To think so many posts have poor English?

[poordiction]

What's happened to people posting properly? Poor language, missing words, bad punctuation

Why did you assume English is everyone's language on here? I would imagine their are many posters for whom it's a second language, third, whatever.

And so what if some posters have a lower IQ? Does that mean they shouldn't be posting, that their views and experience aren't valid and worthy of consideration?

If you silence them, what next? Do they really have the right to live at all in your view?

Really, if you can't see how absolutely horrible and dangerous views like this are, I think you are the "stupid" one. (I use "stupid" here to refer not to a low IQ but to a toxic lack of any moral or emotional intelligence).

I can't spell very well - I'm dyslexic. I make a lot of the mistakes with the homophones you list in your post - I always have done. I was allowed in to Oxford University to read English. Clearly their criteria are lower than yours for being allowed to post on a parenting chat website ......

@AllProperTeaIsTheft , there is real shame attached to making mistakes in your own language
There doesn't seem to be any shame or embarrassment, otherwise we wouldn't be seeing the same mistakes over and over.

Some posts are barely legible, which means that the poster isn't communicating clearly.

I'm not that bothered about typos or spelling mistakes as long as the meaning is clear.

@mollyfolk , People may not have had much education, may have learning difficulties, may be writing in a second language or maybe they are just stressed. People who lack spelling/grammer skills can still be very intelligent.

Most will have received education from the ages of 5 to 16 years. Many will be monoglot. Some will be stressed or in a hurry, or perhaps had a drink. Some might make typos or just not be good at spelling and grammar (note the spelling). Some might have dyslexia.

From the way poor English is defended on this site, you'd think it was predominantly for parents who are either non-native speakers or have dyslexia.

Edited to correct a typo.

Ha ha. I didn’t spot that at the time. It’s very true - sometimes people just make typos.

The 'was' and 'were' are dialect options in the north of England.

@mollyfolk , I make typos far too often.
@ElizaMulvil , also in Essex. It doesn't stop it being grating.

It's a known fact that informal language is more difficult to acquire than formal, standard language. For several reasons.

Semantics- informal language is more likely to be idiomatic and be impossible to translate literally into other languages.

Tone and stylistic/pragmatic choices- what's appropriate in one situation may be completely inappropriate in another and from the language itself, that may not be immediately apparent

Syntax and grammar- elided words, short forms, abbreviations- all more commonly used in informal utterances than formal, with little overt rhyme or reason as to why.

I admit that I find posts that are just a great wall of text without punctuation or paragraphs difficult to read.

There was one the other day and posters did berate the OP for it, but I'm afraid I just gave up trying to read it and moved on. This is worrying because the OP may have needed support, but posters were just telling them off for a badly written post, or doing what I did and gave up.

I realise that people might not have English as a first language (often their posts are written very well though), they may be dyslexic, they may have a Kindle Fire that auto corrects with odd words even though spellcheck is switched off (this happens to me all the time ), or they may just have not been well educated.

I try to keep an open mind, but I hold my hand up and admit that poor grammar and badly written posts can be frustrating to read, although I bite my tongue.

❤️

@LonginesPrime , because when you learn a language formally, you tend to see the words in 'proper English'. When you learn it from just being around it, you don't see the structure. e.g. 'I do not know.' vs 'Dunno' or 'Dont no'

i grew up in an era where the vast majority of people knew the difference between bear/bare, draw/drawer etc
I don't know when it became the case that these errors became almost the norm.

@RampantIvy "I admit that I find posts that are just a great wall of text without punctuation or paragraphs difficult to read."

I agree. Sometimes a person makes no attempt whatever at making sentences and you get posts when it's difficult to understand what they wanted to say. You really can't always 'get what the person meant'.

OP, what do you have against full stops?

It’s because she doesn’t like bad punctuation. 😂

Did they know how to use capital letters at the beginning of sentences?

Maybe those other people's errors are as a result of typing quickly, or fat thumbs, or predictive text. Or whatever the reason for your glaring mistake was.

When was that then? Have you looked at the statistics on literacy levels over the years in the U.K.?

Mustn't it be horrible to read threads like this if you have learning difficulties.

I'm glad this has moved. You never know if nonsense like this is going to put off some poor soul in a crisis from posting for help.
Not a phrase I thought I would use but check your privilege.

@RaraRachael , maybe you didn't see the errors then?

I'm not mother tongue English, but when I watch tv in my mother tongue, the standard of the language is quite poor. I was watching something with teachers speaking and the grammatical errors were shocking.

Those of us in PC care! There is a vast difference between the phrase 'Tiger Woods played around' and 'Tiger Woods played a round'
A comma can make all the difference to context
Clarity is safety, particularly when undertaking international projects
Saying 'as long as everyone understands' contributes to the general level of decline in punctuation, spelling and grammar

Have they been published?

You aren't a linguist, are you?

You're conflating written and spoken language- the Tiger Woods example would only be pertinent to written text, and the context would make it understood. Unless (in spoken English) the incorrect sentence was being measured acoustically for the slight difference in stress on the "a", it would not be misunderstood.

And those of us who used to frequent PC when it was a place to discuss language quirks (like how come "around" and "a round" get confused due to the phonetic values being transferred to written values) do agree with @Tinkerbyebye btw.

Now it's evolved into a nasty "point at the thicko" corner and is frequented generally by people who don't know nearly as much about language as they think they do (see Dunning-Kruger) not so much.

Ooh, barbed!
Obviously I am not a linguist; is it a requirement to have a view on the use of written and/or spoken English? Or is the requirement to have frequented PC before it was overrun with the non-linguits who conflate writing and speaking?

I admit that I find posts that are just a great wall of text without punctuation or paragraphs difficult to read.

Is that due to a difficulty of your own? I find it a little baffling that it often seems to be the posters with apparently high literacy standards and expectations who claim to struggle with their comprehension when faced with poorly-punctuated or poorly-spelled posts lacking paragraphs. One would think that those highly literate people would be better at deciphering imperfectly-written posts than the other posters (who seem to manage to read and respond perfectly well). Personally I find it easy to read walls of text with no paragraphs.

I disagree.
A wall of uninterrupted text is off putting. It has been proved psychologically, and is one of the main principles of marketing that you break up chunks of text into smaller bits.

I am not alone in being put off. I just don't have the patience to read it.

@quisensoucie , More to the point, have they been proofread?
"I have written novels so I can write ok off my phone."
That statement is ambiguous.

@RaraRachael , re. my maybe you didn't see the errors then?
What I meant was that before we could use a forum or SMS to communicate, the errors may not have been as obvious.