Is grammar/spelling going down the drain?

Frank Lee Midere

What bugs me is "I seen". Very Dublin.

Femme_Fatale

wil wrote: »

A dearranged man walks in to a bra..

sorryless

Dyslexics of the world... untie!

SimonQuinlank

I'm not bothered about spelling/punctuation mistakes on forums or social media as long as someone has at least attempted to use actual words, and not lazily resorted to using 'txt' speak.

If I read an article or saw an advert with spelling/punctuation mistakes I'd definitely think slightly less of the author or company though.No excuse for not proof-reading in those instances.

Baron Kurtz

Can I get two chip der, Boss!?

wil

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

Dyslexics of the world... untie!

A graffiti favrite, ware it all started b4 dis txting mallarky.

Wherez Killroy now?

Baron Kurtz

Me Ma. Me Da.

Is this knowingly penned incorrectly in an essay, for example, or is it just some blind loyal affectation that must be adhered to in certain parts of Dublin? I'll never ask, so I'll probably never know.

BorneTobyWilde

I tink its not going down the drain? your just over reactking, over their on your hi horse clamying its is .

JohnMearsheimer

Spelling and grammar doesn't really bother me for the most part as long as I can figure out what is being said. I'm surprised at the number of times I have seen a lot spelled as alot though.

Chris The Hacker

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

. I think some rules seem silly and irrelevant too - e.g. starting a sentence with "And" or "Also" looks fine IMO.

Nah, that's bollocks. And is a conjunction, conjunctions are used to join words together. If you use "and" at the start of a sentence, then the word loses its purpose. If a word loses its purpose, then it might as well not exist.

Femme_Fatale

Chris The Hacker wrote: »

Nah, that's bollocks.

Nah, it's not bollocks - it's a personal opinion: I think starting a sentence with "And" or "Also" looks fine.

And is a conjunction

You should have put quote-marks around "And". Without them it looks like you're starting the sentence with "And".

conjunctions are used to join words together. If you use "and" at the start of a sentence, then the word loses its purpose. If a word loses its purpose, then it might as well not exist.

Bit hysterical.

force eleven

Their is nothing we can do and I here that it is a loosing battle. I am hopefull however that they're will be a change in the sylabus what will aid us in our fight against grammar mistakes.

patmac

I think the standard of English in England is terrible, if you listen to Eastenders and all those Essex and holiday programmes where people get drunk and fall over, it's like there from another planet innit.

I cannot fathom why people feel the need to put an apostrophe after any plural. My local supermarket has a printed sign which reads "No Trolley's at this till. 'Trollie's' would have been bad enough but using the singular? Ugh!! It melts my brain. Some manager allowed that to be displayed.

Another misuse of apostrophe example was a County Council bin which read "Keep You're Town Tidy". That's inexcusable at that level.

I got in trouble earlier for pulling someone up on it (I was being a smartarse, to be fair) but it does seem like you're almost looked down at for using proper grammar and then also called a Nazi!

biko

Languages evolve all the time and that's fine. Soon U will be acceptable for YOU which will be ok with me.
Many people will spell words the way they sound in conversation - there, they're, their or alot, abit.
There's also pronunciation problems that affect the spelling. People spell thought as taught because that's how they pronounce it.

It's the concious decision to dumb it down that gets me, when people that otherwise can write properly decide to text speak.
A friend uses text speak all the time which wrecks my brain, and she's is an English teacher!

riaganach

This thread is helping my blood pressure.

I've been actively and avidly reading boards.ie (only) for the past year.

For a while I coulldn't understand the intolerance of grammar nazis. It dawned on me that not allowing grammar nazis to derail threads makes the forum more democratic.

The rules are: attack the post but not the poster or the grammar.

I now no longer fidget with the trigger when I see spelling and grammar mistakes.

Reading Boards.ie is therapy for grammar nazis.

That said, I do think grammar and spelling counts in the real world. Too many CVs are discarded by employers because of simple stuff like spelling and grammar.

A lot of jobs are about experience and aptitude, but if you're a crap communicator then I don't want to work with you or employ you.

One other thing while I think about it: if you give a shít and want to improve your grammar and vocabulary, then the best way to do that is to read quality books and news.

The King of Moo

Chris The Hacker wrote: »

Nah, that's bollocks. And is a conjunction, conjunctions are used to join words together. If you use "and" at the start of a sentence, then the word loses its purpose. If a word loses its purpose, then it might as well not exist.

"First you have red, orange and blue. And to finish, there's green, yellow, indigo and violet."

There's nothing wrong with using "and" as a connecting word between two sentences, particularly like above, where a long list is split into two parts. It could have been one long sentence, with a comma before "and," but I like the longer pause the full stop provides.

It's like "but." Not so long ago, people derided the idea of using it in any way apart from acting as a conjunction between two contrasting clauses within one sentence. But now, it's perfectly acceptable to use it to connect a contrast between two sentences, like "however."

And what's the deal with airline food?

I have poor English: did well in my leaving despite that, I have no problem with the spelling or grammar Nazi's after all poor spelling and grammar does get on peoples nerves, however what I don't like is someone commenting on someone grammar or spelling as a way of winning an argument or of trying to silence someone because you don't agree with them, it is a form of bullying and it that has been clamped down on a bit by boards.

What is emerging now is using pedantry as way of trying to win an argument, if you don't agree with some one say so, its much easier.

LordSutch

English people replacing 'sitting' and 'standing' (with sat & stood) Its everywhere now, even on the BBC, it's all over the bloody TV and the radio.

When I was growing up it was always "I was sitting at the bus stop waiting for" . . .
Now Its "I was sat at the bus stop".

Same now applies to sitting.

When I was growing up it was always "I was standing outside the door when" . . .

Now its nearly always "I was stood outside the door when" . . .

I realise that language changes with the passage of time, but I also find it annoying when the basics of grammar that I learned as a child are now 'old hat' and to be replaced with non standard/street lingo/text grammar

born2bwild

riaganach wrote: »

Reading Boards.ie is therapy for grammar nazis.

I disagree: I've begun using boards less and less because of the posters' generally poor standard of spelling, punctuation and grammar; I'd never point it out to a poster because it's rude to do so but every time I read "your" instead of "you're" or would "of" done (or "would of went"), for example, I know I'm in the wrong place.

bnt

Just for fun, you can analyse your (or someone else's) writing using a website such as this one. It returns a readability score (higher is better) and a "grade level", which ought to be equivalent to your school Class. (e.g. US Grade 4 and Irish Class 4 are both for 9-10-year olds.)

I will refrain from further comment at this time.

sopretty

Think speed is more of a factor now. Whoever has the breaking news story will get the most hits, hence the most advertising revenue. A slow publication like a newspaper, should be properly edited. News is so up to the minute now that it's more a case of being the first to get the story out!

Savman

Your/You're is a grammatical crime against humanity.
Nearly as bad as "should of".

:mad:

Knight who says Meh

Is their any evidence too support this? There is none that I no off.

bnt

bnt wrote: »

Just for fun, you can analyse your (or someone else's) writing using a website such as this one. It returns a readability score (higher is better) and a "grade level", which ought to be equivalent to your school Class. (e.g. US Grade 4 and Irish Class 4 are both for 9-10-year olds.)

I will refrain from further comment at this time.

I tried that and got 36 and grade 10 from something I posted on boards

cml387

bnt wrote: »

Just for fun, you can analyse your (or someone else's) writing using a website such as this one. It returns a readability score (higher is better) and a "grade level", which ought to be equivalent to your school Class. (e.g. US Grade 4 and Irish Class 4 are both for 9-10-year olds.)

I will refrain from further comment at this time.

You scored 65

Eeden

Grammar Pedantry Syndrome:

https://illinois.edu/blog/view/25/76120

I am in recovery. I used to be a grammar a­rsehole; not anymore.

I reckon there could be a healthy dollop of xenophobia going on with the hatred of some accents, ways of pronouncing certain words, etc. Not to mention a feeling of superiority.

sopretty

Gordon wrote: »

People have been complaining about spelling and grammar errors for decades, maybe even centuries. This is most likely because language is evolving, and the very fact that people _don't_ stick rigidly to the rules of current English/language allows our words to change through time, and our punctuation, and even our grammar. Language evolution is constant, you can tell this if you try to read a text from a couple of centuries ago.

Doesn't mean I don't like to stick to the rules and have tidy text, but a good rule of thumb is: you've got to know the rules in order to know which rules to break.

I would disagree. I think there has been a certain snobbery around language, accent, handwriting, as only a privileged minority were educated back in the day! It was a way to determine class. If you couldn't write, you were an uneducated fool.
Nowadays thankfully, we have managed to distinguish between a lack of education and a lack of intelligence. Down through the centuries, you were viewed as stupid if you had no education. I'm not sure that they could distinguish between the two.

Femme_Fatale

Eeden wrote: »

Grammar Pedantry Syndrome:

https://illinois.edu/blog/view/25/76120

I am in recovery. I used to be a grammar a­rsehole; not anymore.

I reckon there could be a healthy dollop of xenophobia going on with the hatred of some accents, ways of pronouncing certain words, etc. Not to mention a feeling of superiority.

Bit annoying though when people take that so far that they pretend it's ok for newspapers and the like to be littered with spelling/grammar/punctuation errors. As sneering as grammar nazis tbh. I'm not aiming that at you specifically as I don't know whether you do take it that far.

But it's kinda like the whole "I think militant atheists are as bad as militantly religious people" thing - well as long as you have found a way to feel superior to both.

Eeden

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

Bit annoying though when people take that so far that they pretend it's ok for newspapers and the like to be littered with spelling/grammar/punctuation errors. As sneering as grammar nazis tbh. I'm not aiming that at you specifically as I don't know whether you do take it that far.

But it's kinda like the whole "I think militant atheists are as bad as militantly religious people" thing - well as long as you have found a way to feel superior to both.

I very much feel that newspapers, CVs, and other professional work should be proofread. Most definitely! One thing I still get annoyed about is incorrect language in radio news, for example. And if a CV comes in to me with spelling errors, grammar errors, etc. it's pretty much filed in the bin.

bnt

cml387 wrote: »

You scored 65

Wow, I never saw that coming!