To be increasingly annoyed about the amount of MN's who feel it is OK to correct one's spelling and grammar

[whocaresaboutyourintellect]

I am getting really fed up of it.

Someone will post a topic and then you get some "up you own backside" MN'er who takes it upon themselves to correct all of the grammar and spelling in said post.

This happens in particular in threads of a contraversial nature as a means of embarrasing the OP. It is ridiculous.

This is a talk forum, not an English exam so to all those MN'ers........get a life!!!!

Sorry if that came over as correction PMSL, no just wondered if that was what you meant. Hopre it didn't

Badly expressed re: internet dialect but I don't know how else to say it. Do you get what I'm getting at though?

We're using the words and, well, nothing else sometimes. Or we pick and mix what we do/don't do.

I now have an urge to go study linguistics.

Qally that must be/have been so difficult for your mother. I didn't mean to put down people who literally can't do maths , I only intended to point out that people often, when they say they're hopeless at maths, mean that they can actually do it but it takes time or they never quite got geometry.

Then again it's not always clear when people write badly expressed posts what they intended to say. Clearly we know that councelling is counselling but bad grammar can really change the meaning of a phrase (eats, shoots and leaves, anyone?).

I have dyscalculia, its not that I can't do it, but not in the way others do- after failing GCSE many years over I passed by realising I can do it if I write the numbers out in longhand (eg one added to one equals)

Bizarre thing the human brain!

I have mild dyscalculia too! Mine is more that I transpose numbers and decimal points are a nightmare - I'd rather do fractions. I can do it, it takes me time though...

Midnightexpress - 'While I don't agree with putting people down or picking at their mistakes, I am genuinely interested to know what people who say 'it doesn't matter' think it says about a person. Honestly. If you were (say) an employer, and you had the choice between two people, equally good at a job, one of whom has dreadful communication skills and one of whom doesn't, who would you choose? We all make judgments and it is disingenuous to say that you don't'.

I am one of those people who says it doesn't matter on MN equating a job to MN is ridiculous. I would not get away with any errors in my workplace and would expect to be pulled up on it when if I do. However, this is MN and I would rather get involved and move along with the threads rather than stopping and checking every post. There are lots of reasons already given as to why people on MN would make mistakes. I would not appreciate somebody doing this to me, especially as I have said before, on threads where someone is asking for support.

Some very sensible responses from children on CBBC

I don't think I've ever seen it on a thread where someone is asking for support except once to clarify something, where a misplaced comma could make all the difference. And then it wasn't a correction per se.

I think in Chat or other discussiony type places it's less of an issue.

Peachy, I don't assume that at all. I was just making a general observation about people who say 'it doesn't matter how you write/speak (in any situation) as long as people understand you'.

FAir enough ME

But i've seen and experieenced it: people questioning whether you really ahve a degree, or should be allowed to teach, or whatever becuase you had a spelling mistake in a post

Sometimes its nice to relax a bit and just post. even if you can see the screen LOL!

Gah!

I never said that it matters on MN. I don't give a frig if people type in bloody Latin on MN.

taht was to MIA peachy, not you

As you have never seen it, perhaps that's why you don't see it as a problem frAKKIN. I have, and was really shocked that a 'pendant' would feel it was ok to do it.

I didnt say you said, it ME just that i've experienced it. Are you perhaps getting a buit upset unnecessarily over this (genuinely mean it in a nice way not a dismissive way).

Using pedantry as an excuse on MN is a cover up for bullying at times. In RL I get mightily p'd off if I see signs offering 'Vegitarein food' or 'Omelets' but there's a difference between formal type pedantry and MN chattery

I'm not getting upset - I AGREE WITH YOU!

Possibly MIA, in which case my line of thought is based on a different set of facts to yours. But as I've said it's just my personal opinion and although I will freely admit to being a pedant and have corrected people (usually when I have PMT!) it's never been on a thread where if I were the OP I would feel it was inappopriate IYSWIM.

Peachy, I wish I had some merry Latin riposte. But I don't.

midnightexpress, it mattered enough for you to point out the spelling errors in the OP.

Or even ME I wish...

Brain fried. Need to go shopping. Tear me away from this, please.

Sorry ME LOL

You can make any latin riposte you wish, incorrect or correct, I wouldn't understand a word of it Lol..... they don't teach that in darkest Somerst, it'smore here is your tractor (seriosuly, we did tractotrs on teh school arm)

Could someone have not corrected me for continually using the incorrect spelling of 'pedant'

Bet you were all itching to, go on I won't hold it against you

YANBU

To the op - yanbu. I hate to see it for all the reasons hellsbells has given. I hate to see poor spelling and grammar, but I hate to see pomposity and intellectual snobbery even more than that.

However, I did recently point out to a poster that the word tenant was spelled (spelt?) tenant and not tennant because she was a landlady, posting about aforementioned tenants, and she seemed unaware of the correct spelling, and I thought she might like to know. But I said it in the nicest possible way and even then I hesitated over it because I didn't want her to think I thought I was in any way superior to her.

Ah but some Classics pedant would spot it and lambast me. Lovely word, lambast.

Because the OP raised the subject in AIBU. Go there at your peril, I say. The OP (who I'm not convinced wasn't posting to get a rise, and who hasn't reappeared to discuss the subject) was pretty aggressive too - 'up your own backside', I think the expression was.

I wouldn't dream of doing it in the general run of MN.

Fair point midnight.

Both are correct. The -ed ending is more common in American English whereas British English uses -t for the past simple.

Same for learned/learnt and burned/burnt.

And I apologise if you didn't actually wan to know