Correcting people's grammar - acceptable?

missbiggles1

Given that people have made the comparison between maths and English on this thread, I wonder what people would feel about correcting someone's maths mistake on a forum. Suppose somebody said that their normal gas bill of £100 had gone up 10% to £115 - would people correct that?

Would that be different from correcting a glaring error in their English?

Blackpool_Saver

Yes I would. The reason we are in the mess we are in is because of this reluctance.

Pollycat

missbiggles1 wrote: »

Given that people have made the comparison between maths and English on this thread, I wonder what people would feel about correcting someone's maths mistake on a forum. Suppose somebody said that their normal gas bill of £100 had gone up 10% to £115 - would people correct that?

Would that be different from correcting a glaring error in their English?

It would depend - at least to me what the writer of that sentence intended to do with it.

If he/she were intending to berate British Gas on the 10% increase on their gas bill, then I think it would be appropriate to mention that they'd got their percentages wrong.

If, however, the poster just wrote:
"I cant beleive that my bill has gone up by 15% from £100 to £115", I really don't see what there is to gain (apart from a possible fleeting sense of superiority) by pointing out the missing apostrophe and spelling mistake.

Gloomendoom

Pollycat wrote: »

It would depend - at least to me what the writer of that sentence intended to do with it.

If he/she were intending to berate British Gas on the 10% increase on their gas bill, then I think it would be appropriate to mention that they'd got their percentages wrong.

If, however, the poster just wrote:
"I cant beleive that my bill has gone up by 15% from £100 to £115", I really don't see what there is to gain (apart from a possible fleeting sense of superiority) by pointing out the missing apostrophe and spelling mistake.

I agree, although I don't understand where the fleeting sense of superiority would come from. That must be down to an individual's character.

Pollycat

Gloomendoom wrote: »

I agree, although I don't understand where the fleeting sense of superiority would come from. That must be down to an individual's character.

Of course.
In particular posters who refer to other posters who make mistakes as 'perpetrators', maybe. (Darn. Where's my smiley gone? )

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 that's why I said 'possible fleeting sense of superiority'.

athensgeorgia

I've not had chance to read the full thread but I dislike it when people use improper grammar or spell incorrectly too.

Surely if we ignore the more commonly misused words like to/too and loose/lose that one simple incorrectly inserted letter will mean other words are used in the wrong context. How many times do you see somebody use the word 'brought' in the context of buying something.

There are so many misused words that I can't understand how they are mistaken. Surely people know the difference between our and are. I know they sound similar but they mean different things.

I've not got to the point where I have corrected people but do take a dim view of the people who continually misspell things.

I cant understand why people use 'text speak' but the word is then longer than the original correctly spelt word, why bother?

Pollycat

athensgeorgia wrote: »

I've not had chance to read the full thread but I dislike it when people use improper grammar or spell incorrectly too.

Surely if we ignore the more commonly misused words like to/too and loose/lose that one simple incorrectly inserted letter will mean other words are used in the wrong context. How many times do you see somebody use the word 'brought' in the context of buying something.

There are so many misused words that I can't understand how they are mistaken. Surely people know the difference between our and are. I know they sound similar but they mean different things.

I've not got to the point where I have corrected people but do take a dim view of the people who continually misspell things.

I cant understand why people use 'text speak' but the word is then longer than the original correctly spelt word, why bother?

Please do read the full thread.

There are at least 3 posters who've explained very eloquently why an illness means that they may make errors in s/g/p.

To make it easier, I suggest you read post #268 and then I would ask if you still feel that you dislike it when posters use improper grammar or spell incorrectly.

pollypenny

I wonder whether some posters are deliberately writing badly. There's one particular post on DT who seems to do so.

TBagpuss

missbiggles1 wrote: »

Given that people have made the comparison between maths and English on this thread, I wonder what people would feel about correcting someone's maths mistake on a forum. Suppose somebody said that their normal gas bill of £100 had gone up 10% to £115 - would people correct that?

Would that be different from correcting a glaring error in their English?

It would depend on context. If they were looking for help with framing a complaint to Bristih Gas, then yes, because it would be relevent to the question they were asking. If I could answer their question or take part in the discussion without correcting it then I would not correct it, as it is not, generally, polite to correct others in public.

In the same way, in the case of other people's grammar and spelling, the only time I would correct this on a forum would be wherer they were looking for help in drafting a letter or other doucment, as for me, they have impliedly asked for that assistance.

@AthensGeorgia - I think it is fine to dislike it when someone uses improper spelling or grammar so long as that dislike remains unvoiced.

I don't like it, but I recognise that there are many reasons why someone's post may be poorly written (my own often contain typos because I am a poor typist and bad at spelling, and I am often multitasking when I am using the forum so don't check as carefully as I do for more formal situations, so unless the errors sre so many and so bad that the post is unreadable, I try not to let it change my response.

Cycrow

athensgeorgia wrote: »

I cant understand why people use 'text speak' but the word is then longer than the original correctly spelt word, why bother?

Because text speak was originally used on phones that only had the number keys on, so multiple letters were assigned each key.
And it was about speeding up the typing and reducing the number of key presses. The length of the word was irrelevant

adgjm requires 5 key presses
cfi requires 9
abc requires 3, but takes longer as you have to pause between each one.

For some people, they got so used to this that it just stuck