corrected sometimes. I'm visually impaired and even when I point that out people still like to moan about tiny spelling errors. It's pathetic.

As for the whole 'how can someone think infront is a word' inbetween is a word so why can't infront be? Language is constantly evolving and changing and often what pedants moan about is the natural progression of a language. Infront might be one person consistently making a mistake. But if English did evolve in such a way that infront was recognised as a word eventually really what would the problem be?

...advice to someone...wh....

Ironic.

Bun fight starter

You're not wrong, OP.

I can't believe the number of "too" and "to" errors, as well.

And don't get me started on the people starting posts with "So..."

Ironic indeed 😉

New Addington, Shrublands, Monks Hill and the like were initially populated by many families who had been bombed out from London - a lot from Bermondsey/Old Kent Road, but also a significant number from Whitechapel and Bethnal Green, brought by the promise of modern rural homes (once the prefabs came down) and no pollution.

I think that as people grow up seeing the internet as somewhere for advice, those with lower literacy are also going to try to get help.