People spelling dinning instead of dining

[Quirrelsotherface]

I despair, I really do. Also 'are' instead of 'our'. Makes my teeth itch.

Have grammar standards gone massively downhill in recent years or is it just that we see more dreadful spelling and grammar because of Facebook etc? It's depressing.

My phone has a life of it's own and quite often auto correct which I go back and rectify only for auto correct to change it again. After I've done this a few times I tend to think fuck off and leave it.
I also tend to chuck a spell check through anything important and if that doesnt suggest it's wrong I wont have a clue.

Some people of a certain age - educated in the 70s - had a dreadful time in some instances, grammar and spelling not taught. So that is one tranche of people.

We will move this one over to pedants' corner OP. We can't see it ending well here. Thank you for the reports

We will move this one over to pedants' corner OP. We can't see it ending well here. Thank you for the reports

There you go OP, now you can have that chat with like minded people. 😂

@Hopdathelf

I’m as much a pedant as the next person but there’s a corner for people like us and you should get this slightly ableist thread moved there.

And up until a few years ago, this corner wasn't for people like you. It was a corner where people interested in the quirks of language usage gathered to have a chat.

It was then taken over by the ubiquitous "isn't everyone else thick" posts.

Still, Muphry always, but always, gets to have his day.

@CarolineMumsnet

We will move this one over to pedants' corner OP. We can't see it ending well here. Thank you for the reports

It won't end well here either, trust me. Time to reclaim PC for what its original use was I reckon.

@loveisagirlnameddaisy

There was a guy on the news today talking about having 'less friends' and I was shouting 'it's fewer, not less' at the TV. Spelling and grammar are two different things and I'm sure some people are great at one, but not the other. But it's no different to not being great at adding up in your head, and yet I don't see loads of criticism for that.

There's an excellent thread on here from a few years ago as to why "less" with countables isn't as incorrect as those who think they know everything about grammar believe. David Crystal (our greatest living linguist) often speaks about it too. Very enlightening.

OP- I see you don't value correct punctuation as much? Why is that?

Standards definitely are slipping.

Somethink is awful.
Of instead of have.

I know language evolves but for goodness sake make it a positive change.

@SunshineCake

Standards definitely are slipping.

Somethink is awful.
Of instead of have.

I know language evolves but for goodness sake make it a positive change.

goodness' sake.

It will be interesting to see if introducing grammar in the ks2 sats will have an effect. The grammar curriculum was introduced about 6 years ago so those children will just be approaching adulthood now. I have taught it for several years now and find it very interesting, though it did highlight to me that I'd had minimal grammar or spelling education myself 20 years previously.

I know language evolves but for goodness sake make it a positive change.

for goodness' sake

@User65412

It will be interesting to see if introducing grammar in the ks2 sats will have an effect. The grammar curriculum was introduced about 6 years ago so those children will just be approaching adulthood now. I have taught it for several years now and find it very interesting, though it did highlight to me that I'd had minimal grammar or spelling education myself 20 years previously.

That's very true. I was at secondary school in the 80s and we had no grammar teaching whatsoever. Except in foreign languages.

I think that it seems fewer and fewer children are studying a foreign language to even GCSE level these days also has an impact on their understanding of how our language works.
Learning the rules of grammar in another language is a handy comparative tool for English too.
(We even used to parse sentences back in the day -- now that's what I call grammar.)

Bare instead of bear, as in 'I cannot bear it any more'

I read a lot as a child, anything I could get my hands on. Books from the library every week and newspapers when I visited my Grandparents'. I do wonder if that has a massive influence on spelling and correct use of words. Either way I am trying to instill a love of reading in my DC for this very reason!

@User65412, yes, a great point. I taught in ks2 for a few years and loved teaching grammar. The children seemed to enjoy it, too. Whether it's had any effect, who knows?
My background is in foreign languages so grammar was one of my favourite things to teach.

@Quirrelsotherface, same here. My siblings and I didn't have a privileged upbringing (financially), but every Saturday without fail, my dad would take us to the library and we'd select our books. We all love reading 40 years later and it most definitely helps our grammatical understanding and usage.

@PieMistee

I am dyslexic and always struggle with double letters. I have two first class degrees so not thick just dyslexic.

Actually having a degree or several, doesn't mean a person is not thick in other areas.

[quote Amdone123]@User65412, yes, a great point. I taught in ks2 for a few years and loved teaching grammar. The children seemed to enjoy it, too. Whether it's had any effect, who knows?
My background is in foreign languages so grammar was one of my favourite things to teach. [/quote]
I'd agree with that too. My first degree is MFL and linguistics and I'm an English teacher. I find grammar fascinating and I love teaching it. I also teacher train and once you've got the teachers teaching inductively- so the kids extrapolate the rules themselves, it's plain sailing and won't be forgotten.
I'm not in the UK, so don't know how it's taught there, but yes, am pleased to see it back on the curriculum. I remember lots of huffing and puffing on here back when it was first put back- lots of "why do we need to know what a cleft sentence is and that that's what it's called?" Well, fair enough, but I can't think of why I ever needed to know that if you drop one chemical into a pot with another you blow your house up, but they made me do that at school too.

And yes to the reading. In my amateur opinion, nothing else matters quite as much in a child's early education as instilling that love of books. I teach 14-18 year olds and you can spot a mile off the ones who don't read.

@CarolineMumsnet

We will move this one over to pedants' corner OP. We can't see it ending well here. Thank you for the reports

Pedants' corner used to be mainly for interesting discussions of language rather than for people attempting to show off their superiority and sneering at other's mistakes.

It's just that you see more people's writing. And some people have poor literacy skills as they always have.