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!!!!

Was that due to when school...

OOh getting nervous. I'm off.

Amen to hating the celebration of ignorance. I do appreciate that this attitude is not apparent on MN.

Though I would also add that pointing out someone's errors to make them feel stupid is horrible. As Alistairsim says.

A-ha, yes midnight express I agree with you.. the CELEBRATION of ignorance is shocking, and a peculiarly British thing.

But I think we can blame a lack of good education for mistakes in English. Just because some people thrive in ANY environment does not mean that ALL people will..

Gotta go..

agree;
i'm the worst speller on mn..i know that.
some joker on a thread i was on replied to me with spelling mistakes, typos, etc and all the .... that i put in my posts (i don't know why i do that, but it's harmless)..

i just thought...you arse.

i'm with you to a cedrtain extent. in that when there is a heated debate going on and two people are at loggerheads. one will make a totally valid point but with poor spelling or grammar. and the other person seeing the argument slip away from them will resort to either a post simply correcting the others mistake e.g. "the phrase is serves you right not deserves you right"
or one similar to the above but followed up with "well i'm not going to waste my time debating with someone who doesn't even have a basic grasp of the english language as it's pointless.obviously you are wrong because you can't even understand the argument, and i am right because i know every turn of phrase and so am much more intelligent and equipped to tackle this vast and ever expanding topic for which an intellectual relationship with victorian english is a pre-requisite, M&T parking spaces that is."

I hope schools are getting much better at teaching English - ds, in Year One, came home talking about similes the other day. I was amazed!

People my age and younger suffered from decades of rubbishy teaching fashions, especially those unfortunate enough to have come up against the Initial Teaching Alphabet. I was actually interested in English Language and grammar but there was very little guidance at school - even though it was both academic and selective. Think everything beyond 'a verb is a doing word' I learnt on my own (had the advantage of parents who went to grammar schools in the late 50s and early 60s).

I agree with you thumbwitch on your last two points but I disagree with your first point. Just because someone has used a word in the wrong context or made a spelling mistake it doesn't mean they are lazy. Not everyone is capable of achieving an A* in English.

All of my current friends have been to university, am I less worthy than they are because I haven't studied at university level? I am about to embark on an Open University degree because I do want to improve my education, I hope that I'm up to the challenge! Not everyone can do this, some people just don't have the capacity for it. I don't think people should be looked down upon or not taken seriously because they were in the CSE stream as opposed to the 'O' level band.

Mumsnet worries me sometimes. It should be inclusive not exclusive. Look what happened with the Moldiegate saga, intellectual snobbery was at the heart of that.

btw - thanks for the replies MmeLindt and thumbwitch.

Before I go, I would just ask for a little..I don't know...understanding. It is highly unattractive to champion 'being thick' but at the same time there are some who are simply not as clever/educated/able to remember rules as others. It isn't fair to see that as a negative in general. That person [me] may still have something valuable to contribute.

Your all rite, I definately think that we shuld all make an effort to learn to spell.

Most Brits dont even bother to lurn a knew langwidge so the leest we can do is try and speek our mother tung proply.

Sorry if this is contravershal

I agree treedelivery, that is the point I was trying to make.

I do live abroad, in France. People are a lot more aggressive about correcting your grammar and DO think you're stupid if you don't use grammar properly (particularly with the complement d'object direct/indirect).

Cameleon
I tend to notice the German native speakers because they sometimes translate a saying literally.

Tbh, I am not really that bothered about the grammar or punctuation as long as it does not make the poster difficult to understand.

There is a good chance that I will ignore a long post that has no paragraphs as I just cannot be bothered trying to decipher it.

Which is a shame as the poster may have had something interesting to say.

Starlight, I atually think that if more blimmin Brits bothered to learn a foreign language, they'd probably improve their grasp of English too.

x-post ihavenosecrets

I found that Starlight. I was being taught the present perfect tense in French without actually knowing what the present perfect was.

midnightexpress agreed

I also had no grammar lessons at school (80s! yay!) and most of the English grammar I had a graps of before I trained to teach came from either my parents' constant corrections or learning Latin, French and German.

I had to buy a book of English grammar when I started learning German.

I still have only the vaguest grasp of the theory of the language.

yanbu
it is very rude and imo shows their ignorance

frAKKINPannikin,
Agree with you about other countries being much more aggressive re grammar
However, I do believe this is one of the biggest factors contributing to the success of English.

While I understand how annoying it is to see grammar and semantic mistakes everywhere, and it seems wrong English Schools do not emphasize the grammar side of language so much, this is the beauty of English: how malleable the language is because there is not a full army of people from primary school up to royalty (like in Spain, where I am from) monitoring and dictating the purity of the language. So I actually like English speakers not being obsessed about it. I feel is a sign of openness.

2shoes - "show their ignorance"- how so?

Ignorance of what exactly? Ignorance of the fact that this country has sunk to such miserably low standards that it is perfectly fine to bastardise our language and adopt this 'anyfink goes' culture?

Putting aside the people who pass comment on spellings and grammar as a put-down in an argument, I think most 'pedants' do it automatically - it's like turning a tap off, shutting a gate, wiping a spill up - it's just second nature and ingrained as the right thing to do...

It's a bit like an unresolved seventh - it just HAS to be corrected in order to move on...

I get increasingly annoyed at poor grammar, spelling and txt spk. Communication is a wonderful thing, so why not make the effort to do it as well as possible.

And what nancy said.

guilty as charged, m'lud. . Mea culpa.
dunno why I do it really But I am also guilty of using waaaay too many exclamation marks... (and ellipses)