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!!!!

I actually used to be a load more judgemental. Then recently I was friended by someone on Facebook I'd met when waitressing at university, to pay my way. She was my supervisor, and is one of the most sensible, wise, kind and thoughtful women I've ever met. She's lived a really interesting life, and I admire her a lot. She's also, it turns out, got truly awful spelling, grammar, and even uses txt spk to an extent. And I realised that, online, I'd have ignored her posts and been attentive to some absolute nightmares I knew at uni. Sense and compassion but less literate, versus nasty idiots with eloquence - and who'd I have thought had more to say? Salutary, that realisation.

But it IS nice, to read a well written, well argued post. All we have here are words on a screen, and if people can't convey meaning properly, how are we to know if they're actually fabulous to talk to in person?

Laquitar - and I feel sorry for you if you really don't see why decent spelling and grammar are important...

You say "Intellect is the abiliy to think" (sic)

True, but then communication is the means by which you convey and use that intellect.
It's a bit like having a fantastic musical instrument locked away in a cupboard because you've never learned to play it....

It doesn't have to be about education/ family background either. Anyone who wants to improve their literacy levels can enrol for an adult course at a local library.

Or perhaps we could run an online course via Mumsnet

Nancy- quite agree. If people are happy to have their posts ignored because they're making the reader work too hard, then that's fine, but they will no doubt be the same people complaining that MN is cliquey.

I really don't understand all the "it's not fair/ I went to a crap school/ poor background" arguments. Get a book FFS. If you can't face a textbook try Lynne Truss - Eats Shoots and Leaves (that will also demonstrate why it's important to get it right!)

I agree with you Legacy. Poor background is no excuse for poor communication.

So if you feel judged/ignored in real life at the school gates - that means it is o.k to do the same to others in your alternative cyber life!? I'm too stupid to understand how that could be a reasonable argument. Surely it illustrates that you should try not to judge someone for such minor things? I can just imagine how much 'fun' some of the pedants are to chat to in real life....how charming to have my sentences restructured for me and my accent corrected

Naturally, being brought up in a home where reading is valued, books are plentiful, and you get stories every bedtime has no impact on adult literacy levels. It's what all the studies indicate!

Oh wait. No, it fucking well isn't.

fgs.

I agree legacy. 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 get judged because I know what 'disingenuous' means, and other people get judged because they don't.

As an aside, I think reverse intellectual snobbery does women down too.

Beautifully expressed, midnightexpress

midnightexpress, it would depend entirely on the job. In some roles the written word is less important than being socially adept and/or numerate. Plenty of managerial roles in the service sector don't require much literacy, beyond the basic ability to read and write.

Qally, I said if they were otherwise equally good at the job, whatever skills that required.

Qually, Midnightexpress was talking about communication skills, which I guess covers being socially adept.

Erm, no, it wouldn't be the tiebreaker in such a role. How could it be? "We want you to write an essay on The Tempest, because you're both clearly very competent." Hardly. It would come down to factors relating to that job, and probably how much the interviewer took to the candidate. How do you imagine so many people work, when so many aren't possessed of excellent English?

Being literate is obviously useful, in that it opens up a world to you in terms of job opportunity as well as straightforward pleasure. But it's simply not true to say that a more literate person would always be more likely to get any job, all else being equal. Apart from anything else, the recruiter has to know and care.

And anyway employability has nothing to do with posts on Mumsnet.

I've always wondered why people are so obsessed by literacy (past the basic ability to communicate) and yet so unfazed by innumeracy. How many people on this thread will cheerfully declare "oh, I'm hopeless at maths" who would rather die than say, "I'm dreadful at reading"? It's a class thing to an extent, and denying that factor just doesn't stop it being true.

But written communication is often unrelated to spoken. Plenty of extremely articulate people aren't good with the written word, and I knew a tongue-tied, squirmy academic who was quite brilliant when writing about Cold War history.

The fact is that you are going to get judged for poor literacy and will suffer the consequences whether it be in job applications, respect in RL or on MN. But that still doesn't mean it's necessary for posters to correct another's grammar/spelling.

"We want you to write an essay on The Tempest, because you're both clearly very competent."

Well, that is a ridiculous interpretation of what I was trying to say, Qally, but hey. My point was that all else being equal, then yes, I would favour the candidate who was better able to communicate, whether in writing or verbally. And I know of several companies which would immediately bin CVs with errors in them as a way of weeding out candidates, especially in the current economic climate. You would perhaps judge them in another way, but you are still judging them, aren't you? I never said that that is always how people get jobs; clearly that is not true. I am in some cases tempted to say, more's the pity.

Has anyone noticed that the OP never came back?

camaleon - I read a very interesting book, which I now can't remember the name of (very annoying) about the history of English which basically argued that English was such an adaptable language precisely because of the nature of the colonies it had. Their geographical dispersion allowed thriving, competing dialects to appear and once they 'broke free' of the colonial yoke they were able to become dominant powers in their regions, which were sufficiently far away from England for differences in dialect to be established before any conflict arose in spheres of interest. That's the basic outline of the argument anyway. That wasn't the main point of the book, it was rather incidental but an interesting diversion nonetheless.

My personal inference from this, and other sources of info, is French is a bad example because it was the universal language of diplomacy hence innovations weren't really appreciated and unless I'm very much mistaken the former Spanish colonies were relatively close to each other so that could be the sphere-of-influence-of-language argument coming into play. Or maybe not.

And we're sidetracking completely.

Qally - I think there's being hopeless at maths, as in unable to do trig or calculus (which always fazed me), and innumerate, as in unable to count and manipulate numbers. I suspect most people mean the former. I really hope they do. I'm crap at maths but I'm numerate.

This is turning into a really interesting debate. Are standards of English really falling overall or is it that we're developing a new dialect where we choose not to observe the rules? Why do those who make errors make them - because they don't know any better or because they are in too much of a hurry and don't proofread (see my error above as proof of that!)?

Yeah, sorry it was. The baby is teething and I am sleep deprived, and quite extraordinarily grumpy. I apologise. But, all the same, I'm afraid you're talking from a professional level standpoint, and not all employers are expecting that from staff. If you apply for accountancy training, they'll be quite likely to bin applications with errors (friend at BDO says it's considered weak not to at least use spellcheck). But most people aren't applying for a professional level job. Unless it's an administrative role, do they need to have good written English? Frequently the answer is no.

I once had a boss who really, really wasn't literate at all; far worse than MN posters ever are. I was stunned when I twigged that I had to write his letters and emails for him, because he just wasn't able to do so properly himself. He'd owned his own jewellery shop, then gone bust, after which he'd joined Sainsbury's as a manager. He then moved into an IT firm. He was fantastic at people management, though - incredibly perceptive, very adept at bringing out the best in people. I felt his literacy levels were a shame, but only because he was wasted as anything other than a clinical psychologist.

Obviously being literate opens a world of opportunity, and makes it a damn sight easier to communicate in written form. It doesn't, though, make someone less capable in many other ways, or make their thoughts less valid on such subjects as infidelity or shop-lifting. Yet online it's often ascribed some sort of moral value, over and above usefulness.

'a new dialect where we choose not to observe the rules'. An interesting point. How do you create a dialect (which all have rules), and then ignore these same rules? Or rather why? That way lies complete incomprehension, I would think. I think it is probably already true that with a 'global' language such as English there are already several dialects/varieties which are mutually incomprehensible.

Completely off the point, but it's interesting.

frAKKINPannikin - my mother is literally innumerate, she's dysnumerate, in fact. She often says she's thankful it's that, and not innumeracy. She's taught adult literacy as a volunteer and been humbled by how hard illiterate people have it, in terms of social pressures.

I also do think that there's a comparison between people with poor spelling and grammar and those with basic numeracy. You don't need to be able to recognise a split infinitive, or a misplaced comma, to communicate. We understand what people mean when they type a badly expressed post, after all. It's just really aggravating to read.

I hate threads where posts are badly written, because it grates. But I'm ashamed of that response, for all kinds of reasons.

No, of course it doesn't, and I hope I would pay attention to anyone's point of view, just as I would hope they'd do the same for me. It's just good manners.

"She often says she's thankful it's that, and not innumeracy. " That would be illiteracy. Sorry - so tired I'm seeing white dots at this point!

For my bad spelling and grammer during the day I apologise. I am more than welcome to be corrected for anything. Sometimes it's just a rush job, silly mistake. However, sometimes I honestly need to be told and I'm not ashamed to admit that.

For posts at night/during the evening I play the drunk card. Correct me if you wish but I honestly couldn't give a toss and won't remember come the morning.

Qally- Dyscalculia?

My spelling in RL is pretty good, but my typing sicks becase I can't see the words in the type box as here's some fault with my PC and I started a thread to explain it (I have V poor vision at the best of times). I used to just laugh when peeple brought it up bit it's so regularly atm that it's started to make me growl a little.

I have a saved thread I can link to if I can't be bothered to explain it all like this

'I agree legacy. 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?'

I would triple spell check anything like that obviously: don't assume that the way one MNs (often tired, multitasking and trying to keep up with fast moving threads) is the way one communicates in RL

"Qally- Dyscalculia?"

Yes! Thank you!

DH is now home, thank God. So I'm off to bed. (Friday night raging, mummy-style.)