I just want to have a little grumble then I'll be off.

[Pipbin]

I am a teacher and I am aware that my grammar and punctuation is not perfect.
I have a lovely, wonderful TA who is actually a nursery nurse and has a degree. She is brilliant and I would be lost without her.
I asked her to type up some quotes for a display. First she asked if a word needed 'one of those comma things in it'. It was a plural so no apostrophe needed. Then I needed to change cause to because and every their to they're.
She has a degree, an actual degree.

This merely confirms the uselessness of degrees, and particularly as a measuring technique for employment.

I shall be old and grumpy and blame it on spell and grammar checkers because they weren't common when I went to university.

There was also a teaching colleague who used to write 'could of' when marking children's work, and the large number who don't know that bought and brought are two different words, but that's another grumble.

I don't think they teach grammar in university.

It's really depressing. I work at a Russell Group university where the great majority of the students have AAB or better A levels. The number who don't know the difference between "their", "there" and "they're" is staggering. I think the problem is that they haven't read enough.

They shouldn't need to teach it in university, no. However, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that somebody who has a degree should somewhere along the way have learned how to make a standard English plural and what the difference is between their and they're.

Shouldn't they teach grammar all through primary and secondary?

I was only taught a few little things then I was left to my own devices (parents didn't give a toss).

Crispy. No grammer isn't taught at university but I would hope that someone who has had to get a-levels and write dissertations would be educated to a high enough level.

FWIW, I have a PhD (and rather higher) and edit/peer review other people's writing for a living. Spell checkers (and my terrible 'fingers before brain' typing) mean that my own written work sometimes includes things which I would be wholly intolerant of in the writings of others.

I would have hoped that by university level a basic grasp of grammar would have already been achieved, uni tutors shouldn't be expected to be correcting spelling and punctuation.

I suppose that her being wonderful and lovely matters more than the grammar! But I'm glad you're there to put it right.

Pipbin - grammer????? Even my iPad struggled to allow me to use your misspelling of grammar.

Grammar, punctuation and the difference between there, their and they're has nothing to do with whether or not you went to uni. I didn't, nor did I take A levels but I would like to think I have a good grasp of the above, as they were taught to me in primary and secondary schools.

Ps my lack of formal education has nothing to do with my intelligence, and everything to do with my laziness

Good heavens, Mutton. I blame the drink. I had been out watching Eurovision.

You don't see the irony at all?

I do very much.

'Tis Muphry's Law again. (When you criticise someone's grammar/spelling you'll make a cock-up while doing it.) Typed very carefully

But Pipbin, at least she's learning now! Maybe she's never had to think about it before. I, too, blame lack of reading books these days.