Whatever happened to grammar and spelling?

My grandson's class were studying the Boer war . Unfortuntely, the teacher labelled the display 'The Boar War'. I didn't tell her.

absentgrana

Beachee My daughter when little wrote about visiting her grandparents and taking the dog for a walk along the sward, which is what they called the expanse of grass behind the beach where they lived. Her teacher "corrected" it to sword. Quite an achievement for two adults, one child and a Yorkshire terrier.

AAArrrgh - he/she'd probably been misled by spell check after getting leopard wrong. But how could he/she not have realised?

Many moons ago, when my children were in primary school, the class had been copying a photo of a leopard in their art lesson. The teacher had put all of their wonderful artwork on the wall and had written a big sign underneath ... "Do you like our lepers?"

Today in The Times an article about digging graves-the grave diggers had some grizzly(sic) tales to tell -presumably about corpses being eaten by bears.

And she would say (of Cynthia) "She knows you know!"

"Hilda Baker used to say 'I was stood standing there'. Always made me smile. I've noticed comedians often misuse language to create humorous effect."

Hylda (her spelling) B was a prolific user of Malapropisms, to great effect -

"She was in hospital for a hysterical rectumy" and a heart attack patient had suffered a "colostomy trombonist"!

She also used a strange phrase that seems to have been peculiar to her:
rebuking 'Cynthia' for tardiness, "I said be soon, didn't I? Be soooon, I said".

I did rub out a greengrocer's apostrophe the other day, when no-one was looking!

Though out of teaching for a decade, I still have a red pen in my head! Luckily not in my handbag, or I'd be sorely tempted to use it.

I tell myself the same thing, Greatnan, but it is so very hard.

I think I handle bad grammar like my husband handles other people's bad driving; not very well!! I went to a grammar school and studied foreign languages including Latin: he has had advanced driving training, so we both have an advantage in these matters. At least bad grammar doesn't have the potential to kill. It is merely annoying.

PS I was an utterly hopeless driver!!

After years of seething pedantry, I have come to the conclusion that life is too short to worry about other people's misuse of grammar or punctuation. Some of the brightest people I know are dyslexic.

Joan you'll never make a prefect until you're perfect.

Beachee love your example: I could of wrote book's and book's! So your lucky I wasn't!
We could go on: ^ 'You should of come to grammer lessons with Beachee and I'^
That's the one that really annoys me, using 'I' when it should be 'me': this is the prefect example of overcompensation.

Hilda Baker used to say 'I was stood standing there'. Always made me smile. I've noticed comedians often misuse language to create humorous effect.

Another is 'the play what I wrote' (Morecombe and Wise)

I suppose there are many more.

I am not a pedant about spelling because I have watched children struggle to understand the complexities of our 'exception to the rule' non-phonetic English spelling. I have seen clever and bright adults unable to get work, that does not require ace spelling or readingskills, because reading is hard for them.

I just get really annoyed when people say 'off of' . No idea why this particular incorrect grammatical phrase gets under my skin! I cope well with all other 'poor grammar'

Oh I wish I'd been a member when this thread was started! I could of wrote book's and book's! So your lucky I wasn't!

Well done to Milly, that was a good one!

Isthisallthereis , like it ! [moon and sunshine , although gone now . ]

Ever tried, ever failed,no matter; try again, fail again, fail better.....

I agree strongly with deedaa I love adapting the language to what I want it to say. "I was stood" is an excellent example. I'll rummage around behind my forehead for some more examples. Don't hold yr breath!

Writing yr rather than your as above, I've realised is a possible written example. "Don't hold yr breath" seems that bit more snappy than "Don't hold your breath", which is all long vowel sounds!

btw - "Whatever happened to spelling?", back to the original question. On my local station I saw written on a whiteboard outside the platform buffet "Bag-its. £3.95". I reckoned it was logical; you do, after all put them "in a bag"

The things that drive me insane are "would of", "bored of", "may have" instead of "might have" and "can I get" instead of "may I have" and of course the greengrocer's apostrophe
Don't worry petallus, my daughter has a PhD and writes many erudite papers but she always has to ring me to check up on effect/affect. Her golden rule is never to buy anything on ebay from someone can't spell or uses textspeak.
of course there is always a case for using bad grammar deliberately for effect. My mother's favourite was "I was stood standing there" which always seemed much more dramatic than just standing

Well done, Milly

I had a newsletter from the clever man who sorts out our computer and he lists the latest scams whirling round cyber space. He said usually they are self evident because of the poor spelling and grammar. So if you don't have any good grammar and spelling background how do you recognise these scams? Perhaps that is why so many people get caught up because they don't recognise Loyd's is not Lloyds Bank etc

Bags I'm showing that to my iPad. It thinks it's cleverer than me! flippin' is!