Grammar and spelling

My user name gives a bit of a clue as to how I feel about the whole issue. Back in the day when I was at school taking ‘O’ levels, there was a separate English Language exam which included clause analysis and a written essay. Has that gone? I really enjoyed taking sentences apart and yes, I did Latin, too. With six ‘cases’ for every noun depending on where in the sentence it occurred, English became a doddle after that, believe me! My pet hate is ‘me and’ as in ‘me and my friend went shopping .... ‘. Absolutely cringe making! (I’m rubbish at Maths, though.)

Bad grammar doesn’t make me cringe (my hairdresser always talks about “me and my mates” and “oh, was you?”). It just doesn’t bother me, but I do feel surprised when someone I feel should be aware of grammar gets it wrong. What does make me cringe is bad manners! Small example, when challengers on Eggheads are asked whether they want to go first or second and they reply, “First” I always shout “Please”. Very petty of me I must admit. And apologies for going off track.

Some years ago I helped a neighbour's 15 year-old son who had changed schools frequently and become really confused with teaching methods. His reading and writing skills were very poor. Beginning to realise that he would soon be leaving school, he finally reached the position of really wanting to learn. He came around to my house several times a week, and quickly improved. Wanting to learn made such a difference. Embarrassment had held him back, but once he decided to apply himself he realised that he wasn't 'thick' at all.

My neighbour is due to have a medical procedure, and bought the letter down for me to read, so she would know what to do, as it included instructions to follow.
It barely made sense!!
I find that unacceptable.

Spoken language evolves - written language does too but more slowly

How about 'his' but should be he's or even he is

I’ve given up pointing out errors to shopkeepers as they are just so common now and mentally roll my eyes at the generally poor level of grammar and punctuation on the internet, advertising and even in some newspapers. I have too much else to worry about. However as carer of my soon-to-start-school grandchild, I imagine I will not be able to pass up commenting on bad grammar in notes emanating from the teachers or the school office, just as I did when work took me into schools.

What worry free lives we must have if we can get so worked up by other's lack of grammer

If a teacher got grammar or spelling wrong I’d be tempted to point it out, to both the teacher and the child.

I really like having somewhere to moan about grammar without upsetting people. When you’re teaching children, you have to realise that their parents may not have the same point of view. Would of/could of/ should of are all irritating, but when, as a young teacher, I mentioned what I was trying to get her daughter to use, her mother, she replied, “ I would never of known if you hadn’t said.” She was very nice, but my face was red!
Other hates are different to/different than instead of different from and haitch instead of aitch when people are spelling aloud.

Grammar was a large part of education in primary school in my day (1950/60) and I cringe when I see or hear obvious misuse of the English language. But I’m just a grumpy old woman!

I agree with all of these and I'm very pedantic about grammar, as used incorrectly it spoils people's ability to read and understand. Only this morning I saw "comprised of" in the Daily Telegraph. Several of Santa Montefiore's books use "should of" and "would of", which surprises me as she has such a well-educated husband. I have tried to correct "potatoe's" and "ham's" on notices around our village, but they are painted not chalked so I haven't succeeded. I'm not courageous enough to tell people to their faces. I left school at 16 and know all these things, so why don't they? Have you noticed that "her" and "his" (singular) are now "their" (plural), as in "the caller withheld their number"? Political correctness blurs the meaning.

I do feel sorry for children/young people who have never been taught properly, or have been encouraged by teachers (as was not uncommon so long ago) to believe that these things didn't matter and that it was elitist to say that they did.

A friend of dd's used to work in HR for a major company, and once told us that when faced with a pile of CVs applying for a particular job, she found the only way to weed them down to a manageable number - qualifications being more or less equal - was to bin those with basic SPAG mistakes.
And she was hardly an old fartette at the time, no more than 30.
IMO it's done our children a great disservice to let them believe that these things don't matter. I've heard more than once of employers saying they prefer to take on foreign staff, because their English is so often better! What on earth does that say about our education system?

Grammargran, I did hear that a local grammar schools re-introduced an old-style English paper to the 11 plus exam.

Formerly the tests had consisted only of verbal reasoning, but they were finding that too many of the children who had scored very highly in the VR tests, were almost unable to string a coherent written sentence together, or to spell or punctuate reasonably accurately. Staff were having to give remedial English lessons, hence the change.

I agree with everything already said. My real hate though is spoken rather than written and its pronouncing the letter H as haitch. It's everywhere even on the blessed BBC.
And another thing that Steve Wright says is 'youse' instead of 'you' as well as his infernal 'serious jockin' on Friday afternoons. Hate, hate, hate!
Phew, feel slightly better after that.

I think that my children's good use of written English is down to all the thank you letters I insisted they right and that I made them rewrite with the mistakes corrected. I see what their friends write on social media and can only assume it was not their teachers who taught them.

I don't like it when a sales person asks "can I help you" because surely it is their job to do so? Why don't they ask "may I help you". A couple of weeks ago I was quite proud of myself because I did not give in to temptation when an assistant came up to me and asked "are you alright" when she meant she was willing to help. Later I told DH I had wanted to answer "no, I'm having a really bad day, I have backache, I've lost my keys, I'm hungry and I need the loo". None of which was true, I just wanted her to think about what she had said!

The use is ‘yourself’ or ‘myself’ instead of ‘you’ or ‘me/I. When opening a savings account the bank clerk said, “Here is a copy for yourself.” It seems common in customer service occupations for some reason.

"hence why" - this seems to be a relatively recent development. I know languages have to evolve, but this is just wrong.

But I was taught that I should write ‘all right’ and not ‘alright’!

agree with you HannahLouiseLuke - haitch! can't stand it...

In my salad days, I dated a winningly good-looking young flight-lieutenant by the name of P. Apple*****.
I thought, with a name like that, he would be educated and literate to the n'th degree. Not so.
I really had to leave the relationship because of his 'You was' instead of 'You were' and yes, the could of would of which really embarassed me in company.
It didn't stop him climbing to the heights in his profession (tornado pilot) but it brought him down to earth when I told him why I was leaving.

As an editor and proofreader, I come across this many times. Other than ‘would of’ instead of ‘could have’, there’s also ‘I done it’ instead of ‘I did it’ and (the one that gets me) ‘maybe’ instead of ‘may be’ and vice versa. I think our age group have been lucky with the teachers we had, as some teachers of today don’t understand the differences themselves. I once got criticised for over punctuating but, years later, I realised that it is other people who under punctuate. But punctuation problems prove to be a story in their own right and I’ll probably run out of characters in this post ….. .

Ayy!! I do so much editing and proofreading, that I never check my own emails or posts, as I need a break from it. I hope there’s (or should that be (and I believe it should be) ‘there are’?) no mistakes in what I’ve written here ….. .

MissAdventure
May I venture to point out that the word is brought, not bought or was that a deliberate faux pas to catch us out? ??

MissA, it could be a typo but I think your neighbour 'brought' rather than 'bought' the letter

MissA
I'm sure you spotted right Re writing letters