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!!!!

Some posts are so badly written it's hard to work out what the argument is!

Argument is an advanced form or communication, so if you can't communicate properly then you're probably not arguing very effectively.

In my MN experience the sort of 'argument' that often accompanies poor spelling and grammar tends to go along the lines of:

"Well, it ain't done me no f-ing harm, and I don't give a flying fck what ovver people fink, so fck you..."

Yes - articulate, reasoned, well thought-out argument....

Read the thread Laquitar.
No-one on the thread has said what you have just implied. The opposite, acksherly.

YANBU

I hate it when I see that too. I type fast and often late at night, so sometimes I make mistakes. My keyboard has too many crumbs in it so not all letters always come out right. Occasionally I have been known to post after a glass of wine which can impair my proof-reading skills. It's a talk board not an official document or an exam. If there's the odd mistake, it doesn't matter at all. I do also wonder whether some people take into account the possibility of dyslexia.

at random apostrophe

Yes Bucharest. Have read the thread. And some posts say that they cant take a post with bad spelling/grammar seriously.

They are ok I think mumblechum?

YABU - it's one thing to make the odd mistake when typing fast but really bothers me when people can't spell or use correct grammar and punctuation. Some posts are so appalling I really can't be arsed to wade through the mistakes to try and understand what the poster is talking about. It's the same as using textspeak - just irritating.

Laquitar - "if you dismiss people based on their grammar/spelling you are missing out"

yes, perhaps that's true on occasion, but it's a fact of life that people make rapid judgements as a means of 'sorting' people they come across in their daily life. Life's too short to always be digging deeper to confirm their initial impressions.

There are all sorts of examples of how this manifests itself, e.g.

• taller people earn more/ get more senior jobs
• blondes are perceived as dimbos (I'm blonde btw...)
• people from Liverpool/ Newcastle with regional accents are thick (I grew up in one of these cities btw)

• people who can't spell/ construct proper sentences are less bright just happens to be another.

Personally I've usually found it to be true!

Laquitar, yes, they do (say they make a judgement based on certain types of badly written posts...I'vejust done so myself, clicked on a thread which looked interesting, read the OP and thought can't be arsed with this.

They are clearly not referring to either non-native speakers or dyslexics. We've established that non-native speakers on the whole, have a better grasp of grammar, as grammar is unfortunately lacking in the UK school curriculum and dyslexics need to have messages written correctly to make sense of them.

I often make typos, nobody's ever corrected me. And whilst I do think it's obnoxious to pick at people on those grounds, I do like that people here are literate and articulate. I mean, when the conversation is all via the written word, it helps when people are able to use them to a decent standard.

Legacy,
if you are not joking with your last sentence then i do feel sorry for you.

Legacy,
Which one are you referring to? The blond, the persons from Newcastle?

Quite, Legacy.

In RL people probably judge me. At the school gate I'm the frumpy, stumpy old mum who talks posh.

And on a forum I'm afraid if I see text speak or poor spelling and grammar, I rear back and don't really want to engage with that person, just as they surely wouldn't want to have a coffee with some old bird with no mobile phone and Clarks shoes (I sound great, don't I ?!)

Also it varies by thread. In, say, recipes, it's less of an issue than in AIBU, or issue-based arguments.

The only judgement that I make when I see posts containing poor grammar/spelling is that the poster does not have good grammatical skills. I don't disregard the post. Dh suggested that I read "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" as grammar is not my strongest point.

Text speak is a different matter altogether. I think we all have a duty to put a stop to it. It is getting out of hand and I am worried that in a few years it will become a acceptable form of communication in everyday life.

I haven't noticed that a lot of MNs do correct spelling or grammar in posts.

Of course the argument 'you can't even spell so you are wrong' is invalid. But if you don't even make an effort to write correctly and in an easily understandable way then you should expect fewer people to bother to deceipher your messages.

I'll second that Qally - I've been using MN for a few months and it's such pleasant and informative site. Reading posts without mistakes makes them somehow easier to absorb and trust.

I find that I switch off when someone uses txt spk. brrrr

I cannot understand why there are such high levels of bad spelling and grammar generally out there. Less people anyone?

It doesn't happen a lot and it isn't a lot of MNetters that do it, but some do and it is increasing in frequencies. TBH though it tends to happen most of controversial threads and , like the OP, I think people do it tomake a point of showing up the OP and highlighting their errors to detract from the content of the OP or discussion.

It is annoying. MN really should be inclusive and correcting spellings is very petty. IMO.

I can spell BTW. I type fast though and hit post before checking quite often.

I am sure any educated person can manage to read a post without being distracted by some typos or spelling errors.

Have to admit though that I don;t like the increase in text speak we have these days. But I still wouldn't correct it.

fircone we must be twins split up at birth, 'cept my comfy shoes are Ecco....

Oh for goodness sake fircone, you can't be serious! You don't want to engage with someone because of their grammar.

Not everyone has had the same opportunities in life that you have enjoyed. Thank your lucky stars that you were born into your family and had a decent education, not everyone is as fortunate.

This thread is making me feel quite sick.

Well, I'm a hypocrit.

English is my second language, therefore I am sure my posts are far from perfect. I have never been corrected (so far), and I'm sort of glad, as it would have made me feel self-conscious and most probably put me off posting.

However, (this is the hypocritical side of it), posts that are full of spelling mistakes are very hard to read. Txt spk is simply horrendous, so are theposts containing dozens of LOL LMAO ROFL.

So, as a conclusion, it's ok for me to make mistakes, but not other people.

I think fircone is right in that your eye isn't naturally drawn to a thread if it's badly written - just seems like it's too much like hard work to read it, so very often i don't bother.

Spelling/grammar mistakes don't ususally bother me, unless someone uses brought instead of bought.

Where does that come from, it's just so wrong?

I can't be bothered reading those posts.

I havenosecrets,
or perhaps she didnt have the opportunity to travel/live abroad/learn other languages. Because those who did know that when you speak many languages you 'translate' ftom one to other as you type/speak, so you are more likely to do grammar mistakes.