Why do people have the need to correct others??

londoner1998

Ilovecubbage wrote: »

Hello,
I have some wiered conversations with my friends now and then and wanted to ask the wide audience for feedback, if you like.
What is wrong with English people who have the need to constantly correct other peoples grammar in written English??? Can they not read between the lines if the sentence is too complicated for them?

Little background, English is my third language in writing and fluent speaking. I went to learn English in Uk school for 4 month in total and the reast had to learn myself on my own listening the natives. :-) although have been here for donkeys years now.
I have a few friends who will lutch on any word I pronounce or write wrongly. To be honest I don`t normaly care as I think it`s pathetick unless it is complete mess and You can`t make up what you about. Life is too short to worry about that , me thinks. :-)
I see a lot of sad people on MSE picking on others trying to highlight the fact that they are wrong and they`ve spoted it.
If you peeps don`t mind I would love to know what you think this sort of people are?
Just a research for myself so I can rest a bit easier,:-)
All the people I know of who usualy do this are quite sad and dissatisfied with their little lifes, perhaps that could be the problem, them to trying to teach some one a lesson.
Right any more ideas???
Or perhaps I live in denial and should really brush up on grammar?? or I woun`t anyway.
Although this doesn`t happen in any other language only in English.
Anyway , please don`t point where my spelling is wrong, I woun`t fix it. :-)

It's up to you, really. I too have English as a second (if not third, although I have a third language too) language and I wish more people had corrected me in the early days. Fortunately, I spent my first few years among Brits/ Scots and Australians at work and read everything I could in English, so I learnt very quickly... I had to. And now, 13 years later, I still get corrected by my (English) partner on the pronunciation of some words... and I really don't care, I am thankful for it- on the flip side , I know words he doesn't and I would say I speak and write better English than many natives, just because I had to learn it. I make a mental note and try to improve as much as I can. Not to erase my native accent or anything like that, but to speak the best I can. Annoying as it sometimes can be, I take it as a learning tool and use it to my advantage.
If you don't want, I am not sure why you post here asking people' s opinions when you already made up your mind.

I just think it is really nice to be able to speak a foreign language and keep learning.

X_YuMmY_X

Tiddlywinks - Also, I hate it when people do not appear to know the difference between "there", "they're" and "their"....... and don't get me started on my "should of" instead of "should have" speech!

haha, this reminds me of when I was at school and I corrected my friend for saying 'should of' instead of 'should have'. She just turned round and told me I was wrong and that's why I was in set 2 for English and she was in set 1, I'm still angry about that!

I do have a habit of correcting people, but I think that is because my mum has always done it to me. I never minded my mum correcting me, and no one seems to mind me doing it to them either!

I do usually have to go through my posts quite a few times correcting spellings because I use text language or slang, but I'm 19 so I'm allowed to =D

I still don't know the difference between 'of' and 'off' though =/

Bitsy_Beans

thefishdude wrote: »

i would never point out mistakes mainly casue i make loads and i dont really care tbh im also rubbish at grammar. judge me all if you will but i know exactly what i am saying and if someone corrects me then they obviously new exactly what i was saying also so why the need to correct???

looking back and checking i can see i have at least 2 mistakes in this post lol

i

You might understand what you are saying but I haven't got a bl00dy clue. Sure some posters do it for kicks but those that do it for reasons other than point scoring during an argument may well be trying to highlight the importance of why good grammar is useful. What's the point in posting on a forum if what you type is gibberish that no one can follow. You may as well not bother as people will just ignore what you have to say and skip to the next post. Which is a shame if you have a really well thought out valid point.

Have we really sunk so low that we shouldn't take some pride in how we speak and write.

pearl123

Learning should be a lifelong experience in my opinion. OP are you interested in your own self improvement?
If people are correcting your english then there must be a reason. I'm dyslexic, but I could still see numerous errors in the first post, which others have picked up on.
OP -People are correcting you because you are possibly using the wrong grammar, sentence structure or pronouncation.
When I lived in Germany people corrected my german when I was in error, but I viewed these corrections as helpful. It's the best way to learn.

lessonlearned

Language is a tool the purpose of which is to enable us all to communicate with each other. The words themselves are precision instruments which enable us to give definition and clarity to thoughts and ideas we wish to express.

An axe is a cutting tool, so is a surgeon's scaple - you would't try and chop down a tree with a scalpel any more than you would try to take out someone's appendix with an axe.

Of course it is important to speak and write as clearly as you can. We can't all be Shakespeare but we can endeavour to do our best. The person who is sloppy and lazy and makes no real effort to improve their skills merely short-changes themselves because they fail to communicate properly, often leading to confusions, misunderstandings and missed opportunities.

Of course some of us will have better language skills than others. Some may be dyslexic and some may have neurological conditions which make acquiring language skills difficult.

My mother speaks four languages, one of my sons is dyslexic and my husband has a neurological condition which severely impacts on his ability to communicate.

Those of us who are not challenged with illness or disabilities and for whom English is our mother tongue should at least make a bit of an effort.

Gloomendoom

I frequent several American forums. I have always been impressed by the low tolerance of spelling and grammatical errors in those forums.

It is a stark contrast to the "If you can get the gist, it doesn't matter how it's written" posts that seem common in this forum in response to threads bemoaning the use of poor English.

I prefer to be told if I get it wrong. Of course, the danger of pointing out somebody else's mistakes is that you may, in your eagerness to correct, make some schoolboy error yourself that will be noticed and thrown back in your face by other forum members. To me, it's all part of the the fun.

gratefulforhelp_2

While really believing that language is an evolving thing, and that as with poetry sometimes deliberate errors can add to one's meaning...I also love to correct mistakes by posters who post something I disagree with!