Correcting people's grammar - acceptable?

Newlyboughthouse

Everywhere I look, I see terrible spelling and grammar. It is shocking. Check out the post in Pets and Pet Care titled 'out of hours vet', for example.

Question: is it acceptable to correct perpetrators? I feel that I can't without fear of being accused of being the grammar police or a grammar nazi. So I just seethe on the inside.

However, I can see the population getting dumb, and feel such corrections should be made. Otherwise, eventually, 'to' will be accepted as 'too', or 'loose' will be accepted as 'lose' etc.

Thoughts on a postcard...

duchy

Correcting your children's grammar is acceptable . Part of a parent's role is to guide and educate their children.


Correcting the grammar of adult strangers makes you look like the sort of insecure person who always has to make others look bad to make yourself look better than you believe you are.

Perhaps you might want to think about why you feel the need to educate adult strangers- most people would consider it crass and rather bad manners.

Bad grammar might grate but it doesn't actually harm you - so why say anything ? Mrs Thumper has some advice applicable to your question.

Would you stop a burly stranger in your local high street to correct their grammar ? If not- why not ?

If you are genuinely concerned about education - many LEAs are looking for volunteers to assist on adult literacy programmes. Perhaps that might be a more useful outlet for your crusading nature without making you look like a crass busybody.

Personally I find bad manners far worse than poor spelling (which is what you appearing to be moaning about rather than actual grammar-There is a difference !!)

Maureen43

Newlyboughthouse wrote: »

Everywhere I look, I see terrible spelling and grammar. It is shocking. Check out the post in Pets and Pet Care titled 'out of hours vet', for example.

Question: is it acceptable to correct perpetrators? I feel that I can't without fear of being accused of being the grammar police or a grammar nazi. So I just seethe on the inside.

However, I can see the population getting dumb, and feel such corrections should be made. Otherwise, eventually, 'to' will be accepted as 'too', or 'loose' will be accepted as 'lose' etc.

Thoughts on a postcard...

And "no" instead of "know"....makes me wince.

Having been accused of being a grammar nazi in the past I now know to keep my feelings to myself but I share your concern about the standard of written English these days.

My advice? Seethe in private!

Ames

'I done' and 'I seen' are grating on me most at the moment.

candlelight_2013

This is not quite the same, but there is a story in our local paper about a lady "widower" having dreadful trouble with a neighbour.

If a journalist, who I presume went to university, or at least college, doesn't know the difference between widow and widower then I think there is little hope.

Candlelightx

snowleopard61

As a teenager I used to do this all the time - and I can confirm that it really doesn't win friends and influence people! As an adult I keep my mouth shut ...

heartbreak_star

I spend approximately 80-90% of my time online seething at poor use of English - mostly spelling.

Good job I'm good at quietly seething...

(Pet hate here is "them look nice" or "them are rubbish" or something of that ilk.)

HBS x

Pollycat

Newlyboughthouse wrote: »

Everywhere I look, I see terrible spelling and grammar. It is shocking. Check out the post in Pets and Pet Care titled 'out of hours vet', for example.

Question: is it acceptable to correct perpetrators? I feel that I can't without fear of being accused of being the grammar police or a grammar nazi. So I just seethe on the inside.

However, I can see the population getting dumb, and feel such corrections should be made. Otherwise, eventually, 'to' will be accepted as 'too', or 'loose' will be accepted as 'lose' etc.

Thoughts on a postcard...

I like to pride myself on using apostrophes in the right place, spelling words correctly, using the right word (there/their) - not only on public fora but also in my texts and emails - but I don't expect anyone else to be as meticulous (or pedantic) as I am.
I do make mistakes but often it's my 'dicky' keyboard that sometimes sticks or auto-correct.

I would never dream of correcting someone on a public forum who gets it wrong.
I think that would be rude.

And it doesn't upset me - it's far too insignificant to get all hot and bothered about.

I think as long as you can understand what is being posted, it's not important to put your 'grammar police' hat on.

On the thread you mention, the first post could do with full-stops and paragraphs to make it easier to read but when that OP posts 'too' and it's clear she really means 'to' - is it really that big a deal to you?

Gigervamp

My personal bugbear that I've only seen over the last few years, but seems to be getting more used is using the word "then" instead of "than". I even saw it on a news report on the BBC website!

Like you I believe that the more people ignore bad grammar, the more our language gets dumbed down, but I don't say anything because you get accused of being rude.

You're not alone in your seething!

pinkshoes

In the hospital, they had a sign on the wall asking partners to refrain from laying on the bed. I was going to ask if many eggs had been layed prior to the sign having to be put up...

Heffi1

There is one person who posts quite a lot on the debt free board, offering his advice to lots of people and what he writes is often very good, but, his posts are always full of would of, could of, etc, he also uses been instead of being, which I find difficult to read, so far I have not corrected anything, but it does take away from the message he is trying to get over.

If people cannot use the correct term, then how about using a different word that they can spell. There is absolutely no reason for bad spelling when things like spell check exist.

Obviously we all make typos and mistakes from time to time, but to constantly make the same errors in multiple posts tells me that they do not know the difference and should take some time to learn.

If that makes me a pedant, then frankly I do not care one little bit, rather a spelling Nazi than an uneducated looking fool, because no matter how much people think it doesn't matter, I can tell you it does and people will think less of you and think you are lazy, all for the sake of checking before posting.