Whatever happened to grammar and spelling?

That's not Gransnet saying that. It's the blog writers. And I can only see a typo.

The point I was trying, and clearly failing to make, greatnan, is that good grammar and spelling ARE taught. Whether certain people learn them or not is an entirely different matter.

I agree that bad spelling or grammar on, for instance, a job application, is indicative of something. Fine. So be it. So it has always been. If grammar and good spelling matter in the job being applied for, you have a fine short-listing criterion right in front of you.

Text speak is not difficult. And it's not a question of getting "down there" with the kids. It's a question of using as few characters as possible because they are limited. Simple really. Same on Twitter. Ergo: textspeak is a useful tool.

Seems we thought alike, mamie. 'Sgood, that pish2the4 club, innit?

I think a lot of the problem is that everything is so PC in schools these days. They have to allow for the fact that English may not be the pupils first language. My grandaughter always said it didn't matter how she would spell a word as long as it could be understood. I guess thats why her Facebook the other day stated " I slepted in today ".
I cannot understand why people get such simple words as 'to' and 'too' mixed up - surely I knew that much when I was 4 years old. In fact i know I did.
Another one is 'lose' confused with 'loose' grrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I hate someone to ask me if they can 'lend' an item - I always reply with " It depends on whom you want to lend it to!"
My daughter gets anoyed when someone speaks 'posh' ( meaning peroperly ).
I'm not one to judge, I was born in Essex, lived in Lancashire since I was 11 and have picked up the worst in both accents.
lol
( picked that up years ago on the tinternet )

Can I ediit peroperly to properly ? maybe everyone can spell after all - they just cant type !

Not many of us getting pished Bags, but it's a start. As long as we don't drop our aitches and leave our modifiers dangling.....

I think we are all singing from the same hymn sheet! Except I don't want or need to use textspeak. I don't send texts.

I send texts but I don't use textspeak. It feels silly at my age!
Agree, netty about 'lend' as in "Can I lend a fiver?" And 'borrow' as in "Can you borrow me a fiver?"....

@Marigiold : "My pet hate is 'thuh' before words beginning with a vowel - it's an awful Americanism which has nothing to do with 'textspeak'. For example;- Thuh Earth, thuh East, thuh arm, thuh ice, etc."

Just as bad, to my ear, is pronouncing it 'thee' before a consonent - one of John Cleese's habits, I remember!

@Greatnan : Churchill said 'This is the sort of English up with which I will not put' - he was on your side, ridiculing it. His use of the language was superb.

I don't follow the 'thuh' thing! Churchill certainly had very good speech writers.

Which bit of America? My American sister-in-law and my American nieces and nephew don't talk like that.

Does anybody else in Boston speak like Lloyd Grossman?

Nobody else speak like Lloyd Grossman. He must have been born and brought up in the middle of the Atlantic, halfway between Britain and America!

One thing that puzzles me - how can you use the Internet if you can't spell? If I don't know a name and make a stab at it, Google gives me what it thinks is right and an alternative but if I didn't have some inkling I would waste a lot of time. Also, how do you know if spell checker is right? Just been glancing through a booklet 'The Liza Doolittle Syndrome' by Michael Wallerstein (don't bother) and a lot of the mistakes he complains about are actually caused by spell checker and grammar checker. As long as its actually a word, spell checker will let you write any old rubbish!

Grossman's accent is mid-Atlantic, but the Boston accent is very like his. I would say Boston and New York accents are are as different and distinct as Edinburgh and Glasgow. Boston is the Jean Brodie equivalent!

At school, I found that my good grounding in grammar in primary school stood me in good stead when I came to learn Latin and French and, later, Greek. My younger son, a victim of 70s and 80s education, decided to catch up on Spanish at University but discovered that he didn't understand the grammatical terms used. I had to send him the study guide I compiled for my mature students. On the other hand, my granddaughter, now 20, attended a primary school that paid great attention to grammar and punctuation. Despite being dyslexic, she does know what to do with apostrophes.

I found it worked the other way round for me, Anno - in other words, the grammar I learned in Latin and French helped me to understand the finer points of English grammar.

I have been very irritated lately by reference to "Topless photos of Kate" surely it should be "photos of Kate topless". Kate was topless not the photos. There are many similar incidences, unfortunately quite often on the BBc news, which I always rephrase to myself.

I'm a grammar, spelling and punctuation pedant and make no apology! Errors just jump off the page at me and assault my senses. I admit to erasing or obliterating erroneous apostrophes whenever possible!
Although spelling and punctuation were emphasised when I was at school, grammar was, bizarrely, overlooked, and I have never formally been able to tell my adverb from my pronoun.
I have however always been an avid reader, and perhaps I developed an eye for correct usage because of this.
My daughters, aged between 24 and 32, all write and spell beautifully, and I think my input during their school years was probably a contributory factor. I was never aware of poor marking by their teachers, but then again their homework did not often contain errors as they would always ask me for guidance when unsure!
When it comes to texting, I find that the youngsters in my life very quickly revert to 'proper' English after exchanging just a couple of texts with me. I always write in full, and, interestingly, they respond in kind very quickly!

Funny how we get all these threads about spelling and grammar, but not many about "Whatever happened to differential calculus?", isn't it?

Good morning Mamie. I am happy not to have to think about differential calculus ever again! But I don't think it is part of your life the way that reading and writing are.

And for all the nitpickers, here is the notice on the fridge where I work:

Students fridge
Please label your foodstuff
if you wish to avoid disposal

Happy Friday everyone

Just caught up with this thread. I would tend to disagree with 'I was sat down' as being ungrammatical. It is a regional variation of standard English, just as the response 'Did he not?' is typically northern instead of the southern 'Didn't he?'

In the same way Londoners regularly use 'He done it' for 'He did it'. It grates on northern ears, but a perfectly usual regional usage. In the west country 'I were going' is often heard. It isn't standard English but is a regular regional variation and universally understood.

Provided those who use these variations can employ the standard usage in formal and written communications, it really doesn't matter and adds to the variety and interest of the English language.

To go back to my previous rant on this thread, MiceElf while I agree completely with what you say about regional variations in usage and although I accept English language is taught in schools, the idea of a standard form seems to be a problem. The desirability of adapting the way you speak and write to the context is not getting through. If it is taught. It doesn't seem to cause a problem in other European countries and I think it must be because as usual it is seen as a class issue here.

But there is still good writing being done in British English, lily, so it must be "getting through". The fact that not everyone can write well is nothing new. It is a highly refined skill and I think it's unreasonable to expect most people to be able to do it. That said, I agree that bad writing is annoying.

Not on forums like this though. It's important for formal writing to be correct, but not informal.