Grammar Post

[Jacob]

..... if a native speaker doesn't know the niceties of the grammar of their own language, or how to spell or pronounce a word, they have no business using constructions they haven't yet grasped, or the word they can't handle properly.

They need the practice and they may have important things to say, however badly they say it. And nobody will get run over in the process!
Would you rather they used sign language of some sort?

...... "Marks for trying" is presumably some kind of joke - .....

Not at all. People learning need encouraging, whatever it is.

 

[Jacob]

I don't know, it's a tricky call. Should we all be at liberty to spell words however we like, add apostrophes to random plurals according to no obvious rule, and capitalize words at whim? ......

You are at liberty to do all those things, and write in green felt tip if you choose.

 

[Daniel2]

Deary, deary me.... Me thinks some of you need to get out and about a bit more.

 

[John Brown]

You are at liberty to do all those things, and write in green felt tip if you choose.

Gtry whrr nnh!;

 

[Agent_zed]

Haha we could probably debate this for hours I've honestly never thought about it before so it's interesting for me.

I don't disagree with anything you have said. That's my polite way of saying you didn't paraphrase my sentiments successfully
It's okay though, I'll take the blame for that one - I'm often clear in my head but then get misunderstood... something to do with being neuro diverse probably.

I used guitar as I was responding to somebody else and I was riffing off that, but here is another example that might be better:

• An engineer uses a pencil and paper to design a component which somebody then uses to make a component. The medium, the pencil and paper, has utility, but it isn't the end result. The component is. Once we have the component we can throw the drawing away. And we do.
• An artist uses a pencil and paper to draw a portrait. It has no utility, other than to look good. You cannot throw it in the bin once you have drawn it, otherwise you have nothing. It's sort of at the end of the chain already, whereas the technical drawing was just part of the journey
• Rembrand may be able to make a techy drawing look great, but the component wouldn't be any more accurate once it's made. In this example rembrand is adding the commas but nobody cares.
• The pencil and paper used to draw the techy drawing is equivalent to how I use words on forums - a stepping stone to achieving understanding.

I love rembrand and Monet, but they can't draw a driveshaft any better than Gordon Murray.

I love Andy McNabb and Stephen fry but they can't explain quantum locking to me with any more clarity than some random dude on physics forums.com smashing out 100 words a minute and using zero commas, full stops or even sentences

I'm probably exaggerating here a little, and much of this is I expect simply laziness on my part; I just can't be bothered with grammar. Or spelling for that matter

Martin

I think we are probably pretty close in our thinking. I build websites for a living and webcode is generally unforgiving, if you miss a comma it will not work. When I write a forum post and miss a comma it is highly unlikely that the message will completely fail.

On a different thought grammar and spelling is not the be all and end all. I could use a thesaurus and write a perfectly correct sentence using the most obsure and archaic words and it would be far more difficult to read and understand than the odd spelling mistake or missing comma in a sentence of commonly used words. A guy I used to work with would do it all the time to appear clever. Constantly wanted to promulgate things. Perfectly legitimate word but ironic that he'd use a word that is not widely known to make things widely known

 

[Agent_zed]

n.b. should be "Would you prefer everyone to turn a blind eye?" Don't want to be pedantic but it's a slippery slope!

none of the 3 grammar checkers I've just tried show an error in the way I wrote it. Pedantic - 'excessively concerned with minor details or rules; overscrupulous'...

I think you are going a bit off topic. Drugs and prostitution aren't that closely associated with poor spelling. I know some very posh types whose kids can't spell

Really? NSPCC, for one, would disagree with you Alcohol, drugs and parenting

Can't really tackle the problem of bad spelling and grammar without looking at the root cause. pointing out people's mistakes (which rarely cause the message to be unreadable) constantly online isn't going to fix their entire understanding of the english language, unless they happen to be on a forum asking how to improve their grasp of the english language.

 

[Jacob]

...

Can't really tackle the problem of bad spelling and grammar without looking at the root cause......

So people on this forum who make grammatical mistakes are the victims of drugs and prostitution?
Seems a bit far fetched to me.
I'm out of this thread - it's taken a "funny" turn!

 

[Agent_zed]

So people on this forum who make grammatical mistakes are the victims of drugs and prostitution?
Seems a bit far fetched to me.
I'm out of this thread - it's taken a "funny" turn!

Doesn't take much thought to realise it is a sliding scale. That is the worst case that does affect some children, a significant amount of children have a home life that is less than ideal and even the 'posh' types (your term) does not necessarily equal a good home life, they just have more money. Doesn't mean they aren't going to be ingnored or told to go play on their playstation.

Parents in most cases influence their child's behaviour. If the parent shows no interest in learning the finer points of english then it's less likely the child is going to. It won't always be the case but I'd put money on it being the majority of the time.

Should we strive for improvement and learning? Sure, that's why we are discussing this or how to do X or Y on this forum.

Should we correct someone's spelling or grammar if they are just wanting to know how to replace a tap washer and miss a comma or two? No, unless you can't actually understand the question. Why should they have to conform to my designated level of the written word?

 

[mudman]

So people on this forum who make grammatical mistakes are the victims of drugs and prostitution?
Seems a bit far fetched to me.
I'm out of this thread - it's taken a "funny" turn!

Correlation does not imply causation, there may be evidence that people who are raised in an environment where there is a high incidence of drink and drug abuse are likely to underachieve and hence frequently make grammatical mistakes. However, it does not follow that a tendency to grammatical errors implies exposure to drink and drugs. But I think you knew that.

 

[Limey Lurker]

Messrs Holland and Anderson had a new sign painted, but complained to the artist that he had left too much space between Holl and and and and and and and and and And and And and derson.

 

[Agent_zed]

You can't run through a campsite, you can only have ran through a campsite as it's past tents....

 

[Yojevol]

Messrs Holland and Anderson had a new sign painted, but complained to the artist that he had left too much space between Holl and and and and and and and and and And and And and derson.

It was the Rose & Crown when I first came across that one but only amounted to 5 ands

 

[Yojevol]

You can't run through a campsite, you can only have ran through a campsite as it's past tents....

But I DID run through the tents, so 'run' can be present or past (perfect) tense

 

[J-G]

It was the Rose & Crown when I first came across that one but only amounted to 5 ands

My father told me that about a Fish & Chip shop - 1945 ish - again only 5 'ands' though.

 

[John Brown]

There's another one with multiple hads. I can't remember it, however.

 

[Cozzer]

I've long suspected that the main reason that some folk are less particular about spelling and punctuation is that they don't actually know they're wrong because they haven't read enough in the past.
When I spot an error - be it an incorrect apostrophe or a mispelling - it virtually leaps off the page! If somebody's trying to inform me of something in writing, the last thing I want is to be obliged to read the damn thing three times just so it makes sense!
In my book, there's no excuse for the confusion over the there/their/they're business, for example. What's so difficult to grasp?!
Laziness could explain much of it, of course, but the one that still baffles me is the "I were going down the road" and "we was going down the road" - if purely laziness, surely only one 'em would be used?

 

[Yojevol]

I've long suspected that the main reason that some folk are less particular about spelling and punctuation is that they don't actually know they're wrong because they haven't read enough in the past.
When I spot an error - be it an incorrect apostrophe or a mispelling - it virtually leaps off the page! If somebody's trying to inform me of something in writing, the last thing I want is to be obliged to read the damn thing three times just so it makes sense!
In my book, there's no excuse for the confusion over the there/their/they're business, for example. What's so difficult to grasp?!
Laziness could explain much of it, of course, but the one that still baffles me is the "I were going down the road" and "we was going down the road" - if purely laziness, surely only one 'em would be used?

One of the reasons for slovenliness is the reliance on a spell checker. It won't pick up the wrong use of their/there or pair/pear for example. I get the impression that a lot of people don't read through their draft before hitting the POST button.
Oh dear, Cozzer. My spell checker has just picked up the misspelling of mispelling in your post
Brian

 

[paulrbarnard]

I've long suspected that the main reason that some folk are less particular about spelling and punctuation is that they don't actually know they're wrong because they haven't read enough in the past.
When I spot an error - be it an incorrect apostrophe or a mispelling - it virtually leaps off the page! If somebody's trying to inform me of something in writing, the last thing I want is to be obliged to read the damn thing three times just so it makes sense!
In my book, there's no excuse for the confusion over the there/their/they're business, for example. What's so difficult to grasp?!
Laziness could explain much of it, of course, but the one that still baffles me is the "I were going down the road" and "we was going down the road" - if purely laziness, surely only one 'em would be used?

My spelling is atrocious due to terrible dyslexia. I do have a very large vocabulary and good command of grammar. My school reports were always a source of amusement because they always said “try to get him to read more”. I read all the time and my parents actually had difficulty getting me to do anything else. The adage of needing to read more is often thrown about but doesn’t always apply.

There wasn’t a diagnosis of dyslexia when I was at school and certainly not support or understanding of the condition.

My problem is I just don’t see the problems. My mind fills in what should be there rather than what is actually there. I am very good at quiz show questions with missing words or letters . To indicate the extent of the problem, without spell checker, I can spell a work like ‘the’ in two or three different ways in a single sentence. Ask me to read it and they all come out as ‘the’. I just don’t see the problem. The most embarrassing example was at school when the entire class was called over to see my ‘perfect’ technical drawing and asked to spot the mistake. Most of them saw it immediately and had a good laugh. I couldn’t see it until someone pointed out where I had spelt my name wrong in the title block.

 

[Cozzer]

One of the reasons for slovenliness is the reliance on a spell checker. It won't pick up the wrong use of their/there or pair/pear for example. I get the impression that a lot of people don't read through their draft before hitting the POST button.
Oh dear, Cozzer. My spell checker has just picked up the misspelling of mispelling in your post
Brian

I admit I had to check!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

It's not difficult - if the word starts with an "s" the compound will have two "s"s