To think it's embarrassing how English has one of the easiest grammar systems, and yet so many people don't know the basic rules...

[Skyeboat]

I'm a linguist, and the languages I studied have very complex grammar rules compared to English. So much so that native speakers have to memorise verb tables, moods, cases etc. at primary school level, and even those who didn't study to a high level know the basic rules.
English is one of the simplest languages, and yet the amount of native English speakers I see making really obvious mistakes is just embarrassing.
Is the problem that we just don't teach grammar and syntax in school?
For example, I saw a FB post today selling "Teddy's" (as opposed to teddies). That's actually the most common mistake I see - people, even businesses, not knowing how to use apostrophes and form plurals. I'd understand if it was a complicated rule that required memorisation with a lot of exceptions, but it's soo basic. It takes about 10 minutes to learn then you're all set.
I went to a pretty average state school, and I remember they did teach us these things, but we weren't rigorously tested on them or required to repeat them regularly. So I do believe the problem is with a lack of focus on basic English from a young age.
Am I being unreasonable or is this really embarrassing that we have such a poor grasp of our own mother tongue?

English isn't simple, as I've learnt when helping my child to read. E.G. why isn't "baked" pronounced the same as "naked" with a b??

Yes it's annoying when the basics aren't correct, such as they're or their, but everyone makes mistakes 😀

Oh wow. Are you serious? I mean I am genuinely asking because I think you are but I'm not very good at detecting sarcasm. I have never heard of this. If it is true, I had no idea but that is so cool. I'd never thought about that but you are right it does sound off if you use a different order. I have Adhd and I'm not a native English speaker and I do sometimes use a different order but then I think what I said just sounded odd even though I'm not sure why.

So many split infinitives!
What about old English?
I didn't do nowt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😱

No there's nothing shaming in that. But starting a thread deriding people about poor grammar and tutting and shaking heads and saying 'other countries do it so much better/not in my day/etc' isn't about helping.

It's purely about chiding. It's not kind, it's not helpful and it has nothing to do with wanting to ameliorate written English skills.

I’m marching towards 56 and none of this is alien. I went to a shitty comp, and I’m not a doctor, scientist or lawyer. These mistakes are not dyslexic, they’re not knowing/being bothered.

You don't understand dyslexia, clearly.

A very recent one I've noticed is the use of 'be' instead of 'is'. For example, someone upthread has posted 'This thread be like...'.
It seems to be a relatively new thing, where on earth has it come from? Is it a symptom of a substandard education? I can't imagine why someone would use this if they knew it wasn't correct. Or is it correct? It certainly doesn't sound right.

That's slang. Gotta get down wid da kidz, doncha know?

(Otherwise known as ghetto slang, Urban Dictionary tells me.)

As an English teacher (and someone who lives abroad and speaks several languages) I strongly disagree that English has one of the easiest grammar systems!

I'm a primary teacher. We work REALLY hard on teaching our children correct grammar. Check out the National Curriculum programme of study to see the sheer amount of content and when we expect children to be secure using it.

But:

a) we weren't taught this when we were kids. At uni, on a teacher training course, a significant number of my fellow students were completely ignorant of basic terminology such as "adjective" or "adverb" and had to have a crash course. This included correct use of punctuation and how this can alter meaning...Eats, Shoots and Leaves was used as an example.

b) there is so much for children to take on board and apply when writing, and at such a pace, that it is hard to embed it all. Imagine being a child who is still concentrating on spelling and using basic punctuation correctly, yet being asked to produce a piece of text whilst also employing particular writing techniques such as alliteration or metaphors; and choosing the most effective synonym to convey a specific shade of meaning; and using joined up handwriting; and remembering to include recently learnt tenses such as past progressive to show teacher you know these; and making sure to use consistent tense, except for dialogue (where you need to switch to present tense and also remember not to put a full stop at the end of speech because that needs a reporting clause so you need a comma, and then also not a capital letter for Said even though it comes after the end of a sentence, and then switch back to past tense again): and deciding where new paragraphs are needed...things that a child half knows, such as use of apostrophes or correct choice of homophones are very likely to be used wrongly!

It really isn't as simple as "learn a rule in 10 mins or so, practise, what's the problem?"

PS - that is a deliberately complex bit of writing, which no doubt is riddled with errors, to show how much a child has to do whilst writing a story. Lots going on at once!

And for what it's worth, I hate abuse of apostrophes too, and have been known to erase them from chalkboard menus offering e.g. strawberrie's / strawberry's and cream.

This use of "be" has its antecedents primarily in African American English.

Got to say that out of the four languages I’ve studied, English is the least complicated. The order would be: Arabic, then two European languages, then English.

Many of the examples given here to demonstrate how many things one needs to remember are actually things that exist in other languages, too, like order, tense etc. but then those other languages have much more other rules that simply do not exist in English language at all.

Am I being unreasonable or is this really embarrassing that we have such a poor grasp of our own mother tongue?

Everyone is an expert in their own spoken language (mother tongue). You are talking about the rules of written language.

Usually I still understand the meaning when I see these mistakes and it does not particularly bother me

I used to be just as arrogant, judgmental and pull my nose like this. But as I've gotten older, early life trauma, has really slowed my speech, and limited my vocabulary. I've been humbled.

So you are not a linguist? I mean you are if you are using the coloquial to mean you speak more than one language.

I would argue that a linguist is someone who studies the grammar and syntax, phonetics, structure and also looking at social aspects and how languages change.

Some 'bad grammer' is actually first language interference, but from a local dialect rather than a seperate language. Those dialects are the remains of the origional languages spoken in those regions.

English is now a world language with influences from the places it is spoken.

Native English speakers learn from their family, friends and community. In some ways ESOL is an advantage. If you look at Singapore they decided to use English as the medium of teaching for all citizens, whilst giving time to study the pupils' 'home' language.

So children may start school with no English and aquire it from teachers using gramatically correct standard English.

Same! I went to primary school in the late 70s/early 80s and we were not taught grammar. We learnt about full stops and commas and capital letters but that was basically it. Everything I now know about grammar is through reading books but there are still many grammatical rules I have no clue about because no one ever taught me about them. When I got to being a teenager, grammar was not exactly the most important thing on my mind either. So yeah, its hardly surprising is it?

Can you understand what someone is trying to convey? If so, there’s not really any need to get too worked up over the detail. It might not be spelled correctly, but even knows what Chester draws means 😁

Think most people have bigger things to worry about. There is a lot of undiagnosed dyslexia in children which is often picked up too late. The national curriculum is huge and schools only have a limited amount of time to fit this in. Seems like you have too much time on your hands if this is your biggest concern!

Discusting OP

On a recent visit to my GP, she typed out a referral for me to see a specialist. She wrote a list, informing the specialist of my “current meducation ” I have to admit, at least one of my eyebrows lifted a little.

Speaking of logical fallacies, Oxford Royale is a summer school with an SEO-optimised blog. Why are you using it as an appeal to authority?

@babbscrabbs and how are you qualified to know that dyslexia isn’t an issue?

Exactly this, it bothers me more when people spell my name wrong on a email rather than any grammatical or spelling mistakes.

Native speakers of other languages wouldn't have to learn complex verb tables, as you suggest. they would know their language instinctively.

Only older learners, learning a second language have to bother with the rules of a language and that is equally true when learning English as Swahili

@MottledPie

Yes, the order is correct and used. But it isn't explicitly taught, certainly not within the primary curriculum, it just is! If you use adjectives in the " wrong" order it simply doesn't sound right when said aloud.

But OP is right, things like the apostrophe rules really aren't complicated. Unless someone has a staggeringly bad teacher, no-one is taught in primary school that you must use the apostrophe if a word ends in s, but far too many people seem to think that you should.