When is it appropriate to correct someone?

[ItsFineReally]

Prompted by "Should I of gotten?"...

I am aware that if a post can be easily understood, despite spelling and grammatical errors, it's generally considered poor form to point out those mistakes.

Threads being derailed by multiple posters all making the same (but irrelevant to the issue) point can be frustrating as a reader. This must be moreso the case for the OP whose a genuine problem may be being overlooked while this is going on.

But... at what point is the error so egregious as to make it appropriate to correct someone? For instance, is pointing out that "lose" is the correct word, not "loose," ever helpful? Should errors be left uncorrected on social media altogether, or are there cases where it’s necessary to address them?

What’s your personal threshold for when you feel compelled to make a correction?

But is that to appease the kind of prick that would judge you for it? If you were never corrected, you'd never know and wouldn't care. It's only when someone makes a big enough deal of it to feel it needs correcting that you discover your error and start to feel self conscious about it. 😉

Ooh, it's like one of those philosophical questions... if a tree falls and there's no-one to hear it, does it make a sound? If you're always wrong but you don't know it, do you care? 😄

Can you explain this to me? Why it’s wrong, it’s not making sense in my head

The unambiguous problem is that it should be "have" not "of". It's simply a common error caused by a mishearing.

Gotten is non-standard/informal American English which some people dislike, but IMO it's fine in context.

I'd be fine with "Should I have gotten..?" in an informal context.

IMO "Should I have got" would be just hideous but I can't exactly express why. I instinctively feel that "got" is ugly in this usage, and I'd rather stick with a colloquial "gotten" or move to a more formal and specific "Should I have bought/ chosen/ picked up...?"

ahhh I see thank you for the explaining. I think because I’d say it the same as you- ‘should I have bought’ etc I could grasp why it was wrong. I’ve not heard it before

We didn't do English grammar at school in the eighties but the one thing that was drummed into us was that using "got" as an all-purpose Swiss Army knife verb should be avoided. Maybe that's why it makes me flinch.

On MN almost never, unless, as a pp said, it's going to cause the OP a real life issue (for instance when they share an email they're thinking of sending).

As for all the posters here who think they should correct people in order to protect the English language, I'm sorry, but it's not your responsibility to do so, and that one mistake that you shame someone for, is not going to save the world from 'should of' all by itself.

None of us know the person behind the error. What their trials are, what their background is, what their mental health or self-confidence is like. It's arrogant and unkind to shame them publicly.

I had an assistant who was close to illiterate. She was my favourite ever assistant. We could work around her literacy issues and no-one minded because she was so great in so many other ways, and lovely with it. However, her confidence was through the floor. Whenever I see an error on here that I want to correct, I think of her, and what it would do to her if she was the person posting that error and being shamed.

The worst people on this board are those who pick at a SPAG error from someone going through a hellish experience and coming here in despair for help. I've seen it happen several times, and it appalls me.

Gotten is non-standard/informal American English which some people dislike, but IMO it's fine in context.

It’s not just used in American English.
I’m Irish and it’s widely used here. It never died out as it did in many parts of GB. Other older forms of English survive in Hiberno-English too. For example, in my part of Ireland the word ye is used for you plural when speaking and also when writing informally.

Similarly, lots of words survived in America but died out at home. The American word diaper came from the English name for a type of patterned cloth.

Shakespeare used both gotten and diaper.

I’m not talking about this thread at all, but I often feel that people on MN can forget that people from all over the world post on here. There is more than one standard form of English even within the UK. What is non-standard in one form may be standard in another (aitch versus haitch springs to mind), so that’s another reason to be very wary about correcting people.

It's interesting that so many posters have used the word 'shamed'. That's quite a strong emotion/word/reaction.

I always thought it was "bored with" not "bored of".
Could someone clarify please.

No matter how much "language changes", would of will never, ever, ever be correct.

Have you got a cat?
No, but I would have had a cat if my parents would have allowed it.

Of you got a cat? - Doesn't look or sound right. But if my parents would've allowed me a cat and I said that, sufficient people who don't read things other than social media might think I said would of, and carry on saying and writing that.

This is how it began.

Bored by?

@InSearchOfMartin , you of no idea, of you. Did you not promise to of and to hold? Of you never heard off language evolving? Do you not of it off with your DH? Of you any children? I of a cat.

To of (verb)
Myself of, yourself of, they of, we of, you of, they of.

Of a nice weekend!

Is it all right to correct a BBC presenter who said, "......never having drank coffee", or is it a changing world where I haven't noticed that 'never having drunk coffee' and 'never having drank coffee' are both perfectly acceptable, nay, are being taught as such in UK schools and to students of English language in schools abroad?

Bored with or bored by, never bored of.

Why do people get so pissed off when they are corrected? It doesn't happen in other languages. It's almost as if by correcting spelling or grammar they are being told they are worthless, not thanking the correcter.

I even noticed Ed Gamble on Traitors Uncloaked correct himself to say click instead of clique when talking to Liv. It's like we have to dumb ourselves down or we're seen as above ourselves in some way.

Because people with literacy issues probably struggled at school and will have already had their confidence knocked by that.
When they come on to Mumsnet to ask advice or share something, having a SPAG error pointed out is going to bruise them yet again. All the more because it would be out of the blue.

I'll reiterate, anyone who corrects the spelling or grammar of someone who's come here because they're worried or upset by a situation, needs to work on their empathy.

Oh I didn't mean on here - absolutely it's about their issue not SPAG. I meant in general.

I'm a proof reader have always wondered what the people I have proof read think when I change 'of to have' or 'gotten' or a seemingly unlimited amount of corrections. I get paid handsomely, and my job is very busy, for doing what they should have learnt in school. There is a vast difference in writing between someone with dyslexia etc, or just illiteracy. I never correct anyone outside of my work. But do judge them harshly.

"just" illiteracy?

Human beings span a large range of cognitive abilities and intelligence. For some, SPAG comes easily. For others, putting aside dyslexia, it's a lot harder. Possibly because their brains aren't wired that way, or they've not had the upbringing and opportunities that have made education easy for them, or... well all kinds of reasons.

It's taken decades for me to lose the snobbery and judgementalism that I used to carry around with me about SPAG. Fortunately some wonderful colleagues who worked in my class team, taught me a bit of humility. Their SPAG wasn't great, but they brought skills and qualities that I was enormously grateful for. The best assistant I ever had was close to illiterate. But the rest of us could work around that, and she was at the top of my dream team list.

Poor old ‘gotten’.