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See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Isn't about time MNHQ started deleting posts that attack people's spelling and grammar?

508 replies

cuntycowfacemonkey · 28/05/2015 22:06

(In advance I will say any of my posts are likely to have spelling and grammar mistakes)

It's such a shitty thing to do and often it is directed at poster who then feel they have to explain themselves and disclose they have dyslexia. I don't understand why MN tolerate people with potential disabilities being mocked in this way?

Why can it not be regarded as a personal attack and such comments deleted. Very often the arses that post comments about another posters spelling bring nothing else to the thread and usually it derails the thread and the OP's original issue gets lost in the ensuing bunfight.

OP posts:
DixieNormas · 28/05/2015 23:55

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

JeanneDeMontbaston · 28/05/2015 23:56

Plenty of people write really well, and still can't do SPAG.

Benjamin Zephaniah, for example, or the YA author Sally Gardner. I think some people like written words even if they're not very good at the detail. Others are absolutely fine on accuracy but really don't care much - I know someone like this. He's one of your 'I never read books' types, although he has a perfectly good A* at GCSE English.

ghostspirit · 29/05/2015 00:03

i had this on my thread i made to night. i did say i have dyslexia i dont know how to use grammar/punctuation.

it does not offend me at all. although it probably does other people. i kind of find it funny that dyslexia has to be pointed out to someone who thinks they are clever to point out the spelling/grammar of someone who is dyslexia.

then again someone might just be a bit shit and spelling/grammar...so bloody what

Bakeoffcake · 29/05/2015 00:10

I agree with you Ghost about pointing out the blooming obvious.

It's a bit like shouting at someone to speak more clearly when they've got a speech problem. (Like some twat did to my 4 year old, at the time she was seeing a speech therapist)

CuttedUpPear · 29/05/2015 00:16

I LOVE seeing people corrected.
And I do a fair bit of it myself.
And I have learnt a few things about grammar.
You wouldn't get that on Hunsnet.

ghostspirit · 29/05/2015 00:19

omg bakeoff did you go back to the speech therapist? your poor child.

emmelinelucas · 29/05/2015 00:20

I have discalculia and I manage very well (I think).
It is when someone posts a vast tract without paragraphs/few full stops/capital letters that throws me. It just looks like a page of squiggles to my eyes.
I just can't read them.

emmelinelucas · 29/05/2015 00:26

Oh, and when someone, say, asks

How do I clean my washing machine xxxx
Why the kisses ??? why?
I don't think that is a spelling thing, I just had to get it in somewhere.
As we were.

cuntycowfacemonkey · 29/05/2015 00:32

I never spotted many xx on MN, they're probably newbies and probably drop the habit very quickly!

People do it on facebook selling pages a lot "Can I have this please, will pm you xxx"

Always freaks me out a bit!

OP posts:
cuntycowfacemonkey · 29/05/2015 00:34

Although I'm more freaked out by the fact that I then reply "Of course xxx" because it feels rude not to reciprocate Confused

OP posts:
emmelinelucas · 29/05/2015 00:39

I notice because it annoys me so much.
I wonder if it is younger people who tend to litterkiss.
Like on text messages.
And facebook, but I don't go on there. I would explode.

ghostspirit · 29/05/2015 00:41

dyslexic people also see written words differently on paper. such as the words/letters move. it does this for me. not all the time though. for me its more likely to happen if im working from say laptop and a book. a bit like this

Isn't about time MNHQ started deleting posts that attack people's spelling and grammar?
emmelinelucas · 29/05/2015 00:49

ghost - yes, yes, that is what happens when I see some long posts.
Astonishing that anyone else sees what I do.
Shock

emmelinelucas · 29/05/2015 00:50

or sees what I see, even. It is too late to still be awake.

Koalafications · 29/05/2015 00:52

When I see a poster correct another posters spelling/grammar I always think "what a cunt"

Viviennemary · 29/05/2015 00:57

I would full support this. It is totally unacceptable to point out grammatical and spelling errors.

AtomicDog · 29/05/2015 01:04

Why is it, vivienne?
If it's not a personal attack, but pointing out the error?

If I received a job application where the applicant used 'your' instead of 'you're', 'of' instead of 'have', 'brought' instead of 'bought etc, I would put it straight into the bin pile. If people can get help on MN for anything under the sun, why shouldn't they get help with SPAG?

Not in a cunty way (and I don't think I've ever pulled someone up nastily, and I would never point out errors where the OP was distressed, time and place etc), just helpfully.

And not by PM! That made me Shock

Philoslothy · 29/05/2015 01:06

I speak with a strong regional accent, when I started university people often made a great deal out of the fact that they could not understand me. They were trying to make me feel small, they succeeded.

As an adult I have had to make a huge effort with my spelling and grammar, I don't have the cultural or linguistic capital that most Mners seem to have. I don't make s huge effort on here because I am chatting, it is informal. I have had my spelling and grammar corrected a few times by people attempting to make me feel small. My favourite time being during a post about a miscarriage.

SilverNightFairy · 29/05/2015 01:06

I always post with some trepidation. I take a seizure medication which affects the way I see sentences. In written and spoken word, it is not uncommon for me to drop a word, even though my brain believes I have made a complete sentence. I often do not realise I have made this error until long after I have posted. I would be ashamed and embarrassed if someone pulled me up on MN. I come to this forum for the support and comraderie of other women.

SilverNightFairy · 29/05/2015 01:08

Philoslothy, so sorry that happened to you... Flowers

wannaBe · 29/05/2015 01:14

ok, so people want to correct other people's spelling and grammar. Fine. Except stop being so bloody disingenuous about it. Let's be honest here, you're not correcting spelling and grammar because you think that they might appreciate the correction/should aspire to do better/perhaps didn't know that they had got it wrong/. You correct their spelling and grammar because it annoys you personally.

I hate text speak. And I mean really hate it, and yes, I think it shows a lack of inteligence and that actually, there is no reason in the world to use it. But that is about my personal view, not about wanting someone else to better themselves, because reality is they probably don't care.

On the whole I am anal about writing. In fact I am currently writing this on my phone, but with a bluetooth keyboard so I can write more. Grin However, I am VI, and as such I learned to read braille at an early age. And braille is contracted in order to make it less bulky. As such, from the age of seven I never saw a word written out in its whole form. With the invention of computers so also came the invention of the screenreader. And when you are reading with a screenreader you read down a line at a time, so e.g. I will scroll to a line in a post and it will read it for me as a sentence, not letter for letter. As such I also don't see words written out unless I actively look for them. And the other thing about screenreaders is that they don't necessarily pronounce misspelled words in such a way that you would know that they were misspelled, iyswim. Sometimes they do, if your post contains typo's I will most likely notice them. Sometimes if a word contains a double letter and you have a single one, it will mispronounce the word, and if you leave out punctuation then it reads as one continuous string of text with no spaces which is highly irritating. Grin But words like there and their, or know and no are pronounced exactly the same. Now I am also a bit of a grammar pedant and as such I know full well the difference between know and no, but someone else might not know, because they have never seen the words written out in full, for instance.

And most importantly, this is an internet forum, it is not a professional platform where spelling and grammar really makes a difference. I am currently in the process of looking for jobs, and I am constantly horrified at the number of job adverts that are full of spelling mistakes and typo's. And believe me, if I can see them with a screenreader then they must be bad. Wink and the worst of it is that these job adverts call for good written communication skills... Grin now there is an area which needs some serious pedantry throwing in its direction. But to expect people to put in serious effort to reply on what is basically a means for people to kill time? get real.

People occasionally pull me up on my spelling. Now I don't mind if it's a genuine error which is obvious, but otherwise it says far more about them than it does me. I remember years ago writing a very long and thought out response to a post in relationships where an op was considering terminating a pregnancy, something which was highly emotive. And the next response was from theDevilWearsPrimark correcting one word in my post (of several paragraphs) which I had misspelled. Hmm And yes, I can name her because it turned out she was a long-standing troll. Grin

It's simple really. if a post is so full of mistakes that it either triggers your pedant alarm or is unreadable then don't read it. There are millions of other threads here to read, and if the poster needs genuine help, then your pedantry is not going to make them feel better is it?

ghostspirit · 29/05/2015 01:20

i friend showed me the diffrenece between bought and brought. b(r)ought you b(r)ing something. think about the R. bought you buy something. no R. thats how i remember it.

i cant do the your..you're i dont know the diffrence and i forget it within seconds. i had to scan back up so i could write your're...

i do kind of understand why an employer would throw an application in the bin. although narrow minded. i kind of get it as well.

if i was filling in an application for i would ask for help doing it.

Philoslothy · 29/05/2015 01:21

If I received a job application where the applicant used 'your' instead of 'you're', 'of' instead of 'have', 'brought' instead of 'bought etc, I would put it straight into the bin pile. If people can get help on MN for anything under the sun, why shouldn't they get help with SPAG?

Well if they ask for help that would be fine, although I would never be brave enough to ask on here. However I have rarely seen a correction given because a poster asked for it.

If I filled in a job application form it would be correct because I am applying for a job. However on here I am just chatting informally, often about random bollocks. Do people also correct people's use of the spoken word during the flow of conversation? How is that received? Of course in spoken face to face conversation you have facial cues and hand gestures which could lessen the chance of you coming across as a condescending twat.

I am also amused that some posters think that they have a moral duty to educate the plebs. This may come as a surprise but I don't need help getting a job.

wannaBe · 29/05/2015 01:23

I would throw an application in the bin for bad spelling/grammar. But on mn we're not applying for a job, so there is a vast difference. If a thread is full of text speak I simply don't read it. I guess that's the equivalent of throwing it in the bin... Wink

AtomicDog · 29/05/2015 01:38

ghostspririt- it's not narrow minded when all my advertisements state that an excellent command of English, including the ability to communicate in the written form, is essential!