im struglin even more so as ive got this stupido new keyboard that t’otherhalf bought ans its crap…i hate sticking up keyboards that makes too much noise everytime you press a key,and i have to keep checking things are spelt correctly otherwise we get slated on ere dont we.. i want my flat keyboard board back…but sum twunt decided to spill a full cup of latte over it and now its a **** ! grrrrrrr 👿

We got a form at work on which we had to indicate any students who had problems with spelling, punctuation or grammer.

We got a form at work on which we had to indicate any students who had problems with spelling, punctuation or grammer.

Subtle

I have this arguement with my wife who is a real ‘less’ ‘fewer’ ‘sat’ ‘sitting’ pendant.

Is it not the case that language develops and that once it is accepted as the norm and universally understood the rules change?

If BBC period dramas are anything to go by, it’s changed a lot in the past ~200 years.

If it is understood, then is it not okay?

you just need to feel smart by correcting people for their misuse and frankly should get out more

Where did I say anything of the sort?

I never said you did say this. It is clearly my assessment of why people do this. Did my poor grammar stop you understanding 😉
The comment wa snot aimed at any poster in particular it was jjust a generic dig at grammar pedants

Exciting, though it is, for lots of middle-aged white people (and yoofs like realman) to jiggle themselves into a mid-morning froth over the use of language, the supposed rules governing such use, and the linguistic capacities of its various users and abusers, we are missing a simple point.

The rise of communication through the written word in the last two decades has been rapid and, increasingly, is widespread throughout all sectors and slants of our rich and varied society.

No longer is the act of everyday writing of singular words and their pluralised brethren the realm of the middle manager, or the educated man (or, whisper it, the rare woman permitted access to learning and, subsequently, the workplace). Now, they belong to everyone: whether smashed together, losing the perihperal glue of vowels along the way, as we text and instant message, or via the expression of colloquiliasms, regional accents and varied levels of education and learning, national and ethnic origin.

We are, in effect, witnessing via the very post-modern systems of analysis through which such communication occurs the very evolution of language as meaning rather than prescription for which, only 40 or 50 years ago, we would have fought hard as a representation of change away from the old order.

Note: the above may or may not have spelling errors, erroneous or mis-used punctuaiton, and likely fails on a series of rules of grammar. But (there’s one for you), that’s the point. Innit.

and we should all remember that ‘English’ is the natural language of the human being 🙂

The rise of communication through the written word in the last two decades has been rapid and, increasingly, is widespread throughout all sectors and slants of our rich and varied society.

No longer is the act of everyday writing of singular words and their pluralised brethren the realm of the middle manager, or the educated man (or, whisper it, the rare woman permitted access to learning and, subsequently, the workplace). Now, they belong to everyone: whether smashed together, losing the perihperal glue of vowels along the way, as we text and instant message, or via the expression of colloquiliasms, regional accents and varied levels of education and learning, national and ethnic origin.

We are, in effect, witnessing via the very post-modern systems of analysis through which such communication occurs the very evolution of language as meaning rather than prescription for which, only 40 or 50 years ago, we would have fought hard as a representation of change away from the old order.
Did you copy that off the Internet? If you didn’t, then you are Brian Sewell and I claim my £5

Would this help? (although it’s not strictly grammar)

European English:The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English”.

In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of “k”. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where! more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as
replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

A colleague of mine used “BTW” in conversation the other day.
By. The. Way. = 3 syllables
Bee. Tee. Doubleyou. = 5 syllables

I think he thought he was being cool but it just resulted in everyone else in the room wanting to hit him. We have very low tolerances here… 😉

sniggletrack: Mark Twain essay?[/URL]

Did you copy that off the Internet?

Nope. I am Brian Sewell.

It’s not just India that’s producing hundreds of thousands of graduates per year with faultless spelling, punctuation and grammar.

50% of the Indians I worked with on my last project had English so colloquialised that I genuinely could not understand them most of the time. I assume their colleageues could, but I had to stop them and make them put subjects, objects and verbs in their sentences in some semblance of order.

As for foreingers being well educated in English, this is not new. When you learn a second language you are always much more aware of grammar because you have had to learn it specifically, rather than just pick it up randomly as a small child. I’m sure it’s true of Brits learning other languages (we are apparently capable of it – not that you’d notice).

I had many long conversations with Finns about the subtleties of various words and terms in English. One chap had excellent vocabulary and grammar skills, probably better than many natives, but he really could not reach native levels of fluency because he wasn’t able to fully embrace all the subtleties of the language.

So who’s ‘better’ at English?

In that picture you can feel the hate coming out of Brian as he surveys the crowd…”I’m sharing my life with the plebeian masses” He’s just about to go postal…

GrahamS – I had an email copy of it ages back… there are a few entertaining variations on the web.

Junkyard – Member

I never said you did say this. It is clearly my assessment of why people do this. Did my poor grammar stop you understanding

Yes. It was grammatically incorrect.

aphex_2k, I liked that video.

I think most people on here have got the wrong idea about me. I don’t really care that much about grammar and such. Mine isn’t perfect, and if I didn’t have in browser spelling and grammar check it would probably be much much worse. I would probably notice when you do use bad grammar, but it just makes me think that you’re not too good at grammar. Nothing more.

Yes. It was grammatically incorrect

oh right so is it fixed now?
Did you mean is rather than was?

#
Junkyard – Member

oh right so is it fixed now?
Did you mean is rather than was?
Posted 2 hours ago # Report-Post

No. When referencing a previous statement, was is fine.

You’re not very good at this.

[sarcastic tones ] your not very good at detecting trolls are you 😉

Tinners

…..My English teacher wood turn in her grave if she sore this.

no ones picked up on this from the first post? or was it tongue in cheek?

good grammar allows those reading your prose to understand what you are implying just as if you were face to face.

it’s the little “its/it’s”, “there/they’re/their” and other plain (to me) grammar rules that should be common knowledge – and they annoy me.