To think posters should have to pass a comprehension test before posting?

[Azzywhatty]

Honestly why are so many Mumsnetters incapable of reading properly?

OP: I have a green dress to wear to my son’s wedding. However, the mother of the bride is also now wearing green. AIBU to think we can both wear green? They are completely different shades.

And the replies:

‘I don’t understand why you’re wearing green to your wedding. Wear white like everyone else!’

’As the mother of the bride you can wear whatever you want.’

’Why are you desperate to create drama? You knew MoB was wearing green!’

’I’d say change the dress if they’re the exact shade OP!’

’Why do you have your dress so early? I’ve only been to summer weddings so it seems too early to get a dress’.

Why can’t people read and understand what they’re reading?

When people ask the op questions and when they answer accuse them of drip feeding. Sometimes people don't add every single detail as it's too long or they think it's not relevant. Often they post with one issue and don't realise they have bigger problems until posters have questioned them.

Some really do not read the thread properly but others only one to talk about their own situation so that a question about an unhappy marriage will lead to someone piping up that their own marriage is very happy.

The ones that drive me most crazy I went poster is complaining about a really toxic mother and someone will say well I wish my mother was still alive so that I could talk to her.

But this is it IRL!! Number of times of peripherally known people, usually women who seem to be so high functioning in terms of career, family - managing it all to a high standard and for some reason or another we come in to contact with one another via text or email, and their spelling and grammar is atrocious and they don't know their 'they're' from their 'there'. I probably come across similar. But I'm a shambles. But from them, I just wonder HOW?!

Well... sometimes it is so obviously relevant. When they're asking what's up with their husband and then critical, telling details come out late in the thread, you just wonder why on earth it wasn't included in the OP.

Probably based on bitter experience of the HCPs! I'd wager that that paragraph (and in particular understanding that they need to drink 2 drinks, and working out when to drink them) is beyond the reading comprehension skills of a small but significant minority of people. There are a lot of people out there who are functionally illiterate (and probably also innumerate - not usually through any fault on their part in either case). Most of the time they get by OK but they slip through the net when it comes to information about healthcare, finances etc.

Hilariously, this morning, a poster gives her age in the first line of her OP.

Third response - How old are you?

I've got a thread running about being angry and sad about clearing my dead parents stuff.

So many amazing posts with empathy and practical points. But I also have to wade through what sound like my parents sock puppetting me from the grave.
You spent a lot of money, it's not the same as worth a lot of money.
One of my favourites was the suggestion that a local soup kitchen might make use of the boxed limited edition unfood safe tiny plates.

Agree, and it's not just a good education.

People have varying levels of intellectual capacity, including emotional intelligence.

I get so cross when I see pp critising an op who clearly is trying their best but struggling with English for whatever reason eg second language, dyslexia, different level of education and intellect, illness etc

I had no idea about this? 20%! If that is indeed true then it explains an awful lot.

Agree that sometimes that's the case, but I've seen some threads where some poor woman doesn't even realise she's been treated badly until posters start prying out of them some of the behaviours and highlighting how wrong it is.

Why is the MoB jealous, OP? Does she also want shades? You can both wear them - problem solved! 🙂

People on here love to stick the knife in so will wilfully misconstrue posts so they can be unpleasant.

Yeah I suppose this is true. Its usually one of the first posters who asks but often the OP will outline some awful episode and without context it's difficult to assess a situation, "is this normal"

If only it were confined to Mumsnet. In real life some people employed by financial institutions cannot understand simple written requests or instructions.

@Jacopo Or verbal requests. Every year I book for a boiler service. I work from home except for Thursday afternoons when I have a prepaid class. Every year I tell him I can do any day except Thursday and every year he rings me on Thursday morning and says 'I can come today'. On one notable occasion I was actually in my class when he rang to say he was on his way to my house!!!!

I think you should just wear green OP and forget about what your great aunt twice removed is wearing to the bar mitzvah!

When these type of threads come up I'm always reminded of the thread from a couple of years ago when an OP was asking if she was BU to not go to her brother's wedding in the wilds of Sutherland or somewhere,miles from the nearest station. I can't remember the exact details but OP was clear from the start how difficult it would be, I think it was a child-free wedding and OP couldn't drive as she was recovering from a broken leg.

Lots of replies along the lines of "Just get the train", "Take a taxi", "Can't your DH drive, take the kids to MacDonald's and drive back after the reception" (a round trip of about 1200 miles).

Worse was the slew of accusations that she was making excuses, looking for obstacles when there weren't any and clearly hated her brother so why didn't she do him a favour and stay away.

It was bonkers.

I came on to say that.

redundant but/though?

and punctuation. They read as badly as I comprehended Ulysses when i tried (and failed) to complete it decades ago...

Sarcasm, I trust?

Guilty. I admit, at times I skim read. And I don't read all the updates before posting a comment. I ain't got time for that!

Don't forget the posters who cried 'I'd do everything possible to attend my sibling's wedding' but didn't actually say how they'd overcome any of the OP's issues.

There’s a current thread where OP has stated you don’t need to use punctuation and grammar because she ‘can’t be arsed’ and ‘you don’t need to bother as it’s the internet’.

omg yes! and they think they are the kind and compassionate ones with their "how can you talk about an elderly woman like that, I would give ANYTHING to spend one more day with my mother," and don't seem to realise how absolutely unsympathetic, unempathetic, oblivious and cruel they are being.

It's scary how many people are completely incapable of
a)imagining anything outside of their own experiences, and
b) accepting that if someone else does something or thinks something different to them, it doesn't mean that they are automatically wrong. Sometimes people just do things differently, and that's fine.

But the way so many posters get so worked up, it's as if their thought process is:
"someone doing something different to me = they must think the way I do it is wrong and be judging me = I'll jump in first and criticise the way they do it to stand up for myself."

and then you get the most bizarrely aggressive and forceful responses to innocuous questions like how often you change your sheets. Whereas really, unless you're staying at their house, who the fuck cares about how often anyone else's sheets are washed?!