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?

Surely if you're editing and proofreading you're supposed to correct the author?
Or have I misunderstood?

They are probably fine. Despite education levels or lack thereof, there are very few English speakers wandering around saying crap like "there's fewer water in this pool than there should be" or failing to understand that when someone in a cafe asks for "five coffees" coffee is being used as a countable noun indicating servings of coffee.

It's a really bizarre thing to be embarrassed about. I don't think this person is a linguist.

Isn't less vs fewer one of the classic examples that pedants get worked up about but aren't technically correct?

That might sound like a cop-out, but every language has peculiarities that you just have to memorise. In English, it's non-phonetic spellings
Yes. Reminds me of a poster on MN years ago who always popped up on posts about teaching children to read and write, insisting that English is a totally phonetic language, you just have to learn all the possible phonetic options!

Yes. And disinterested/uninterested is another.

They are curated.

@Swansandcustard , because nobody ever dinged it into them.

It was many decades ago,,but I still remember a primary teacher asking the class where we thought an apostrophe should go.

The know-it-all girl’s hand shot up. ‘We were playing with the boy’s.’

Teacher: ‘No! That’s exactly where we don’t put it!’

Words ending in Y seem to present particular difficulties - on here you so often see baby’s, party’s, family’s, etc., as plurals.

I will speak in defence of this: I know that they are technically interchangeable but the distinction can be useful and I will be sad to see it go, which is inevitable. It's possible to be disinterested but not uninterested in a matter, and vice versa!

In a similar way, the confusion of phase and faze is now absolutely endemic and we are probably only ten years away from its codification in the OED

At school level, Spanish seems to be viewed as easier to learn than French or German, so there is a hierarchy in people’s minds (and since so few people in the UK learn a language beyond a very basic level, it’s pretty irrelevant to them that Spanish might get trickier when you start trying to express more complex ideas). Regardless, whether you find a language easier or harder to learn depends on what your own first language is and how your brain works. Do you have more of a problem with inconsistent spelling rules, or with rigid rules on word order, or with tone of voice, or with alphabets, or with memorising symbols? We are all different, and far more people are proficient in another language than they are genuinely fluent in it.

I think that's at least partly the iOS autocorrect's fault. It's noticeable when posting on Baby Names. If attempting to refer to multiple Jacks or Janes you manually have to override autocorrect's attempt to insert an apostrophe.

@KatherineSwynford1403 I presumed that they were curated. What difference does that make? Did it not occur to you in the process of curating them to choose examples that didn’t include tributes to dead loved ones by bereaved people?

I respectfully disagree.

What an over-emphasis on grammar, spelling and punctuation does, is stifle creativity and imagination.

If you wrote a little story and got back a page of red markings criticising the delivery of that story, it’s bound to put you off. Instead, concentrate on fostering creativity and a joy of reading, writing and literature.

There’s plenty of time to correct spelling and grammar in later years. I do agree it’s important - and I have a bad habit of judging people with poor spelling / grammar - but it’s not everything. I work in a creative industry where people can excel in areas even if they need a little more support with the written components.

Primary should be laying the foundation for a love of learning, not boring everyone to tears with rigidity and rules.

It’s (hopefully) less of an issue nowadays but so many of my peers thought they were bad at English because they couldn’t get their heads round the rules of punctuation and spelling, but it turns out they are highly likely to be undiagnosed dyslexics.

Oh, you're that kind of linguist. The kind of linguist there are literally billions of on the planet - someone that has learned some languages that weren't their household languages as a young child. What a pretentious way to introduce your original post.

In any case, if you actually work with your languages of study, it's as bizarre you believe there's something exceptionally Anglophone about what you're describing as it would have been if you were a professional or academic linguist.

What a pretentious way to address the OP who is a linguist by the one of two key definitions of the word. Could you be any more snottily patronising?

OP is a professional linguist - she works and translator and interpreter. As if being an academic linguist was in any way superior.

Respectfully, what do you mean by "proficient" and "genuinely fluent"? I ask because in language education, proficient is most often used to mean a C2 level, which few learners achieve. Fluent doesn't really have a precise meaning.

An large amount of hubris.

I could try. For example, I could start a Mumsnet thread complaining about someone writing “teddy’s” in a Facebook ad as a symptom of the (nonexistent) specific failings of Anglophones that has come to my attention because I’m a linguist.

Surely if you're editing and proofreading you're supposed to correct the author?

You would think so wouldn't you?

However, so many books I've read of late seemed to be so sorely lacking in that respect that I'm beginning to wonder if either, no one is actually proof-reading them prior to publication, or the proof-readers are really bad at their jobs.

😎That'll be me later in mi shades, on a coffee break at mo wi choccy bikkies

How about this one?

The way our 'linguist' is referring to punctuation is as symbols on a page. That is distinct from grammar.

Regardless, whether you find a language easier or harder to learn depends on what your own first language is and how your brain works.

Isn't that kind of what I said? There are lots of factors influencing the perceived difficulty of a language. Just because people might say they find English easier than French, or Spanish easier than German, it doesn't mean that that is objectively the case.

Less vs fewer works in the same way as amount vs number. In what way is that incorrect?

The common error is people using 'less' in every case, not people using 'fewer' incorrectly, as mentioned upthread.

As someone who (partly) funded themselves through university by proofreading and editing, the salaries are horrendously bad. You get what you pay for.

AI can only have made the salaries much worse.

No, you get 'less children' rather than 'fewer' or something similar
It's always that way round