Overwhelming poor SPAG

[MagpiePi]

The proliferation of poor SPAG that I see on this site is just overwhelming, and I despair (or should that be dispare? 🙄)

Their/they’re/there, your/you’re, to/too used randomly and interchangeably, loose instead of lose, advise instead of advice, not to mention the abuse of ‘s.

I know we are all supposed to be forgiving and not correct anyone’s errors as not everyone is well educated or has dyslexia, or will be given an inferiority complex, or, we just have to accept that language evolves and meanings change. But there has to be a limit otherwise how do you know what anyone actually means?

I understand what you’re saying, but that last sentence is grammatically correct, uses the right sentence structure and the words are correctly spelled apart from the gaps. Try doing something similar using the mangled grammar and vocab you see here, and I’ll wager you’d find it much less easy.

Except that was what mumsnet was for years (before penis beaker). It was unashamedly the site that used proper SPAG and those who didn't like it were redirected to net huns.

" We shouldn't have to waste time proofreading our posts" but you expect your readers to waste their time trying to decipher your posts.

I can’t understand why people who complain that they’re “overwhelmed” by the poor standard of SpaG on MN and claim they can barely understand most of the posts don’t just stop using the site or accept that that’s just how it is.
Most of the contributors on here are real people.
They might have poor SpaG for a wide variety of different reasons or they might just not be arsed.
Either way you can’t just demand a better standard of English.
No one on here owes it to you.
Some people don’t like cursing/ strong language. They can moan about it and claim it stresses them out and ruins their experience of MN but they can’t expect everyone to accommodate them and neither can you.
Some people act like it’s compulsory to be on here and vital to be able to understand the posts. It’s really not.

There are so many aids to help people to use correct spelling and grammar, that they must deliberately be ignored.

I think you mean "that they must deliberately be being ignored". HTH!

so did I!

Actually, as someone with dyslexia who sight-reads rather than decodes words it is very challenging to read posts where people are using the wrong words. I just scroll by but there are an increasing number of posts that are written so badly that I simply can’t engage at all.

Facebook is unbelievable, I’m in a few travel groups with people who clearly have some money to spend, but one wonders what they did to get it because I can’t imagine it involved pen and paper.

So snobby. I bet a lot of builders, electricians and plumbers etc are doing a lot better than people who rely on "pen and paper"!

While we're at it, there isn't such a thing as 100000%. You can agree 100%. Or not.

Either way you can’t just demand a better standard of English

You could just overwhelm those posters perhaps

So you’d be overwhelming anyone with poor spag with maybe a detention, grammar lessons and a stern talking to, tell them to buck up their ideas or something like that…

Not snobby at all. We’ve worked with plenty of builders, electricians and plumbers with perfectly good SPAG, as evidenced in their estimates and correspondence. Why would you assume I meant tradesmen?

I don’t agree with your analogy. Writing a post on a public site, with a potential audience of hundreds, is arguably more akin in speaking terms to presenting on stage to a large audience rather than chatting with your mates in the pub.

The goal should be clear communication. We all make mistakes and I’m not suggesting we should all be hung up on fronted adverbials etc. However, taking a little time to ensure posts can be easily understood by readers without having to decipher what might have been meant is a courtesy to your intended audience.

AI does this effortlessly and its output is easier to read than a post littered with spelling and grammar errors. It would be a real shame if people prefer reading posts written by bots than a real people.

I’m going through a very stressful time at the moment, and some of those posts have genuinely made me laugh out loud, so thank you.

I was educated in a very strict environment that involved physical punishment. I still struggle with my spelling, grammar, and my times tables. I used to read an enormous amount until I had children, and I think a lot of my grammar is intuitive rather than fully understood. My spelling is better when I don’t overthink it — as soon as I start concentrating on it, I begin to struggle.

You can't agree 100000% unless there are a thousand of you.

As a pedant, misuse of percentages annoys me as much as poor SPAG.

Double ganger makes no sense.

Presumably "Doppel" is German for double, so it sort of does.

How in God's name did she manage to pass her dissertation?

It always irritates me when someone who is blatantly not dyslexic trots it out as an excuse if they are challenged about a gibberish post. It seems quite cynical, and unfair to genuine dyslexics.

To be fair, undergraduate degrees don't always involve dissertations.

However, I've recently started doing some work which requires me to check drafts produced by people most of who have at least A levels and many have degrees. I'm constantly surprised at just how much they seem to struggle to express themselves lucidly, and their lack of knowledge of basics like the correct usage of apostrophes, colons and semi colons. How on earth did they get through exams?

It wasn’t an error though. I was using the word I wanted; ‘overwhelming’, as an adjective, and another poster was insistent that I should have used the adverb ‘overwhelmingly’.

I suppose my point is that like other pp I can’t be bothered to read a post that is written as a stream of consciousness with no punctuation, random use of homonyms and multiple misspellings. I feel bad because often it is someone in a dire situation who deserves a hearing, but I really can’t be arsed to ‘bare’ with them and to try and decipher what is happening.

Shall I point out where you have missed a few commas there?!🤣

Perhaps they are overwhelmed by the frequent use of poor SPAG?

Does anyone no if the buses are running today

Iv asked my hubby and his going to have a look

Top bloke Bill was i used to go to there house after school

NE1 want scrap needs gone now

All seen today on Facebook.