Just so exhausted with the lack of language skills here

[Pebbles16]

Honestly, does anyone else just give up reading posts because the command of language is so poor?
Not talking about people who have English as a second language, because you can read through that.
I feel like such a moaner, but it really does make me feel so sad that people cannot truly communicate in their own language.

Why, thank you kindly. 😍 @ColleenDonaghy

Making up fanciful ideas of the medical secretary's parentage to justify why she typed the word gotten on a hospital letter.

The title of this thread is one of the most outrageously wanky things I have ever read on MN in the 17 years I have been using it.

If a post comes even within a bargepole length of 'exhausting' me I just (ta da!) stop reading it.

You're the one who said you thought she was Welsh.

But you're making assumptions about her background by assuming the usage of a very normal word was in some way inappropriate.

You were probably raised to believe that "gotten" is an awful word. Whereas where I was raised, got would have been corrected to gotten.

You have zero idea about the medical secretary's background.

Some people can have impeccable grammar yet produce nothing but inane drivel. Others can be far less literate and yet offer incredibly wise and insightful opinions and observations.

You are judging the worth of a letter solely by the quality of the envelope it comes in. I think you should reflect on whether you really are as intellectually superior as you like to think you are.

It's pretty much a UK pastime right - getting their knickers in a twist about language and classifying people based on how they speak. When the health system is collapsing and the economy is going down the drain the middle class can still comfort themselves on their superior language skills.

I agree with you.

Oh, come off it. Mumsnet has a pretty high overall standard of G&P.

And also, if you're not being paid to edit it, ignore it. 🤷🏼‍♀️

I was referring to its usage now, not its origins. Firmly American until relatively recently.

Don't loose sleep over it OP. You could of found yourself in a much worse off site.

Honestly, does anyone else just give up reading posts because the command of language is so poor?

No. I find the moaning about it very tiresome though. I speak four languages and teach three of them for a living, and spemd quite a lot of time correcting SPaG mistakes.. I find it perfectly easy to read all posts on MN. Tbh I tend to assume that the people who claim not to be able to cope with reading the terrible prose on MN either have very poor comprehension skills or are just trying to sound superior.

Except in the places it never left (Ireland, Scotland, I believe parts of England).

Thank you for trying to educate me but I already know that. For the record I'm Welsh. I live in Wales. I don't speak fluent Welsh nor am I bi-lingual. I work with Welsh speakers but I speak English. So don't think for one moment I have a second language.

Where are you drawing the arbitrary linguistic line?
How are you defining "recently".

Language change happens over centuries. And isn't, as I said, retrograde. "Gotten" left England. It won't come back and replace "got" where "got" is predominant.

"Firmly American" yes. And Irish. And Scottish. And iirc, some other English dialects.

This is pedant's corner. If a person can't moan here about poor grammar, it's a little unfair surely?

You make it sound like speaking more than one language is a bad thing.

Is that you Anne?

There hasn't been any poor grammar on this thread to moan about.

There are lots of other unpleasant threads in PC where smug people talk about other Mumsnetters' grammar mistakes and pat themselves on their smug little backs at how clever they are, but as you can see, this thread instead has turned into a nice discussion rooted in historical and sociolinguistics.

Where did you get that from?

I didn't think you did have a second language

Because people who are fluent in multiple languages tend to be a little more understanding of differences of dialect and word choices that might be made if you are translating from one language to another in your head

I work with a Greek guy, and an Indian woman on a daily basis and I'm Welsh (and a first language Welsh speaker at that). Sometimes our language isn't perfect but I am always amazed at the capacity for people to work in their second or even third language and still manage to understand each other.

But you continue to sneer at someone writing in what might be their second language whilst you can only speak one as if that's something to be proud of

The words you wrote, in particular the final sentence.

Doesn't it just!

I would HAVE said.

"I strongly suspect she is Welsh". I know her name and the hospital is in Wales so yes she could possibly be Welsh.